by Adam Silvera
“You came too?” Brighton asks Prudencia as he pulls her into a hug.
“I’m surprised you survived without me,” Prudencia says.
“But what about your aunt?” I ask.
“She’s someone else’s problem,” Prudencia says. “I’m here for you.”
I hug the hell out of her.
“You can’t run away like that, Emilio,” Ma says.
“I don’t belong at home,” I say. “Everyone thinks I’m a hero. What kind of hero puts his family’s life at risk? I had to get out of there and figure out why this is happening to me.”
“We are your home,” Ma says. “You belong with us.”
Brighton claps his hands. “Great. Now that everyone is here, we can figure out our next move. Iris has hinted at some deeper meaning behind Emil’s powers. Maybe this is some big chosen one destiny business where we can all help out.”
Ma shakes her head and squeezes my hand. “No. Brighton, you’re leaving for college tomorrow.”
“No I’m not! We can’t sweep Emil’s phoenix fire under the rug.”
“We also won’t run straight into the cross fire!” Ma’s face is red, and I don’t want her getting worked up like this.
There’s a hard knock on the door, and Iris lets herself in. She’s no longer in her power-proof vest. There’s a gaping hole in her shirt, but there’s only light scarring where her skin had been bubbling before. She greets Ma and Prudencia with a nod. “How’s everyone feeling?”
“We’re good!” Brighton says. “Good enough. You?”
“I’ll live, thanks to Eva,” Iris says. “Emil, it’s time to talk.”
“Talk about what?” Ma asks.
“How your son has powers he shouldn’t possess,” Iris says. She catches her breath. She’s not standing tall like she was when I met her. She’s battered and tired. I guess Eva can’t heal someone completely. “There have been a lot of moving pieces in this war, and we have theories and intel to support Emil shaping up to become a major player.”
“A soldier,” I say.
One stare says everything.
Fourteen
Infinity Son
EMIL
It’s time to connect the stars in my constellation.
Iris escorts us to what appears to be a brewing chamber converted into a boardroom. Steel cauldrons are stacked between two cabinets loaded with ingredients for potions. On a dry-erase board is my name in bright blue marker with arrows pointing to Brighton and my parents. The Spell Walkers have logged our social media accounts, colleges, my museum gig, and Brighton’s YouTube channel. Maribelle is seated at a glossy crescent table and flipping through the pages of a massive textbook. On the other end, Eva looks hungover as she finishes chugging a gallon of water before offering a quick wave. Atlas is typing away at a laptop with the speed of a hacker while Wesley watches on.
“Can we get you anything?” Wesley asks.
“My regular life back,” I say. Atlas and Wesley offer sympathetic looks. I sit at the center of the crescent table between Brighton, Prudencia, and Ma. “Why are the Blood Casters after me?”
“We’ve been keeping track of all the increased specter activity since the Crowned Dreamer surfaced,” Iris says from the dry-erase board. “The fight we saw online between you and that specter was horrific, but my mother confided in me to keep an eye out for any specters with gray or gold flames. You exhibited both, Emil.”
Maribelle finally looks up. “Wait. You didn’t tell us about this.”
“It was a secret,” Iris says.
Maribelle slams the textbook shut. “What kind of leader is trusted with some piece to the puzzle and doesn’t trust her team? Stars forbid something happened to you in our dangerous line of work. The secret would’ve died with you.”
“I knew, just in case,” Eva says, standing beside Iris and grabbing her hand. “I found out a month after the Blackout. This is only a working theory, and it could’ve been a distraction from everything we’ve had on our plates since January.”
“We’re not allowed to have secrets,” Maribelle says. “This is life or death.”
“That was the only secret,” Iris says. “I’m walking in the dark here on everything else.”
Before Maribelle can counter, I speak up. “Can you please tell me what’s going on?”
“You have the blood of a gray sun phoenix within you,” Iris says.
“I cracked that code.”
“So did Bautista de León. He never sought out blood alchemy, and his powers surprised him too. The only people who knew that were the Spell Walkers he first assembled, and they all reached the same conclusion. Bautista was a specter with phoenix blood in a past life, successfully reborn in this one.”
Brighton inhales a deep breath. “Do you think Bautista is Emil’s past life?”
“That’s impossi—”
I shut up.
Everything that should’ve been impossible today is proving itself extra possible.
“The timeline adds up,” Iris says. “Bautista died, and you were born days later.”
“Reborn,” Maribelle breathes as she stares at me in awe.
“It can’t be me! It can’t. Phoenixes are reborn as they were, and I look nothing like him!”
“It’s Bautista’s essence reborn,” Iris says. “Powers and spirit.”
Hours ago, I was a kid having a panic attack at the park, and now I’m the founding Spell Walker reincarnated. Enough already. The world needs to pick on someone else. I’ve got a good handle on history concerning specters carrying blood from gray sun phoenixes and it’s got me thinking. “Please don’t tell me . . .”
Iris is quiet, as if she senses the dread in my question. “Bautista believed he was reincarnated from Keon Máximo.”
I’m numb as I try to think of something that can disprove this. But there’s no known date for when Keon actually died. We only know that it was at the hands of the Halo Knights for his crimes against phoenixes.
“Why did Bautista think that?” I ask.
“Growing up, Bautista apparently had flashes of memories from a life he hadn’t lived, and he connected the dots himself. When he realized his past life was responsible for the existence of all specters, he created the Spell Walkers with the psychic alchemist Sera Córdova. He wanted to do good with the stolen powers he was reborn with against his will.”
I hop out of my seat, nearly banging into Ma, and I stand by the window to cool down. “But this doesn’t make sense. I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary. And phoenixes have accelerated aging! I’m eighteen.”
“The phoenix blood doesn’t make you a phoenix,” Maribelle says. “You’re still human, so you’re aging like a regular human . . . who happens to be the scion of history’s greatest and worst specters. Tough break.”
If I could transform into a phoenix and fly out this window before they can guilt me into fighting a war that my past life started, I would be gone in a millisecond.
“Does this mean any other specter with phoenix blood can be reborn?” Brighton asks.
“Possibly,” Iris says. “Specters make up a tiny fraction of our gleamcraft community. There’s no way for us to know their limits. The specter you fought on the train phased through the doors, which isn’t any phoenix or creature’s power. It’s possible he was a specter in a past life and his essence was reborn into a celestial host. We’re only speculating at this point.”
Maribelle lets out a laugh. “If only we just found ourselves engaging with a celestial with the same power. We could’ve asked her all about her powers and what she witnessed at the Blackout. Oh, wait!”
These are all theories, I keep reminding myself. No one can be sure of anything. “Let’s say this rebirth business is legit. Why did it take so long for my powers to kick in? Brighton and I are twins. Shouldn’t it have split between us in the womb?”
Brighton shrugs. “I have no idea how phoenix essence works, but maybe because we were born together, it m
essed with the powers?”
“Could be,” Iris says. “Again, there’s a lot we don’t know.”
Ma is looking back and forth between me and Brighton. “Boys, can we talk outside?”
On the verge of tears, I ask, “Did you know about my powers all along?” She doesn’t say anything. “If this involves what’s happening, you have to clue me in right now.”
Prudencia stands and addresses the Spell Walkers. “Maybe we should give them some privacy.”
No one moves. All eyes are on Ma. She’s flicking at her palm, which she does whenever she’s nervous.
“Ma, please tell me what you did to me, or I might blow up.”
“We saved you,” Ma says. “Your father and I, we saved you. You were abandoned, and we brought you in.”
“I don’t get it.”
Brighton stands by me and looks like he can barely hold his head up. “I think she’s saying that you . . . that you’re adopted, Emil.”
I have ten thousand thoughts and no words.
This world doesn’t make sense. It’s not even about the powers anymore. I don’t know who I am. My name is Emil. My middle name is Donato, which means gift from the gods. My last name is Rey. But even those basics being called into question make me feel hard lumps in my throat, blocking all air. Was I actually named after a man who isn’t even my grandfather? Am I actually a gift from the gods? Do I still get to be a Rey of Light if I’m not a Rey?
Why didn’t my biological parents want me?
I lived in someone else’s womb for nine months, and I have no idea who they are. I’ve grown up reading so many stories about orphans in books, and I was always so grateful to be raised by a family that wanted me. Parents who fed me and rocked me and took care of me and taught me how to talk and how to read and how to love. How could something so real now feel like an illusion?
I’m consumed in dark thoughts as I rewrite my history. I don’t belong with the Reys, and every family photo I’m in is a lie, like someone photoshopped me in out of pity.
I can’t breathe.
Brighton isn’t my brother anymore, and even though we aren’t twins and never shared a womb or the same blood, one look at his face, and I know we’ve at least been lied to together.
I struggle to find a word, any word. All I can manage is: “What?”
“We should’ve told you,” Ma says.
“So who . . . ? And how . . . ?”
“We don’t know who your biological parents are,” she says.
“Of course you don’t, wow. If you were going to kick me out the family like this, you could’ve gotten an address to send me to.”
How is this not a nightmare?
When someone discovers they’re special in a story, there’s usually some wise adult who tells the hero what’s what about their new life. But all I have is a group of young people who are wading through their own uncertainties. Everyone is throwing darts at a board and praying to the stars they hit their target.
“I don’t get it,” Brighton says. “If Emil wasn’t born with me, then when?”
“The same day you were born,” Ma says.
“My birthday isn’t a lie, phew. All good now.” I fake a fist bump with Brighton.
“As far as the doctors could tell, you were a newborn too.”
I picture Brighton being born without me and realize that my own birth certificate must’ve been forged; I would’ve never known the difference or questioned my parents.
I want to run a flaming fist straight through the wall.
“So what happened? Someone leave me in a basket and knock on your door?”
Every time Ma cries, Brighton and I drop everything we’re doing to keep her company. If she wants privacy, she cries alone in the bathroom with the shower running or locks herself in her bedroom. But usually she lets us hug her and remind her what an incredible mother she is, and how we’re the young men we are today because of her heart.
Tonight, we keep our distance.
“After I gave birth, Leonardo wanted to get me balloons, but the helium tank in the hospital’s gift shop was empty, so he went out to find some.” Ma wipes her tears on the back of her hand. “I always pictured myself holding my child in a room with yellow daffodils and balloons, and your father wanted to make that dream come true. He left the hospital, and you were crying on a street corner two blocks away, baking under the sun. No one was around. No note or blanket. Your father never hated a stranger the way he did whoever abandoned you. He carried you back into the hospital and doctors and nurses were all over you. So was he. He was so immediately protective of you, just like he was when he held Brighton for the first time. He kept running back and forth between checking on Brighton and you.”
The Spell Walkers and Prudencia are dead silent.
Here’s this absolutely wonderful memory of our father that our mother might have taken to her grave. Brighton looks like he may cry any second.
“I didn’t get to meet you until that evening,” Ma says. “The police arrived to investigate, but when I saw how innocent you were, my heart broke even more. We don’t know if your biological parents couldn’t afford to take care of you or what darkness possessed them to abandon you in the manner they did. But we knew you were coming home with us. Your father looked at you like he didn’t trust a single other person to take care of you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We wanted to give you an easy life and make sure you never felt out of place.”
The silence in the room is broken by a “Whoa” from Wesley.
Iris is typing away on her laptop. “Mrs. Rey, where did your husband find Emil?”
“A couple blocks behind the Grand Gibbous Stadium in the Bronx,” Ma says.
“That’s a few avenues from where Bautista died,” Iris says, staring at the map on her screen. “Doesn’t line up.”
No one here knows phoenixes like I do. “Gray suns never resurrect in the same spot where they died,” I say with no life in my voice. “Defense tactic. Their ashes float away and rebuild elsewhere so they’re not attacked upon returning.”
Eva’s head is sinking, and she snaps up. “Maybe our theory about the essence being reborn in a host is all wrong. Your mother said you were burning up. It’s possible it’s not because your father found you outside, but because . . .”
“I was born in fire,” I say.
“Reborn,” Maribelle corrects again.
“What are you going to tell me next, that this marks me as some chosen one who has to win this war?” I wait for an answer, but nothing. “Oh, come on.”
“There are no chosen ones, necessarily,” Maribelle says. “We choose to fight. But you do seem to belong in this battle more than most.”
“If you join us, we’ll train you to become a formidable weapon,” Iris says. “Like Bautista was.”
Throwing flames isn’t some passive power; I get that I can make a difference in any fight. But I don’t want to become some dagger to sharpen or wand to load. “This Bautista business doesn’t mean anything, okay? It’s a past life that I don’t remember. It’s great that he was a hero, but that doesn’t mean that I have to be.”
The Spell Walkers look like they disagree.
Iris lets out a deep breath. “Unless there’s a new alchemist out there who’s responsible for this wave of stronger specters, Luna Marnette and the Blood Casters are the safe bet. We have been trying to take down Luna for years, and ever since the Blackout, the government is focused on making celestial lives a living hell while she builds her army. It looks as if she’s even recruiting celestials to advance her causes. We need all hands on deck, Emil. We can relocate you and your family, but if the Blood Casters are after you, you’re going to be running for the rest of your life.”
“She’s right, for once,” Maribelle says. “Become a Spell Walker. Get your strength up and make them regret painting a target on your back.”
These can’t be my choices. I’m shaking. “I don’t wan
t these powers.”
“Then stay here and figure out how to undo them,” Maribelle says, like she has no time for my resistance, as if we’re moments away from entering battle. “Bautista and Sera were working on a cure to expel a specter’s power, but Emil, you will never be able to save yourself from this cycle of war unless you help end the Blood Casters once and for all. It’s the least you can do since you technically created this evil.”
“I didn’t do this!”
I shoot for the door, and once I’m out in the hallway, I’m tempted to escape back onto the streets. But then what? I find the staircase that leads to the roof, where I press down onto the ledge so hard my wrists might snap. There aren’t enough deep breaths to escape the weight of the world crushing me, so I scream at the Crowned Dreamer as if the constellation is to blame for all of this misery.
“Hey,” Brighton calls from behind.
I hop onto a generator and stare out into the city, and Brighton joins me.
“Your powers can make a difference,” Brighton says after a stretch of silence. “This was Little Emil’s dream.”
“I didn’t know any better back then.”
“You don’t have to fight if you don’t want to.”
“Of course I don’t want to, but they’re basically calling me responsible because two lifetimes ago I started this war. I’m not Bautista, I don’t know how to clean up this mess. If he and Sera couldn’t figure out how to end specters, what makes them think I can? I’m not trying to get involved in this business so I can die like the others, Brighton.”
“That’s the best part—you’ll come back! Your power allows you to go on and on.” Brighton snaps his fingers. “Your superhero name could be something cool like Unkillable King or Infinity Son!”
“I don’t want to fight for my life for all of infinity.”
Brighton apologizes, then is quiet for a beat. “You’re not indebted to the Spell Walkers just because they saved us. But Emil? Sleep on this. Today was a roller coaster with no seat belt. I know you, and you’ll regret walking away from all the good you could do.”