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“We have to get them,” Iris says, taking off at a sprint.
But that’s when I see June standing by the driveway’s entrance sign—and she’s staring at me.
I grab the dagger and go straight for June, ignoring Iris shouting for me to help her because she’s not in charge of me. I don’t owe her just because a dagger was driven through her hand for me. If she hadn’t kept my true lineage a secret from me, I would’ve understood my powers better and saved our parents and Atlas. Iris will rescue Eva and have her hand healed. I have to kill June while she’s stupid enough to show her face.
I glide after June as she takes off running through the bushes and heads downhill. June darts into the street and has to phase through an oncoming car, though it?
?s too late for the driver, who swerves to miss her and crashes into another car. June stands in the center of her chaos as the other cars honking masks the sounds of spellwork back at the hospital. I drop down onto the street, swinging the dagger. June fades out and kicks me from behind, and I crash into the hood of a car. Then my psychic sense goes into overload as she keeps reappearing around and attacking me. Punch to my back, elbow to my neck, kick to my ribs. She punches my shoulder from behind so hard that I think she’s dislocated it, and I don’t have Atlas around to pop it back in. My eyes flutter from dizziness as she slams my face against the hood.
She tries to wrestle the dagger away from me, and my arm is too busted to keep a tight grip. Dark yellow flames burst from my fist and burn her hands. Is this why she and the Blood Casters came back—for the dagger? Or did they hunt us down to get revenge for their creator? I don’t know if June even has enough humanity in her to care for Luna like a mother, but I hope she was forced to watch Luna choke to death on her own blood.
I cast a stream of fire at June, obscuring her vision as I levitate about ten feet high, and when she walks through my flames, expecting to find me still on the ground, I hurl the dagger down at her with my good arm. June sees me just in time, and the dagger phases through her, clattering against the ground. She’s untouchable. . . .
June slowly turns to her shoulder, eyeing it curiously. Gray-and-red blood drips down her solid body.
The oblivion dagger can harm her when she’s incorporeal.
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.
