Aiden Thomas

There’s no such thing as monsters.”

No me llores,

porque si lloras

yo peno,

en cambio si tu cantas

yo siempre vivo,

y nunca muero

He wanted to be like the other brujos

if it meant being accepted by his people as a brujo.

In comparison, the old church looked like an ancient ruin. Wild vines had overrun the two brick walls that met behind the church, giving the building a backdrop of dense, shadowy green. There weren’t many street lights nearby, but it was East LA, where the sun never seemed to set. Hazy pollution and city lights washed everything in an orange glow, even in the middle of the night

The hum of traffic and the far-off sound of a car alarm drifted from the distance.

Bahlam, the jaguar god of
the underworld,

What was the gentlest way to tell someone they were dead?

“Gay goth witch?”

But he knew this wasn’t sustainable. No one was meant to last as a spirit floating between two worlds, but especially not Julian. He was a boy made of fire who’d been turned to frost. He was meant to burn.