care about us. Who didn’t frown on our own ways, or make us speak English. A bruja too. We were all sisters after all, brujas, even if our arts were different. And we were in power now after the men failed us. I had faith in her. But she didn’t deserve it. She was the same as all the other white ladies, even if she wasn’t as obvious.”
“I don’t know,” I said, surprisingly defensive. “Mother Morevna always seemed like she was really proud of Elysium being better for women.”
“Better for which women?” Olivia said. “Where are the Latinas she’s listening to? The Black girls? Even the other old white ladies? I mean, hell, we were both her Successors. Did she ever listen to you? Did she ever ask you how Elysium could be better?”
No, I realized. She hadn’t. I’d never heard Mother Morevna ask anyone for advice, not even Mr. Jameson.
“All she cares about is her own vision for Elysium,” Olivia said. “I mean, women can do more, sure, but y’all have a curfew, rationed meals, assigned housing. Y’all can’t even wear makeup behind those walls if you want to. That’s not being equal. That’s just being under a high heel instead of a work boot, and I like my throat free to breathe.”
She was right, I realized. Mother Morevna was so proud of her new, equal, woman-led society. But it had never ever felt free. Not even when I was her Successor.
“What did Mother Morevna do to you?” I asked quietly.
Olivia sighed, a pained, frustrated sound. “When I found out about what my step… what that bastard was doing to Rosa, touching her, somebody who couldn’t fight back… I asked for help. I asked for Morevna to punish him, to go over there and burn him to bits or sweep him away in the wind.” She sighed. “But I couldn’t prove it. Those were very serious accusations, she told me. And they came at a bad time, when the old white men were trying to resist her new rules. It would look like favoritism, she said, to toss Robertson out on the word of a girl—of a Latina—when we had no proof. We had to be careful so the men wouldn’t revolt. We had to maintain the balance of Elysium.”
Olivia’s dark brows furrowed. “But I couldn’t just wait around for proof. And I couldn’t do any magic myself, not without someone to borrow magic from. I had to take matters into my own hands.”
“What did you do?” I asked quietly, my stomach in knots.
“I talked to Sister Death Herself,” she said. “Not la Santa Muerte, not the Devil or the Grim Reaper. But the Death who set this Game in motion. I didn’t expect Her to answer, but She did. ‘Follow your own instincts,’ She told me. ‘Elysium doesn’t care about you, so to hell with the balance of Elysium. I will give you the power for this.’ Magic seemed to explode in me then. It was like something awakened in me, something dark and terrible. And powerful. It was Her power that let me give him the justice Mother Morevna could have given him but chose not to. Muerte para mi enemigo. Finally, Rosa had peace. No thanks to Mother Morevna. And then Mother Morevna turned on me. I had brought her shame. Imagine: her Successor, a murderer. Then… well… you know the rest.” Olivia paused, looked out the window. Her anger, her sadness was almost palpable. I could feel it on my skin like dust.
“You know, Rosa was the one person I loved more than myself,” she said, her voice heavy. “She always knew what I was thinking. She could always tell when I was coming home. Like we were connected by our minds or our hearts or something deeper than that. Magic, maybe. I loved her so much. And now that darkness, the darkness that I asked Death for, is always there. And I think it always will be.”
My heart ached for Olivia and her sister. But a crawl went up my spine at the thought of Olivia speaking to Death Herself. I thought about a story I’d read once, “The Devil and Tom Walker,” about a man who made a deal with the Devil. But this wasn’t the same, I thought. This wasn’t a selfish deal. And what Mr. Robertson had done to Rosalita, what Mother Morevna had allowed to happen to her, was unforgivable.… What would I have done in Olivia’s shoes? I wondered.