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“Shut up!” Dione shouts as her eyes glow and two extra sets of arms grow out of her sides. She chokes Eva and Carolina and pins down their hands. “You will become them or you will watch me rip them apart.”
I hold up my hands in truce. “Let them go.”
Dione releases them, and even though she has six hands she only uses one to drag me out by my wrist. I don’t even get a chance to apologize to Eva and Carolina.
I got played tonight—the manipulator manipulated. If the Senator’s team is still using me to morph into other people, then what’s the plan for the new specter with shifter blood? Just a new Blood Caster? That can’t be right. Any plan that Luna helps design runs deeper than new recruits.
For now, I’ve got to get ready to cause more damage while wearing the faces of two women who trusted me with their hearts.
Twenty
Dark Hearts
EMIL
It’s midnight when I sneak out of the cottage to see the stars. The Cloaked Phantom is high in the dark sky, its light reflecting across the sea. The prime constellation is shaped like an old-school theater mask with the sly eyes twinkling the brightest. I’m out here tonight for Ness, knowing this alignment of stars is the reason he has his powers in the first place. Powers that couldn’t keep him safe.
I head down to the beach, already wishing I brought a jacket with me. I keep my sneakers on since the sand is too cold, which would’ve been welcomed the couple times I’ve been out here with Prudencia during the day, but it’s too chilly right now. I flex my fingers, trying to tap into my gleam to keep warm, but just like when I was barely able to create a fire-orb to attack Stanton back at Aldebaran, all my wounds—the ones inflicted by Ness and Luna—burn so badly that I’m almost brought to tears.
It seems impossible to be a soldier in this war. I mean, check me out, I haven’t exactly been the most effective weapon in every battle.
Prudencia and I have had that exhausting conversation while out on the beach. I hate that I dragged her into this war, but I’m grateful she’s here, especially with Brighton mostly keeping to himself. Prudencia isn’t a soldier fully known to the public, but the Blood Casters must have pieced together her identity by now. She hasn’t said it out loud, and I doubt she ever would, but I think she’s worried her aunt, Maia, might meet the same fate as Ma. There’s a lot of love lost from how gleamphobic Maia is, but Prudencia still cares.
Footsteps are shuffling in the sand behind me, and I spin around, nervous that an enforcer or Blood Caster has tracked us down. I’m ready to try and cast fire as if my life depends on it, but it’s only Brighton. I’m not ruling out that he might be coming to swing at me too. He sits beside me and looks up at the Cloaked Phantom. Days ago he was glowing under the Crowned Dreamer, primed to become an unstoppable specter.
“Screw these constellations,” Brighton breathes out.
He’s pissed at something that was never for him. These prime constellations exist for celestials. For every branch of power out there, a lot of savants can trace its origins back to constellations. I’m definitely not an expert on them, but when I was younger the Feathered Figure constellation took to the sky and elevated all flying powers.
“They can actually be positive forces for celestials,” I say, remembering how jaw-dropping it was to see so many celestials flying through the air that evening.
“But not specters like us,” Brighton says, rubbing his left hand against his leg to warm up while his poisoned arm is wrapped up again in the cocoon cast. “Specters like you.” I think he’ll die before he understands how lucky he is that he’s not a specter. “I wouldn’t have gone for the Reaper’s Blood if that gleam gene had just been activated in me. I don’t know why Abuelita’s psychic powers weren’t passed down through Ma, but I would’ve made good use of them.”
This imagined world does have its possibilities.
“You could’ve been some detective who gets visions about crimes and stops them from coming true,” I say.
“Sounds more like a TV show,” Brighton says. “You would probably be the hero who complains about being the hero for the entire series. But then at the end you’re grateful for the fight because it changed your life for the better. You win the war and you get the guy.”
I’m drawn to the Cloaked Phantom again as the gentle waves creep up on the sand. The splashing would usually soothe me, but it’s not cutting it for me tonight.
“Except I can’t get the guy when he’s dead,” I say. It’s clear I’m no longer talking about this TV show Brighton is dreaming up. Our lives aren’t someone’s entertainment, or aren’t supposed to be, at least.
“It’s not like you loved him,” Brighton says.
I’m shivering from the cold. “I don’t
have to love him to grieve him. Ness was important to me and we trusted each other. When we were under attack at Nova I was running around trying to find you because we had no idea you’d run off with Maribelle already. Ness risked his life posing as me to buy me more time. That’s when he got captured and . . .”
I stop because I don’t know what went down next. I don’t know much about what even came before, like his relationship with his mother before she was killed or his father before he became so consumed with power that he used Ness to spread hate. I wonder if he’s ever been involved with anyone romantically before or always single like me. I even want to know more about his transformation into a specter.
“There’s so much I’m never going to know about Ness,” I say. His story is going to remain some big mystery to me. And I’ll always wonder about what would’ve happened between us if we got away together.
“I feel the same way about Prudencia,” Brighton says.
“We’ve known her for four years,” I say.
“But not really. If she hid being a celestial, what else don’t we know about her? There’s got to be more to the story. What really happened that led to her parents being killed by enforcers? Her life at home with Maia. And did she date what’s-his-face, Dominic, because he was also a celestial? Did he know about her?”
