Infinity Reaper

by Adam Silvera

  “She got away—they both got away!”

  A spell narrowly misses her, and Maribelle turns to assess the danger. More enforcers trying to kill her. It’s clear she’s fed up when one eye glows like a sailing comet and the other burns like an eclipse. Dark yellow flames burst into life from her fists to her elbows, and she casts the fire toward the enforcers. She’s quick with a fire-arrow to the cauldron when Stanton, the basilisk specter, makes a move for the remaining elixir; all the Reaper’s Blood goes up in flames.

  “Hurry!” Prudencia shouts at Iris. Her power isn’t trained enough to keep fending off all this spellwork, and more enforcers are arriving on the scene with fully charged wands.

  Iris breaks the wall open with a mighty punch, creating a hole big enough for everyone to go through.

  “Gravesend,” Emil says weakly.

  “Gravesend is dead,” I say.

  “Don’t leave her.”

  Of course Emil cares about the corpse of a phoenix, like it really matters right now if someone takes Gravesend and makes a scarf out of her feathers. But as more spells fire our way, I take the lead and get Emil out of there. Iris sees me struggling and she carries Emil with ease straight into the back of her Jeep.

  “Where’s Eva?” I ask. Eva is Iris’s girlfriend, and a powerful celestial in her own right. Emil needs her healing powers fast.

  “Eva is Philadelphia-bound with your mother and others,” Iris says.

  “I have a connection at the Lynx facility,” Wesley says from outside the door. “We should be able to get discreet care.”

  Prudencia hops in the front passenger seat. “We need somewhere closer. He’s losing blood fast.”

  Wesley racks his brain. “Aldebaran! There’s good people at Aldebaran.”

  “Lead the way,” Iris says.

  Wesley dashes ahead on foot and Iris hits the gas, peeling off. I look out the rearview window and see Maribelle is gliding behind. I don’t know when she’s planning on coming back for Atlas’s car, which we used to arrive here tonight, and I don’t care. Emil’s eyes are closing, and I slap him awake.

  “Emil, come on. Bro, look at me.”

  I was so busy using up each charge in the wand that I didn’t see Luna gut my brother with that infinity-ender. If I were my own wand, my own walking weapon, I would’ve had unlimited power to handle business. Blood rushes to my head seeing Emil in this state. He’s not going to die. This is not how this ends.

  “I should’ve gotten here sooner.”

  Prudencia turns from her front seat. “You should’ve never left Nova. We had no idea if you were even alive.”

  “I was with Maribelle. She was cast out too.”

  “No one kicked you out, Brighton.”

  I look down at Emil.

  Prudencia shakes her head. “You’re not actually blaming your brother while he’s bleeding. Be better than that.”

  “But it’s true! He rejected me from joining the next mission. You too, Iris.”

  Iris remains focused on the road, swerving around cars to keep up with Wesley. “Don’t come for me when I’m doing my damn best to save your brother’s life.”

  “You should’ve taken the time to train me!”

  “Too busy saving the rest of the city,” Iris says.

  Life whizzes by out the window. People are on their porches and fire escapes staring up at the glorious Crowned Dreamer, even though authorities cautioned everyone to stay inside until it passed. Unlike basic constellations such as the Great Bear or the Hunter that only strengthen select powers, the Crowned Dreamer is a prime constellation that elevates all gleamcrafters, celestials, and specters alike. The media is making it sound like celestials are the problem tonight. It’s alchemists like Luna who need prime constellations like this one to turn people into specters.

  “I promise you’re no longer superior to me,” I say.

  “And I promise I’m not trying to win some pissing contest with you,” Iris says, steering left.

  There’s a question forming on Prudencia’s lips as she begins inspecting mine in the flashes of streetlight. “You didn’t . . . Brighton, you didn’t . . .”

  “Someone had to be brave,” I say.

  Prudencia looks like she might slap me. “Stop confusing recklessness with courage! That elixir can kill you!”

  I’m not going to let anyone talk to me like I’m some idiot, not even Pru. I know similar elixirs have been tested on people. As soon as the Crowned Dreamer rose on my eighteenth birthday, September 1, the Spell Walkers started tracking specters who were exhibiting powers from multiple creatures—a clear first. Emil’s powers manifested when we were fighting one.

  “It worked for the other specters,” I say.

  Prudencia’s gaze is uncomfortable. “Do you mean other specters like Orton, who literally burned to death on his own fire? Brighton, your father died because his blood couldn’t handle the hydra essence in him—”

  “I know why my father died!”

  “Then why are you playing with fire like this? This behavior is why Iris didn’t want you out on the battlefield! You think you’re so tough, but Emil is one of the strongest gleamcrafters on our side, and look at him!”

  “Imagine what I’ll be able to do once my powers kick in. Cast fire, walk through walls, regrow limbs, race through the streets. Fly! Maybe I’ll be able to possess people too and—”

  “The stars be damned, possessing people isn’t helping you look good. These powers aren’t yours to have. That elixir was created for Luna with her parents’ blood. There might be negative side effects. You’re so irresponsible—”

  “I don’t remember you giving Emil any of these talks!”

  “Emil didn’t choose to become a specter, and he is actively working to figure out how to bind these powers, whereas you’ve thrown yourself into a dangerous combination of gleam, one that might kill you.”

  I stay true to what I told Emil.

  I would rather die powerless than watch him doing everything I can’t.

  We pull into a parking lot, and Iris brakes so hard I have to steady Emil’s neck.

  The Aldebaran Center for Gleam Care is bright red and shaped like a ring. Out the window I see Wesley is at the entrance, sweating and taking deep breaths as he speaks with three practitioners. The practitioners rush to us, their midnight-blue cloaks swaying, and they gently carry Emil out of the car and onto a stretcher. I swear a couple of them are admiring him, like he’s some celebrity. The thing is, Emil has become a celebrity, especially to celestials, ever since he went viral multiple times. He’s lucky we’re not in a regular hospital, where the workers might handcuff him until enforcers could arrive to lock him up in the Bounds.

  Footsteps drop behind me out of nowhere—it’s Maribelle landing. She’s caught the eye of the female practitioner, who glares at her, which isn’t uncommon. Maribelle’s mother, Aurora, was the one caught on camera bombing the Nightlocke Conservatory, and since then, celestials have had a harder time living in peace. Still, with the way the practitioner is looking at her, you’d think Maribelle blew up the conservatory herself. The practitioner looks away, assessing everyone. Iris, Wesley, and Prudencia are already pretty beat—bleeding, dirty, bruising. I got off good, no one touched me; it’s like I’ve got phasing powers already. I was careful and more alert because being taken hostage by the Blood Casters one time was more than enough for me.

  I catch up to the practitioners who are handling Emil right as the elevator doors are closing.

  “Family only,” one practitioner says.

  “He’s my brother.”

  Damn right he’s quiet. If they know him, they should know me. Emil’s only been featured on my YouTube channel multiple times.

  They’ll all know me soon enough.

  The elevator rises to the top level, the fourteenth floor. The lights in the hallway are warm and bright, and it reminds me of being onstage delivering my salutatorian speech. I stumble, dizzy, but right myself. The practitioners w
heel Emil into a private room with white walls, wide windows, and most notably, a ceiling that is shuttered open, which is standard in most Gleam Cares so the night sky can heal and strengthen celestials—and specters too, but to a lesser degree.

  This practitioner is taking his sweet, sweet time cutting open Emil’s power-proof vest. I shout at him to hurry the hell up, that Emil was stabbed with an infinity-ender blade. Emil is white in the face, and I stay close, holding his hand, even when someone asks me to give them space because my brother has 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.

  Two

  Prisoner

  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 who could melt herself into a puddle from escaping. Her neighbor was a man who could camouflage himself against any surface, so the engineers installed sprinklers that sprayed paint of different colors to always keep track of him.

  The last person we visited that day was a convict in solitary confinement. He’d been imprisoned for using his heating powers to boil the blood of his family. The screams echoing through the corridors had me so nervous that I had stayed hidden behind my then-bodyguard, Logan Hesse. But when the security guard opened the cell, I realized I had no reason to be scared. The inmate’s hands and ankles and waist were bound by iron chains. He had no fight in him as we observed him like some animal in a zoo. The next day, the celestial was found dead in his cell, with red handprints burned onto his pale face. When the Senator told me the news, he mocked the dead man with an impression of his suicide. I laughed so hard before returning to schoolwork.

  I hate who I was.

  The boat docks at the pier.

  The island is known for having its traps, like sand basilisks waiting to swallow people whole, but when the Senator steps onto the beach before me, I trust that he knows more than I do right now. I’m weighing in my head if I’m ready for this steep climb with jagged rocks up to the prison when an older man walks out from a cluster of trees. The flashlight guiding his path illuminates his features and I recognize him instantly.

  He runs this island.

  Barrett Bishop is very pale, as if he only ever comes out at night. I last saw him the morning of the Blackout, and there are now more wrinkles around his eyes, and graying hair that stops at his shoulders. He’s dragging the maroon jacket for his three-piece suit because he doesn’t care about appearances as much as the Senator. The contrast has worked for them this election cycle. The Senator is the put-together candidate who is best qualified to serve as president, but Bishop’s everyman vibes paired with his experience as the chief architect of the Bounds have made him a dream choice for vice president. Their supporters cheer him on at every rally, even when he says the most dangerous things.

  “Edward,” Bishop says in
a hoarse voice, regarding the Senator. Then his icy-blue eyes turn to me. “You brought your ghost.”

  “I did indeed,” the Senator says.

  Bishop directs the flashlight toward my eyes, toying around with me like I’m some bored cat, before turning it off. “What are we doing with the ghost? Burying him deep in the Bounds?”

  “It’s his choice,” the Senator says.

  The little light spots fade, and Bishop’s grin suggests he wants to make me his personal prisoner. If I were locked up, leaving me in a cell to regret all my wrongs would be punishment enough. But the correctional architects who hate gleamcraft have to show their dominance. They have to prove to all of us, everywhere, that our powers can be beaten by ordinary means. They have dark imaginations and enough hate to go home at night without feeling absolutely inhuman.

  I once had that hate too.

  Following our visit to the Bounds, the Senator asked me how I would’ve punished the man who killed my mother if we’d ever tracked him down. The celestial had cast an illusion and tricked Mom into believing he was her friend before gutting her. I spent all day thinking over the question and during dinner I told the Senator that I would chain the celestial to a chair, bring in his family, and kill them all in front of him. No illusions. Only reality.

  “We can’t murder people,” the Senator had said.

  But that’s clearly a lie. He organized my death and pinned it on innocent celestials. The truth is that he can’t be caught with blood on his hands.

  So what’s my move?

  I hated being used by the Senator to spread messages to other young people that all celestials are dangers, but what he’s got planned for me now is even more extreme. Back on the boat he said he wants me to use my shifting abilities to impersonate Congresswoman Sunstar and her team to counter the support she’s being shown in the presidential race. I don’t know the exact details of the plan, but if there’s any chance of me posing as her somewhere in public, then I might be able to flee.