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Before we begin, Brighton twists around. “Pru, film this.”
“This is a sacred space, and most importantly, you’re calling forth a sacred power,” Tala says with an edge. “The Halo Knights will determine whether or not a specter’s ability to retrocycle will become public knowledge.”
“Yeah, Bright, we’re trying to make becoming a specter less exciting,” I say.
“I know, but—” He stops himself. “You’re both right. I’m sorry.”
Brighton apologizing is stranger than watching him grow three heads and everyone seems to agree. Prudencia is the only one smirking. Thank the stars she’s getting through to him.
Tala seems suspicious, but for once she doesn’t have to fight back. She leads us through some deep breaths for what feels like an hour but in reality is probably only ten minutes. Even though I got some good sleep this whole thing is only making me more tired. “Focus on the lives you haven’t lived, think about what you need from them, what you hope to gain from going back,” she says. “Remember that phoenixes weren’t taught to use this power. It was pure instinct. Follow yours.”
?
?When you’re ready,” Wyatt says. “Ignite.”
Thirty-Seven
The Scent of Blue
MARIBELLE
I begin with Sera.
I will forever be a Lucero and wear that name like a badge of honor, but in blood I’m a Córdova and a de León. This biological connection with Sera will bring me closer to her, to helping me better understand her psychic powers, which have passed down to me. But I’m resisting. Mama and Papa actually taught me how to use my powers. I was seven when I stood on the balcony of the house we were staying in and I told my parents I was going to jump and fly like them. They told me I wasn’t ready but I jumped anyway and before I could crash through the dining table Mama caught me. Her hands are the ones I want to feel around me now.
I can’t resist Sera. I don’t know how much she loved me, whether or not she wanted me, or if I would’ve been safe with her, but I have to accept her if I’m going to reach her. I can’t keep acting as if she doesn’t matter because she doesn’t have any bearing on my life today, or because I feel guilty I’m not honoring my real parents. Sera being my mother doesn’t mean Mama wasn’t.
In the darkness, I struggle forward as if there’s an actual road I’m traveling, one paved with guilt and grief. The more I think about Sera raising me, the more my senses feel out of control. It’s like I’m separating from myself, like I’m being reborn as the daughter I would’ve been if Sera hadn’t been killed. I believe I can smell the color blue—ocean waves crashing into each other, baths with Atlas where he would get carried away with shampooing my hair for his own amusement, clear skies I can now fly within. I listen to pain—when I was a girl trying to glide from one tree to the next and smacked through the river’s surface, the way my heartbeat was so loud in my head when I held Atlas’s corpse.
This is unlike any sensation I’ve ever experienced, so I must be getting somewhere. I trust my instinct and grow my senses. I feel lost and found inside a space that’s warm and cool and everything and nothing. There are whispers invading my head and heart and clarity strikes me like lightning. As suddenly and oddly sure as I am that my own birth felt like being woken up by starlight, I know the person I’m hearing is Sera Córdova even though her voice is completely foreign to me. I have no idea what she’s saying, it’s as if she’s expecting me to read her lips that I can’t see, but something about this space bridging our bloodlines allows me to understand the emotions behind her words—there’s love, there’s panic, there’s sorrow, there’s defeat. Then finally relief.
I think I’m somewhere near the very edge of her death.
Thirty-Eight
The Sound of Skin
EMIL
I got to get to Bautista.
I visualize the gray and gold flames, trying to center myself, but it’s hard when I hear the fire already roaring around Brighton and Maribelle. The fear of disappointing Wyatt creeps up on me, but I got to push that thought out and keep my eye on the prize. I concentrate, heating up, and I bite down on my bottom lip to keep from screaming and ruining Brighton’s and Maribelle’s progress.
No, I got to stop. I cut out everyone else. I’m the only one in the room.
I train myself to believe that I could overheat like a supernova right now and no one else would die.
I’m trying to—no, I have to run with this faithfully. No doubts. I’m going to walk through Bautista’s life. I’m going to somehow find the right moment I need to learn the true names of the ingredients for the power-binding potions. I think about them all, memorized from all the time we’ve spent researching: burnt-berry, Shade Sea water, cumulus powder, feather-rock, ghost husk, crimson root, dry-tear, and grim-ash. Once I’m Bautista again, once I’m in his flesh and bones like I’m possessing him, I’m going to get all my answers. I’m going to bring his knowledge back with me, knowledge I would’ve been born with if Luna hadn’t killed me. No, him. No again.
I’m going to know everything I should know if Luna hadn’t killed us.
Someone whispers in my ear, but I can’t understand the words, even though my gut tells me it’s not some foreign language. It’s strange, but I almost feel like I can smell the words. They’re rank like some of the times at Nova when I didn’t brush my teeth because we were too busy strategizing how to stay alive or I was too depressed to care.
Man, this doesn’t make sense, but I swear I can hear gold. It’s heavy, but I wouldn’t compare it to an actual block of gold. The weight is like my gray and gold flames. But these flames aren’t mine. They’re Bautista’s and I can practically hear his skin, the way it must’ve panicked when those gold flames were first set alight, all those nerves hushing once it was clear that he can’t be harmed.
I’m feeling closer and closer, moving into his life—our life.
Bautista will be Emil, Bautista has become Emil, and Emil was Bautista.
