I laughed at the warning. I was nineteen, a scholar of forbidden texts, and I believed that love was a puzzle to be solved, not a curse to be endured.

He smiled then, and I understood the curse. True love, in the Sierra Negra, was not a gift. It was a trap. Because Sebastián did not love me back. He couldn't . The curse of the amor verdadero is this: one person will love with their entire soul, and the other will love with only their reflection.

And he screamed.