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 time in bed, eyes closed to black him out. It’s a good thing he can’t see into my head, I guess.