by Adam Silvera
We both learn this at the same time.
I drop down, grab and throw the dagger again, but June vanishes through the ground this time. I wait for her to pop back up, but she doesn’t. The gray-and-red blood on the bone dagger is the most promising sight I’ve seen in days.
There’s a crack in June’s armor, and I’m going to break her apart.
Ten
Poison
BRIGHTON
There haven’t been a lot of times that I’ve missed being that ordinary Brighton who was college-bound about a month ago, but I would give a lot right now to be healthy in some dorm room watching a TV show with some roommate I low-key hate. Instead I’m staring out the window in a hospital as a battle unfolds, and I think someone may be coming to kill me before I can die of unnatural causes.
An alarm blares, and against every practitioner’s instructions, I run. I’ve just made it to the door when I crash so hard into Emil that we collapse on top of each other. He groans and I rub my forehead.
“We got to go,” Emil says as we help each other up.
“You think?”
I’ve got nothing on but the hospital garb. There’s no time to even put on the socks Emil took off me when I got too hot, or grab my sneakers in case we make it outside. My body is aching, but Emil drags me down the hall. Overhead lights are flashing yellow and orange, which I know is an emergency signal from this zombie horror movie that took place in an abandoned Gleam Care facility.
“Where’s Prudencia?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Emil says.
We’ve just reached the end of the hall when Dr. Bowes calls our names from behind. She abandons her high heels and catches up to us. “Let’s get you somewhere safe until security can handle the threat.”
“They’re Blood Casters. Your guards are going to get ripped apart!” I say.
The bang of a spell shocks us all, and Dr. Bowes pulls us out of harm’s way. The poster behind us is set on fire. I turn to find three acolytes armed with wands. I hate every celestial who has donated their blood to power all of these so-called defensive weapons, as if it’s not easy for dangerous people to get their hands on them too. These acolytes don’t care about using the power of others, if that’s what it takes to become specters and have their own powers one day. But if Luna is dead, why are they bothering? Are they serving a new leader?
Dr. Bowes opens the stairway door, and Emil and I go down as quickly as we can, fighting past our pain.
“Eleventh floor,” Dr. Bowes says, following us.
Spells rain down on us as the acolytes catch up. Emil swings open the door, and Dr. Bowes pauses before closing it behind her. Her eyes glow with twinned crescent moons as she holds out her hands, swinging them in dips and curves like a pendulum. Suddenly, there are projections of the three of us soundlessly continuing down the stairs.
“The illusions will only make it down a floor or two before they vanish, but that should be long enough to protect two heroes,” Dr. Bowes says with beaming pride. It sounds like Dr. Bowes isn’t strong enough to cast the grand illusions that masked us from the public eye in Nova, but this stage trick saved our lives.
She leads us to a laboratory and swipes us in with her key card. She turns off the lights so we can hide. It’s pitch black until Emil creates a little bulb of fire, wincing in pain as he guides us behind a counter that’s littered with vials and magnifying glasses and documents. He presses his palm against the wound on his side. The infinity-ender affected his powers when Ness sliced him the first time, but it’s going to hurt even more after being stabbed by Luna. Once we’re all situated, Emil closes his hand and the fire goes out. The lab is nothing but heavy breathing in darkness.
“Maybe I should help,” Emil whispers. “They’re here for us.”
“They’re here for me. I’m the one who killed Luna.”
I should be brave and turn myself in so the other patients don’t get hurt. Even though I already know I’m dying, I don’t have it in me. My time is running out, and I want as much of it as possible. The stars didn’t give me the powers I wanted to protect the people, so everyone can be their own hero.
There’s a bang outside the door. Two bangs, three bangs, four bangs. Have the acolytes found us? Something smashes outside. The door opens and hallway lights spill into the entrance for a moment before closing again. There are light footsteps roaming the room.
“Tsk, tsk,” a man says with a slight hiss.
I pointlessly mouth Stanton’s name to Emil, but he should recognize the voice of the specter with basilisk blood too. Terror reawakens within me from being held captive by Stanton. He’s so strong and vicious. He only kept me alive so he could use me to send a signal to Emil, who’d flown away with the urn containing the ghosts of Luna’s parents. But that doesn’t mean he went easy on me. He strangled me and beat me unconscious. I didn’t hesitate to give him my password so he could upload that video for Emil on my own YouTube channel. I didn’t want to risk extra torture. Now he’s found me again, and I don’t think he’ll be keeping me alive this time.
If I had a wand, I would blast him in the heart.
If I had powers, I would set him ablaze.
I concentrate and stare at my palm. I’m hoping fear will trigger my powers the way it did Emil’s. But I’m still cloaked in darkness without a flicker of flame appearing.
“Maybe, just maybe, they’re behind that counter,” Stanton teases.
Emil pins me against the counter.
“He obviously knows we’re here,” I whisper. “Why am I even whispering?” I ask out loud and stand. “You found us.” I can’t make him out in the shadows. “You can go ahead and turn on the lights.”
“What’s wrong? Can’t see in the dark or sense your prey’s heartbeat? Their scent? I bet you’re wishing Luna needed basilisk blood for the powers you stole from her,” Stanton says from the far right corner of the room.
“I didn’t get any powers. It was all a bust.”
“Luna will be happy to hear that,” Stanton’s voice says from the other corner.
“She’s alive?!”
“Hanging on there after some scum hit her with a cheap shot.”
“She told me I shouldn’t’ve missed in the graveyard. I was honoring her wishes.”
I’m trying to sound braver than I am, but I’m so nervous. Dr. Bowes shaking against the counter isn’t helping. Our greatest defense is Emil, and he’s not at full power. But Stanton is moving soundlessly, and we can’t try to beat someone we can’t even see.
“Some light,” I tell Emil.
Emil casts fire—and illuminates Stanton’s face right in front of us.
“Hello,” Stanton says. He grabs Emil by the throat and swings him into a glass cabinet that shatters so loudly it’s like someone shot a spell through it.
It’s pitch black again without Emil’s firelight. I don’t even hear him groaning. I got to fight my way to him. I scramble for something heavy to try and defend myself. I can hear Dr. Bowes running off toward Emil. She screams, and I realize she’s probably stepped in glass. Then Stanton’s nails dig into my shoulders and I’m hurled into the shadows; I can’t even try to brace myself since I have no idea when I might collide with something. I bang against a wall and crash onto a cart with loaded vials. The breath is knocked out of me, and I’m wheezing hard. Shards of glass dig into my arms, and thick liquids spill onto my hair like the stickiest shampoo. Sharp pain runs through my back and elbows. I’m dizzy in this darkness, and I roll onto my stomach.
Stanton presses his boot down on my neck. “There are so many ways to kill you before I bring Luna your head. Petrification. Poison. I’ve always been curious about reaching into someone’s chest while they’re petrified and ripping out their heart to see how much pain they feel. . . .”
He’s a basilisk that plays with his food. His only motivation is blood.
“I can petrify you and make you watch as I torture your brother. . . .” He presses down harder on my n
eck. “Or I can end you right now.”
The door opens, revealing a silhouette with glowing eyes. The lights come on as Stanton’s foot rises, and before he can slam it down on me, Prudencia telekinetically catches it. She’s struggling to suspend him. Her power isn’t as strong without the Crowned Dreamer. I roll a few inches, enough for Prudencia to release her hold. Stanton’s foot slams against the floor like a heavy step.
Stanton laughs. “You’re not strong enough to stop me.”
Prudencia telekinetically throws various instruments and shards of glass at him. His skin is getting cut up, and still he’s smiling with his terrible teeth.
Dr. Bowes rises, and eight illusions pop up—two Brightons, two Emils, two Prudencias, two Dr. Boweses. They’re running around Stanton and he swipes at them, going through them like air. Then Stanton closes his eyes for a moment, spins, and lunges straight at the real Dr. Bowes, snapping her neck. The illusions vanish before her body can hit the floor.
Her death isn’t that shocking. She’s the first of four in this room.
Before I’m added to the count, I gather all my strength and grab a shard of glass, then jump onto Stanton’s shoulders and stab him in the chest. He’s trying to shake me off, but I keep digging and digging even though the glass is cutting into me. He wants to grab me, but Prudencia is binding his hands. Stanton bites my hand and his teeth sharpen, extending into fangs like a real basilisk that puncture straight through my palm. It’s the greatest pain I’ve felt since the Reaper’s Blood warped against me. Fire feels like it’s shooting through my veins, so hot that it wants to melt my bones. I fall off him.
My hand is bleeding.
Prudencia keeps Stanton fixed in place before he can charge at her.
Gold and gray flames light up the corner; Emil, sprawled out on the floor, is carrying a glowing orb, although it appears he’s too weak to throw it. Prudencia releases her hold on Stanton, and he is so close to reaching her when she telekinetically pulls Emil’s fire-orb as if she’s tugging a rope, and it strikes Stanton in the back. She dives out of the way and Stanton slams headfirst into the wall and collapses, still.
“You okay?” Prudencia asks me as she gets up.
I can’t even speak. My bloody hand is shaking uncontrollably, and the fire within is pulsing. No better time to be in a hospital, but seeing Dr. Bowes’s head angled so unnaturally reminds me of how mortal we all are. How mortal I wouldn’t have been with the reaper powers.
Prudencia assists Emil as he tries getting up by himself. He’s groaning as his power automatically heals the glass cuts across his face and arms.
“Whoa.” Maribelle appears, stepping over Stanton, while pressing her fist against her shoulder. “You’ve been busy.” So has she, judging by the blood on her face and the fresh coat of gray-and-red blood on her oblivion dagger. June must be dead.
“Stanton killed Dr. Bowes,” Prudencia says, unable to look at her corpse.
I groan in pain, and Maribelle crouches beside me, her eyes immediately going to the bite mark on my hand. Everything is getting blurry, and I’m suddenly cold.
“That’s basilisk venom. We need an antidote,” Maribelle says.
“What’s going to happen to me?” I ask.
“It can kill you within days,” she says.
My life sentence keeps shrinking. “Find an antidote!”
Prudencia frantically checks the cabinets, and Emil tries to help but he’s too slow and weak. We’re in a hospital that specializes in gleam injuries; finding an antidote really shouldn’t be that hard.
Iris barges in, at first surprised to see Stanton on the floor, but then she steps on him as she makes her way over to Maribelle, holding her bloodied hand to her chest. “Where did you go?!”
“I had to get June,” Maribelle says, still searching for an antidote.
“I hope to the highest stars you killed her, because Dione bested me!”
“You lost a fight; get over it,” Maribelle says.
“I lost more than a fight! The acolytes captured Eva and Carolina and got away.”
Emil and I turn to each other at the same time, like a person and their reflection, wondering what this means for our mother especially.
Then my hand fully tenses, so rigid that I can’t even twitch my finger. It’s like thick clay is drying all over me. My veins are shifting to a dark green, the venom slithering up my arm, and going straight for my heart.
Eleven
Reunion
NESS
Everything is hazy in the moments after I wake up, especially as I try to figure out why there are fresh scars across my ribs and another above my ankle. Everything clicks as soon as I get a closer look, because my complexion isn’t on this paler side. I’m fresh out of a nightmare where I was torturing Emil with the infinity-ender dagger. The whole thing was more monstrous than how it happened in real life, but maybe it represented how Emil felt in that moment, and that’s why I shifted into him while I was sleeping.
Judging by the sun, it looks like I’ve slept the entire day away. I can’t believe the Senator hasn’t put me to work yet.
I remain in Emil’s form and stare at the scars that his phoenix powers couldn’t heal. We had a moment in some art supplies room at Nova where I helped clean his wounds while keeping my eyes shut because he didn’t want me to see his body; even the form I’m looking at right now is mostly imagined since Emil always hides himself in baggy shirts. There’s a lot I would give up right now just to touch him again. To explore our feelings. Maybe even discover each other without any clothes on.
“That Spell Walker your boyfriend?” Jax asks from the door, his presence completely surprising me.
My blood rushes to Emil’s cheeks, and I glow gray as I revert back into myself. “No,” I say as I throw on one of my old shirts. I have no idea how long Jax has been watching me. I can’t have the Senator thinking that Emil is someone I’m interested in. “He’s just another good guy that got hurt because of me. Many more to come thanks to you all.”
Jax doesn’t take the bait. “Tell me. How many times have you turned into other people to see what they look like naked?”
I sit up in bed. “That’s not how this works.”
“That’s a shame.”
I wasn’t best friends with my bodyguard Logan, but there was always decency between us. “Any chance of Logan relieving you from your shift?”
“He took leave after your ‘death.’ Took it personally,” Jax says. “But don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”
Let him think that he’s the one that’s got me cornered, even though every time he smirks and crosses his arms or taps his left foot, he’s giving me what I need if I get the opportunity to shift into him and escape.
I got good at picking up details on people years ago. Samples came back from this family photo shoot where my smile was so convincing, even though I’d been pissed at my parents that morning. I was only eleven then and thought it was bizarre how smiles could be faked. I kept studying other people from there, trying to figure out their tells. Which smiles from Mom were lies? Was Dad’s smile real when he saw me onstage for school plays? Or the one when I drew him in third grade for Hero Day?
This all came in handy at the beginning of February when I stood under the Cloaked Phantom—the twice-a-year constellation that elevates shifting abilities—and drank Luna’s potion to get my powers. She appreciated how well I paid attention to others, and even though our sessions were brutal before I could really get a handle on shifting, it’s all played a part in why I’m so good at what I do.
I have to use this to my advantage, but plotting against the Senator and his team is tricky. There’s no telling when Zenon is looking out of my eyes to see what I’m up to. I can’t take notes about any plans. I can’t mess with the window, which has been welded shut. I can’t set aside anything I might use as a weapon. I have to operate like there’s a camera on me at all times; I don’t know that there isn’t. I’ve been spending a lot of tim
e in bed, eyes closed to black him out. It’s a good thing he can’t see into my head, I guess.
The lights in my room switch off. I turn, thinking it’s Jax still messing with me, but the hallway is dark too, and he’s looking around suspiciously.
“Status on power,” Jax requests into his wrist communicator.
“Scouting perimeter now,” Zenon’s voice responds. Then, seconds later: “Intruders. We’re surrounded.”
“Have you identified them?” Jax asks.
“I can’t make eyes on them,” Zenon says.
That means that whoever is surrounding the manor must be spread out or not looking at each other. When a person is alone, Zenon can only identify them if he recognizes their body or clothes, or if they’re staring into a mirrored surface like a puddle or glass.
“I’m taking Eduardo to the panic room,” Jax says.
The panic room has existed in the manor since the Senator was a child, but he’s had it updated over the years as he’s made more enemies. It has everything we could need—independent high-speed internet connection, fridges with enough food to last two weeks, top-of-the-line wands, bathroom with functioning shower, foldout beds, and, most importantly, the strongest power-deflecting gleam-shield that money can buy. I don’t want to go down there. I can’t risk tripling the number of locks keeping me in the manor.
It’s a long shot, but what if Emil is here to rescue me? If he suspected that the enforcers got their hands on me, then maybe he would’ve thought the family home would be a good place to check out. Then again, it’s damning to break into the house of the presidential candidate who is running on a platform of how dangerous celestials are. If the Spell Walkers are risking their necks for me, it’s only because Emil made the case that I came back for them during the invasion at Nova.
Then I’m hit with a terrible thought that would track against me: What if Emil just thinks I ran away again and never comes looking for me?
Jax tells me to follow him, and I cooperate to buy time to figure out my next move. I’m tense as we go down the hall. Glass shatters from the downstairs foyer, and we pause at the top of the stairs. The backup security alarm goes off for mere seconds before being disconnected. Even I couldn’t have disabled the alarm that quickly; maybe Wesley dashed in and handled it.