Infinity Reaper

to know that I’m here with him. Eva Nafisi could save Emil’s life in moments, but the Spell Walkers never bring her out into battle because losing the healer would be a great loss for us and a great gain for our many enemies. I’m relieved when the female practitioner reveals a moderate healing ability of her own. Her power isn’t as colorful as Eva’s, which glows like a rainbow, but the muted red lights are helping replenish Emil’s blood. Slowly, but surely. The only thing is she doesn’t seem to be strong enough to fully seal the cut. They might have to give him old-fashioned stitches.

I wish Emil and I could heal each other, power to power.

All this blood is making me light-headed. I should sit, have some water, but this reminds me too much of Dad dying. Emil didn’t want to fight, but I pushed him. The room spins when I think about Emil dying. He deserves to live; come on, this is someone who cares so much about making sure we don’t abandon a dead phoenix. The lights fixed on the wall are growing dimmer. I don’t feel the Crowned Dreamer working to make me more powerful, to keep me upright. My grip loosens around Emil’s hand and I stumble backward.

I once asked Dad what it felt like living with his blood poisoning. He said it was all over the place: body shivers, flushing skin, dizziness, vicious heartbeats. Sometimes his breath would shorten, like mine now, getting cut in half, then those halves cut in half, and the closest I can compare anything to this suffocation is when I had anxiety attacks over exams, or even worse, the ones when Dad would return home from hospital appointments with shorter life sentences.

I collapse, looking up at the fading Crowned Dreamer from the floor, and as my eyes close, I have that blood-and-bones feeling that the Reaper’s Blood isn’t going to make me immortal—it’s going to poison me to death.

TwoPrisoner

NESS

Who am I going to be? The Senator’s prisoner out in the world or one who’s locked up in the Bounds?

We’re below deck when the Senator invites me to get some air at the front of the ship to think over the big decision ahead of me. Between him punching me in the nose, getting shot with a stunning spell by enforcers hours ago, and the boat speeding toward the island, my balance is especially off as I go up the narrow stairway and step out onto the stern.

There are two men fully dressed in black outfits guarding the stairway, and neither pays me any attention, even though we know each other good and well. The Senator’s head of security, Jax Jann, has always reminded me of an Olympian swimmer with his stretched torso and long arms and legs. He has thick eyebrows and red hair that’s pulled into a ponytail. He’s the most impressive telekinetic I’ve ever seen; there’s no way any assassin will ever land a shot on the Senator as long as he’s around. The other, Zenon Ramsey, has dark blond hair that completely covers his eyes, which lulls people into thinking he’s not paying attention when in reality he’s watching more than most. He has the rare ability to see things through other people’s perspectives—literally. I’ve heard it only works on people in a short distance, but that’s all he needs to be a security guard for a two-mile radius.

The Senator has always employed celestials to protect our family, and having celestial bodyguards when he’s actively campaigning against the community always felt like a special sort of magic trick until I learned how well they were being paid to keep him alive. That’s more than I can say for being a Blood Caster who was working to make Luna immortal. What is shocking to me is how Jax and Zenon regarded me like I wasn’t supposed to have been blown to smithereens at the Nightlocke Conservatory.

How many others know that the Senator tried to have his own son killed so he could paint the Spell Walkers as dangers to society?

Even if there was some way I could take down Jax and Zenon and get away on a life raft, a piercing screech high above in the sky tells me that I wouldn’t get very far. A phoenix that is four times the size of an eagle swoops down toward the river, its crystal-blue belly skimming the surface as it searches for any intruders or escapees. This phoenix with drenched indigo feathers is a sky swimmer, which I can identify because the Senator once returned home from a hunting trip with the head of one; it might still be mounted in his office at the manor.

“Quite a sight,” the Senator says as he follows me to the bow of the ship.

At first I think he’s talking about the sky swimmer, but he’s staring straight ahead at our destination. The New York Bounds is a collection of small stone castles, huddled together like someone pushed all the rooks of a chessboard together. The towers are windowless, designed that way so inmates will be disconnected from the stars, dampening their abilities. Solitary confinement is the cruelest punishment, burying celestials so deep underground that it’s as if all the stars have vanished from the universe.

I’ve seen this up front.

The Senator brought me here after my mother was killed.

We toured the Bounds so I could understand the creative measures that the prison’s correctional architects had to put in place to seal away their powerful inmates. On one level, there were two men floating inside tanks of water, with only their heads above the surface so they could breathe and eat; their waste was their own problem. The fire caster couldn’t summon his gleam at all, and if the lightning striker wanted to make a move, well, that was his life to take. On another level, electric traps were installed around the edges of a cell to prevent a woman