Home > Infinity Reaper (Infinity Cycle #2)(6)

Infinity Reaper (Infinity Cycle #2)(6)
Author: Adam Silvera

“Oh yeah, like he didn’t have his own risks. Like how his own father didn’t survive having hydra essence in him, or how Luna prepared this elixir with blood from her parents’ ghosts, or how it was all untested and he knew all of this, but he did it anyway!”

She’s hyperventilating, and it reminds me of the many days following the deaths of my parents, when I would cry and scream so hard that Atlas and Iris and the others couldn’t even understand what I was trying to say.

“He’s going to die,” Prudencia says.

“Maybe. Gleamcrafters are not promised the luxury of time. You should’ve understood that already from losing your parents.”

She stands. “What are you talking about?”

“I never kept secrets from Atlas. You had your reasons for not telling Brighton you’re a celestial, I get it. But how do you think he felt when you trusted Iris, an absolute stranger, with your big secret before you trusted him?”

“I never wanted to be exploited by him. Look at the way he was using Emil to boost his own status and fame. And Brighton and I are different than you and Atlas.”

“I was open with the person I love and you weren’t.”

Prudencia rolls her eyes. “You don’t know me.”

“You went on missions involving dangerous people, knowing that you may even have to expose your telekinesis, to keep Brighton alive.”

“And keep Emil alive!” She’s shaking. This anger would be useful against the Blood Casters if she ever wanted to get serious.

“Can you honestly say that you would’ve gone on all these missions where you knew that Emil was being protected by Spell Walkers if Brighton wasn’t there?”

Prudencia takes a deep breath. There are words on the tip of her tongue, but she keeps them to herself and walks away. Hiding from her truth seems to be her signature.

If Wesley hadn’t pulled me away from June, I would invite him to go with me to pick up Atlas’s car. But I’m pissed, so I head down the stairs to avoid him and Iris, and once I’m outside, I jump into the air and glide through the shadows of the night with the wind in my ears.

It doesn’t take too long to arrive at the church. I’m careful because there is still one enforcer tank parked out front, with an ambulance truck and police cars nearby. The body bags with dead acolytes should be brought out soon enough. Police officers are taking statements and I wonder if the eyewitnesses are exaggerating details about what happened like so many have in the past.

I unlock Atlas’s car, but before I make my way back to Aldebaran for updates on Brighton, I open the storage compartment and pull out the wine bottle that’s holding Atlas’s ashes. I cremated him myself with the power that manifested after his death; I’ll die before I let a poet get their hands on that story.

I’m not an expert on ghosts. It’s not an enemy force we’ve crossed swords with before, and I grew up knowing just the obvious details, like how ghosts can only appear under night skies and how they only wander the world if they were violently murdered. But I learned something valuable because of Luna’s ritual. An alchemist proficient in necromancy can summon a wandering ghost; they just need something of the person from when they were alive and the presence of the person who killed them. It doesn’t seem cosmically fair to the ghosts, but if there’s one bright side to June possessing me when she shot Atlas in the heart with a spell, it’s that I should count as his killer too.

But first I’ll kill June and avenge him.

I press Atlas’s ashes against my heart, daydreaming of the night when I get to summon his ghost and peacefully send him off into the stars.

 

 

Four


Nightmare


EMIL

My brother is a nightmare.

The streets are crowded with enforcers casting spells into the night as their tanks blaze in gold fire. Brighton has flown higher than every building around him, and he freezes in the air, admiring his chaos. He has three heads with eyes as dark as black holes, and streams of phoenix fire are flowing from the palms of his six hands. I fly into the air to tackle him, to get him to stop, but he’s untouchable. I go through him like he’s made of air. I float in front of his face, begging him to stop, and there’s nothing but cruel laughter echoing from all three of his heads. The city is his to destroy. Finally, when I’m brave enough to stop my brother and conjure fire of my own, Brighton unleashes an inferno toward me and—

I snap awake, groaning and panting.

My brother was a nightmare. That’s all. It was all a nightmare. Brighton wouldn’t ever go dark like that. It’s all in my head.

I remember pieces of conversation, of an argument between Brighton and Prudencia, but neither of them are with me now. I’m alone in a room with bright white walls and lights that hurt my eyes, so I shift to the see-through ceiling and stare out into the night sky. I don’t know what time it is, or even what day it is, but I don’t see the Crowned Dreamer or its glow stretched across the darkness. Not even a single star in sight. This constellation is rare and won’t return to the sky until I’m an old man, assuming I get to live that long. Maybe my next life will see it, or the one after that, or however many lives I get to have before someone gets me good with an infinity-ender.

This bed I’m in is too firm, and I’m hot, so I remove the sheet and realize I’m shirtless. There’s dried blood around my stomach from where Luna stabbed me. The wound is closed, but it looks odd, like discolored, stretched-out skin; someone’s healed me. But I don’t think it was Eva. Eva’s power seals all open wounds in ways that you have to look twice to tell that work was even done in the first place. She also absorbs all the pain, and I still feel this dull pounding and sharp twinges. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that someone kept me alive. I’m just appreciating how good we have it with a powerful healer like Eva on our side.

Surrounding the gash are the scars from when Ness sliced me to trick Luna and the Blood Casters into believing he was still loyal to their gang. I don’t think these will ever fully heal. But Ness did this to save my life, and even when he finally had the chance to run away into anonymity, he returned to Nova when we were under attack to save me again. Then he got taken captive by enforcers, and I doubt he escaped. He’s probably dead somewhere, even though I’m not worth dying for.

There’s a gentle knock at the door. I look up to see a short practitioner with freckles dotting her face and curly red hair flowing over the shoulders of her midnight-blue cloak. Her electric-green eyes widen when she sees me staring back at her. “Emil Rey,” she says with a hint of motherly pride. “I’m Dr. Bowes. It’s an honor to have been part of the team that—that—that, uh, that worked on you.” Her cheeks are flushed and she’s shaking her head as if she wants to leave the room and come back in to restart this entire interaction.

“Hi, thanks . . .” These first words aren’t much, but they’re rough against my throat.

“Relax,” Dr. Bowes says as she hands me a cup of water, and I drink from the metal straw.

She asks me a series of questions, and I answer everything in as few words as possible: I rate the pain seven out of ten; I’d like the lights dimmed; I’m starving and vegan; I’m exhausted. She dims the lights and puts in a request for someone to prepare a meal for me. I bring the blanket over my chest again. The last time my scrawny body was exposed was when Ness was washing the cuts he inflicted on me, and he did all of that with his eyes closed because he knows I’m struggling with how I look, even with everything else I got going on. I can tell Dr. Bowes senses my discomfort because she helps me into some patient-wear—mustard yellow with black stars—and that’s one less thing on my mind.

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)
» The War of Two Queens (Blood and Ash #4)