“Brighton isn’t supposed to be a specter,” Prudencia says.
Well, no one is supposed to be a specter. Myself included. But Emil’s ambitions to create the power-binding potion Bautista and Sera were working on before they died feels like an impossible task. It may not be easy to get an experienced alchemist to turn someone into a specter, but that task isn’t as daunting as reverting every specter back into an ordinary person. That star has long fallen out of sight, as the old proverb goes.
“Brighton made his choice,” I say.
“And you chose to help him, which makes me want to send you flying through the wall . . . but I also know Brighton. Even if you didn’t help him, he would’ve shown up. If anything, you kept him alive.” Prudencia stares straight ahead at the opposite wall, which has a calming poster of celestials running on water. I can’t imagine it’s having any positive effect on her right now. “What was his reasoning for drinking the Reaper’s Blood?” she asks.
When Brighton first presented his plan, I could see through what some people, even Prudencia, probably mistake as charm. “He said he had to be the one to drink it. He said it would be too risky for me since we don’t know enough about the blood type of someone who inherited both celestial and specter properties.”
“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.
FourNightmare
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
