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“I didn’t know you were married.” Before she can say anything, I add, “I get it. It wasn’t my business.”
Luna’s smile is interrupted by another cough, blood painting her palm. She wipes it on her crimson cloak, not bothering with a handkerchief. “Once Keon was killed by the Halo Knights and didn’t resurrect, I believed him dead and sought out other ways to get closer to death. There were quintuplets in Colombia, all brothers haunted by their deathlike powers.”
I prop my elbow on my desk, finding myself pulled into this story that feels like a fairy tale. The eldest brother, Fabian, could hear and understand ghosts, but was so tormented by their pleas that he took his own life. Mattias’s howls grew to be so piercing that an entire town’s combusted brains traced back to him. Santiago secluded himself to avoid his visions of imminent deaths. Álvaro could smell someone’s bones and blood and predict how much time they had left. And the youngest was Davian, whose touch was so deadly that his mother died from childbirth.
“Santiago was the last living brothe
r when I arrived in Colombia, and while I would’ve loved to work with Fabian and his direct line to ghosts, I arrived at Santiago’s house with promises of helping control his power so he could return to the world,” Luna says proudly, and as someone who agreed to shifting powers for the same dream, I’m not surprised that he embraced her. “I gained his trust, and he welcomed me into his home and heart. I was given everything after our marriage—the family’s estate, their darkest secrets, even a child with great potential who is no more. I don’t consider myself superstitious, but even I would say that family was cursed.”
I’m wrapping my head around how she was a wife and mother and I never knew any of this. I can morph into her and capture the exact shade of green in her eyes and the cracks in her lips and the wrinkles in her neck and the dark red tongue from her daily tonics. But that’s all surface. I can’t ever imitate the shadowy heart inside her.
“Did Santiago take his own life like his brother?”
“No, I gave myself the honor of killing him. I took great joy in watching his eyes glow as he foresaw the death I planned for him, and how powerless he was to stop it.”
I can’t even pretend this is shocking. This is the same woman who murdered her parents when she was young. It all tracks. “Sounds like he didn’t serve you.”
“He gave me a child, and through that, I learned how to nurture those with powers. The Blood Casters were born years later.”
“Thanks for the history lesson. It’s great to know you’ve always been this horrible.”
Luna lets out a little laugh. “You once believed me to be the lesser evil—that your father was an even more dangerous criminal. You wondered about your next assignment. I’ll have you know that you’ll be impersonating Nicolette Sunstar in the upcoming debate. The plan is quite diabolical, designed by yours truly. But I am simply buying time until I can make my next move, and when I can, I’m hoping that these personal confessions of my past will have regained your trust. I don’t have any family left, though I consider you mine.”
I don’t want to show my anger, but there’s no face I can hide behind. “You would have more family if you didn’t kill everyone off.”
She inhales a deep breath as she rises from the bed and makes her way to the door. “You don’t—”
“Shut up! You think you’re some manipulation mastermind and bragging about using others, as if the Senator isn’t using you right back.”
I expect her to call for Stanton to punish me for lashing out like this, then I remember that he’s not in the picture and she’s in my house and she doesn’t hold full power over me anymore. Luna grins, like she’s proud that I’ve stood up to her.
“It’s true that no matter how calculating one can be in a round of chess, the queen can still be overtaken by an unsuspecting force. But the game continues as long as the king stands, and a pawn may cross to the other side of the board, stronger than before. What I’m asking of you, darling Ness, is if you are on my side when I return to power or an enemy to be conquered?”
Thirty-Five
Morning Nox
EMIL
The only thing better than falling asleep to phoenix song is waking up to it.
I’ve been so haunted by the sound of Gravesend’s final cries, it straight rings through my bones, but this morning I’m gifted new sounds as phoenixes call out to each other before taking to the sky. A phoenix’s cycle is life and death, but the past twenty-four hours have been the first time ever I’m getting to see so many of them live. Mad love to Brighton and Prudencia for giving me the bed by the window so I can experience all these sights. Sunlight creeps onto me as a common ivory flies past, so close that I could’ve brushed its silvery tailfeather.
I wish every day could start like this. But today we may prove Wyatt’s theory nonsense, and then the Halo Knights will kick us out of the Sanctuary.
I’m going to make the most of this while I can. I sneak out while Bright and Pru are still sleeping, her arms wrapped around him. I greet a Halo Knight good morning, but she continues extinguishing the lit sconces without a word to me. I’m trying not to take it personally. Part of me wants to tell them all that I didn’t actually choose this life for myself, but maybe I’m better off this way, instead of them knowing I used to be their number one enemy, the guy whose work has caused great devastation to all creatures, including the phoenixes the Haloes care for.
I keep my eyes low until I get to the courtyard. I hang out under the shade of an apple tree because the sun is really going for it up on these mountains. Watching these phoenixes in the sky makes me wish I could’ve shared this experience with Ma and Dad. For our tenth birthday, I got a blue kite shaped like a phoenix, and Brighton took pictures of me flying it around on his new camera. I badly wish I could retrocycle to that day—the four of us stretched out on the picnic blanket Abuelita sewed for us, eating arroz con gandules and tostones with garlic and playing Uno in the park until we couldn’t stand the bugs anymore.
Wind picks up behind me, and there’s a quiet thud. I turn, expecting to find a fallen apple, but there’s an obsidian phoenix staring at me with pitch-black eyes. His cabbage breath blows my way and I’m frozen in place until Wyatt dismounts Nox. Then I’m stuck for other reasons. Wyatt’s muscular thighs are tight against his shorts. His gray mesh crop top reveals abs that are paler than his toned arms; I guess his abs don’t get as much sun as the rest of his body. He’s sweating all over, and the white headband holding back his brown hair seems to have soaked up some of it.
“Snuck up on you,” Wyatt says.
“Yeah. Nox is quiet.”
“Crucial for a tracker.”
“Were you tracking me?”
