Shadowshaper Legacy

by Daniel José Older

  “New band name,” Anthony suggested. Juan looked like he was about to laugh but then remembered he was supposed to be mad at Anthony; he clammed up quick and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Bet,” Sierra said, writing his name near María Cantara’s. “So father and daughter ran off to the jungle together, right, built up a crew out there and founded shadowshaping, yeah. The first shadowshapers.” She wrote it and made a few nondescript figures around them, along with some trees.

  “Badass,” Izzy said.

  “And they had …” Sierra said.

  “Mi abuela,” María said. “Cantara Cebilín Colibrí.”

  “Who dressed however she damn wanted, right?” Sierra asked, remembering a photo her mom had shown her of Cantara dressed in a full three-piece suit looking as fierce and handsome as she wanted to and proud as hell.

  “Ha,” María scoffed. “She did whatever she damn wanted. She was unstoppable, hm?”

  “And she had Mama Carmen, who had you, who had me and Juan and Gael,” Sierra finished, drawing in quick sketches of each one as the arrows swooped up to connect the family to the current crew of shadowshapers.

  “My thing is,” Bennie said, “is we shadowshapers or is we House of Shadow and Lighters?”

  “We both,” Sierra said simply. “I’d been trying to figure all that out too, but something Septima said the other day made it make sense. Shadowshaping is a whole other thing, really. It’s connected — that shadow magic is like a tiny piece of spirit that resides inside us and gets activated when we initiate, right? But shadowshaping is about connecting to the dead, to art, to the world. The shadow magic, the light magic, the two of them together — that’s part of the Deck’s powers that we draw on from within. That’s how I see it.”

  “You right,” Izzy said, standing and taking a green marker from Sierra. “Only thing you’re missing here is this.” She drew thick lines between each cluster of drawings and then other ones reaching outward from La Contessa.

  “The Deck is a spiderweb?” Jerome asked.

  “Basically,” Izzy said.

  “Oh, snap! It really is.” Sierra circled the word Araña with her purple marker. “That’s why she’s the Spider Countess!”

  Izzy nodded. “Mmhmm. She’s the center of it all. The engine and the source. The way Lucera is the beating heart of the shadowshapers. And you know how the Deck and Almanac update to keep up with the changing events? Who you think doing that?”

  Sierra shuddered. This ancient creature was holed up in some ruined palace in the deep forests of Puerto Rico and still somehow had her long fingers in the daily events here in Brooklyn. What a creep. And she had the nerve to be related to Sierra.

  “And don’t forget this,” Caleb said, standing and grabbing the black Sharpie. “These guys” — he started drawing a line from the River and Fortress — “are in bed with these guys” — and led it directly to the Iron House. “And they coming for us.”

  “What do we do, Sierra?” Anthony asked.

  Sierra took in the mess of lines and pictures, shook her head. “I have no damn idea.”

  “You sure you’re good?” Juan asked as his mom finished bundling up against the morning chill.

  She turned around slowly and somehow looked very small and very angry. “I am not good,” María said. “Not at all. But I will be. When this whole thing is over and that thing is out of my house. Because it will be over, Juan José Santiago. And she will be gone.” She hefted a tote bag full of paperwork onto one shoulder, kissed Juan on the cheek, and headed out the door.

  “Shit,” Juan whispered. He hadn’t seen her that mad since he’d dropped out of school to tour with Culebra. And she was right. And so was Sierra. And María probably knew Sierra was right, and that made it all the worse. Both were right, and nothing made sense. And they might be dead or otherwise obliterated any minute, apparently, so what did it even matter anyway?

  And Anthony was either helping the creeps who were trying to destroy them, or he was spying like Sierra said, but either way … either way … Juan tightened his fists as he stared out into the gray street.

  It started to snow — just a flake here, a flake there — and Juan had to admit it threw a lovely, peaceful kind of filter over the brownstones and parked cars and maple trees on his block. But still … the churn of anger persisted, his face as tight as his fists with each passing thought of Pulpo.

  He shouldn’t even be mad. Not really. Sierra knew what she was talking about. Even if she’d caught feelings, which she undoubtedly had, she wouldn’t let them cloud her vision when it came to this. If she said Pulpo was on the level and, in fact, putting himself in harm’s way by spying for them, that’s what it was. So why was Juan still pissed?

  The snow tapered off, started up again. Upstairs, they were probably still going over strategies and lore and trying to make sense of what they knew. Juan sighed, and then a dark brown hand slid around his chest, startling him at first and then calming him immeasurably. An arm followed the hand and Juan inhaled a deep fruit-laced breath of whatever girly body spray Bennie favored, felt her body press up against his. He smiled from the inside out.

  “You know,” Bennie said slyly in his ear. “We were all upstairs wondering.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Where in the world …”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Is Juanmen Santiago! Ayy!”’

  Juan closed his eyes and shook his head. “I bet you feel really original right now, huh?”

  “How was I supposed to resist, man?” She squeezed him tight and he felt all fluttery and gross. Beautiful, really. But gross beautiful.

  “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that joke? It’s not even … It’s Carmen Sandiego! Whatever!”

  Bennie giggled and put her chin on his shoulder, which was unbearably adorable and still only kinda broke through Juan’s terrible mood.

  Flurries started winding their slow, flitting descent through the pale sky once again.

  “You want to talk about it?” Bennie’s voice soft, worried.

  Juan shook his head, then bounced it from side to side. “There are so many things to talk about.”

  “Yeah,” Bennie said. “But one’s really bothering you.”

  “Do you believe that Pulpo’s really on our side?”

  Bennie took a good long minute to answer, which Juan appreciated. Meant she was really thinking it over, not just regurgitating what Sierra thought. “Yeah,” she finally said. “Yeah, I do. I don’t see him going over to the other side, not for real. But you know him best.”

  Juan snorted. “I thought I did.”

  “Ah.” Juan could tell Bennie had just wrapped her head around the whole situation and figured out whatever it was Juan could just flail at. How did she do that? She’d just managed to get a better grasp on it than Juan had, and all he’d said was a handful of words. She was smarter than him and it was so sexy. Now all he wanted to do was stop talking about Pulpo and go make out somewhere, but that probably wasn’t on the table. Not yet anyway.

  “So what is it?” Juan said, instead of turning around and kissing Bennie full on the lips. “What’s going on?”

  “He hurt your feelings, silly.”

  “But —”

  “Hey,” a deep and familiar voice said from behind them. “Can I —”

  “Oop, that’s my cue,” Bennie said. She kissed Juan’s cheek and skedaddled with a quickness.

  Great. From the best to the worst in just seconds. Juan kept looking outside, jaw clenched.

  “I’m just gonna, uh, stand back here some, because I’m not supposed to be seen here, so …”

  “I get it,” Juan said.

  “Look, I …” Pulpo’s voice trailed off. He was probably shaking his head, waving his hands around. That’s what he did when he didn’t know what to say.

  “You’re sorry,” Juan said for him. “Okay, cool.”

  “Well, yes, but clearly it’s not cool. You won’t even
look at me. What’s up, man?”

  “Apparently, you hurt my feelings. According to Bennie.”

  “I can’t imagine what gave her that idea,” Pulpo said.

  Juan growled.

  Pulpo’s laugh was nervous. “That came out wrong! And I’m not trying to laugh! I mean I’m not laughing at you! Or at this! This is not funny! I just … this is what —”

  “This is what happens when you’re upset,” Juan said, feeling shitty about how cold his voice was. “I know.” Pulpo was about twenty seconds away from a full-fledged panic attack. It often started with that giddy laugh that seemed as utterly out of place as a penguin at a disco. The laugh would dissolve into a hiccupy kind of sob, and then he would just melt down entirely.

  “Look …” Juan was having trouble keeping his thoughts straight. The half of him that always took care of Pulpo when he was having one of his attacks was battling with the half of him that was still mad at Pulpo. He turned around. Looked into his best friend’s eyes, saw how hard he was trying not to freak out. Pulpo knew that would only make whatever they had to say to each other more complicated, near impossible. He was doing everything he could to hold off the flood of terrifying thoughts working their frenzied way through him.

  Why was Juan so mad at Pulpo?

  “You did hurt my feelings,” Juan admitted, his voice still cold. “Because …” The answer came as he spoke, but he hated it. He shook his head, spat it out anyway. “Because you told Sierra and not me.”

  Anthony blinked a whole bunch and did some weird stuff with his face that meant it was still going on, but he was calming down some too.

  “And I feel really, really, grr, childish about that,” Juan said. “And I really don’t like that that’s what it is, but if I’m being honest, and I’m trying to be, then that’s what it is.”

  Pulpo nodded.

  “I realized it because I was still mad even when it turned out you’re not a spy. And, yeah, you’re not a spy. I believe you.” Juan resisted the urge to apologize, wasn’t even sure why it was there. It just was.

  “I get it,” Pulpo said. “I do.” He breathed deep, eyes closed. Opened them again. Looked at Juan. “I totally get it. And it’s not childish. You’re my best friend in the world and you did something incredible for me. You sacrificed your freedom for me, and there’s no way to ever repay that, but even if there were, I still went ahead and lied to you while you were busy saving me, and I’m sorry.”

  Juan nodded, scrunched up his face, hoping he wasn’t about to cry.

  “I’m gonna say this to explain myself,” Pulpo said, “not as an excuse. But it might make you mad all over again, and that’d be, ah, understandable.”

  Juan lifted his chin. “Who said I stopped being mad?”

  Pulpo managed a slight smile, then got serious again. “The plan was not to tell anyone. Like, at all.”

  “Did you really think that was gonna work?” Juan demanded.

  “I did, actually. Right up until your sister broke into my house and almost got her ass beat by my sister and then basically, like …” Pulpo looked away, cringing. “I pretty much just, you know, like, had to tell her.”

  “Uh-huh,” Juan said, punching him lightly in the chest. “I bet you did.”

  Pulpo laughed awkwardly. “Point is … I wasn’t going to lie to her, I mean —”

  “You lied to me!” Juan said, getting all bothered again.

  “No, I know, I know.” Pulpo waved his hands around. “Because I could. I mean, because I had to! Juan, level with me! Do you really think you would’ve been able to keep it a secret? In those cramped quarters? With Officer Grintly breathing down our necks all the time? Quizzing us and bugging us and making small talk and shit? Really?”

  “I mean … probably,” Juan said, shrugging. “Wouldn’ta been easy, but yeah.”

  Pulpo sighed. “For me. For me, I’m saying now, because okay, that’s not even fair, to put it on you and your big mouth —”

  “Hey!”

  “It is, though.”

  “You’re not helping your case here, man.”

  “For me, I’m saying — for me to maintain the whole thing, I had to believe it. It had to be true. Like for real true, not pretend true. If I’da told you, it woulda been a secret, a lie. Keeping it from you made it feel like I was really going over to the other side. That’s why it worked.”

  For a few seconds, they just stood there looking at each other. Anthony’s face was lit by the stark winter day. Behind him, the house was warm and cozy, and upstairs, all their friends were plotting how to take out some ancient evil that was tied into Juan’s bloodline. And there were instruments upstairs, and now Pulpo was in on this whole magical world, even if he was on the wrong team. He got it. It didn’t have to be a secret between them anymore. It hadn’t ever weighed that heavily on Juan, mostly because he’d never bothered getting that involved before. But now he was going to, and he would have his best friend there to talk about it with when he did.

  “I get it,” he said, and it felt like the fist that had been squeezing his heart finally released. “I get it.”

  Pulpo let out the longest breath of all time. “Maaan …”

  “You didn’t have to act like I can’t keep a secret from the stinking Iron House, though, damn.”

  “I mean …”

  “Shut it. I’m trying to forgive you.”

  “Right, right. Okay, go ’head.”

  Juan nodded a couple times, considering. “I forgive you.”

  “Hey!” Pulpo smized.

  “Don’t do that, man, that’s corny.”

  “Wow, Juan.”

  “But hold up: Carms beat Sierra’s ass?” They headed inside. “I need details!”

  Sierra stared down her crew.

  Nydia Ochoa, Columbia University librarian, historian of the supernatural, a personal hero of Sierra’s. Already a force of nature, now even more unstoppable. Plus, she’d somehow found her match in Uncle Neville, which was … a whole other story, really. She stood with her back to the wall, hands in her pockets. Ready.

  Beside her, Bennie sat on the arm of the couch. Sierra’s best friend in the whole world and something seemingly brand-new: a techshaper. She could use spirits to pick a lock, hardwire a car, reprogram a computer. Pretty much anything.

  Her hand rested on Juan’s shoulder. Juan who had suffered through a month and a half of Rikers for Anthony. Juan who had been there all along, who had decided to finally step up and enter the fray.

  And Anthony sat on the couch next to him, quiet, calm, (beautiful), the Knight of Iron. Sierra quieted a swoon threatening to toss her focus out the window.

  Big Jerome sat in the middle of the couch. He’d gone from being a total shadowshaping disaster to one of the best light workers in the squad, and Sierra had no idea how, she was just happy to see him thriving.

  Izzy was next to him with her head resting on his shoulder. Sierra had no idea what this new Hierophant status would mean for her or what would happen whenever Tee managed to wake up. It scared her a little to think about, she had to admit, but they would just have to wait and see.

  Robbie sat on the other arm of the couch, long and beautiful as always, with his locks all pulled back into a ponytail and his tats sprawled magnificently along his arms. Sierra had learned to get used to his strange quiet spells. He’d had a point on the phone the night before: Things didn’t have to be awkward between them. But it didn’t help that he himself was often a walking awkward moment. Still, he was one of the best shadowshapers out there. And he’d made the effort to be her friend even after everything they’d been through.

  And finally, Caleb. The Sorcerer of Shadow and Light, looking surly as ever in the far corner, arms crossed, brow creased. He usually wasn’t quite as pissed as he looked, but these days everything was so jacked up and out of control, Sierra had no idea. She needed to check in with him.

  Septima hovered away from everyone else, over by Lázaro’s old bed, where Tee
and Mort still lay unconscious. It was probably for the best that Septima knew enough to keep her distance; Sierra wasn’t interested in any more infighting or bullshit.

  “Alright, listen,” she said, quieting the anxious murmur of conversation. “We don’t know when Tee will wake up. We don’t know where Mina is, and we don’t know what’s coming at us or how. We have to work with what we do know and what we can find out. And” — she looked at her brother — “what we can change.”

  Juan perked up. “Huh?”

  “The night you guys got locked up, a new house was born from the ashes of two old ones,” Sierra said.

  “Right. The House of Shadow and Light,” Juan said. “I heard!”

  “Juan Santiago, you’re a shadowshaper. One of the originals of our generation, in fact.”

  Juan blinked a few times and gulped. “Uh, yeah. Heh.”

  “And now it’s time for you to join us in this new house. Step forward.” She managed to say it all without making it a joke, without acting like she thought it was corny — she just spat it out straight. Everyone else took her cue and stayed solemn. Juan stood up, adjusted his jeans, stepped forward.

  “Sorcerer,” she said. “Where ya at?”

  Caleb walked up, nodded at her, stood in front of Juan, and placed one hand on Juan’s head.

  “I thought we’d be bringing Tee and Anthony into the fold today,” Sierra said. “But for obvious reasons that’s not happening. So it’s you, mi hermano. Everyone, gather ’round.”

  Robbie, Nydia, Anthony, Bennie, Jerome, Izzy, and even Septima all crowded into a semicircle around Juan, who knelt and bowed, his eyes closed, a small smile on his face.

  “Do you,” Caleb began, “Juan —”

  “José,” Sierra said. “Accent on the e.”

  “Do you, Juan José Santiago, enter wholly, body and mind and spirit, into this union as a member of the House of Shadow and Light?”

  Juan nodded. “I do.”

  “And do you swear to protect your fellow … housemates, as if we were blood?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you join with us in the balance of shadow and light, and accept the powers of these two forces within you?”