Infinity Reaper

by Adam Silvera

  Never in my life did I feel more special than when Luna taught me to shift. I was so dazzled by her praise that I couldn’t see how she can transform without any gray lights.

  I get up from the bed and sit at my desk. “Hopefully your next Blood Caster cooperates. Yeah, Dione told me what you were up to the night of the constellation; I’m not the only big mouth.”

  Luna turns to the doorway. “I’ll be sure to have a word with her,” she says, and then her green eyes land on me again. “It’s unclear how much time I have left in this world, but I know that time isn’t best spent nurturing new specters. I was using the Cloaked Phantom to fulfill a favor. Your father and I could only dream of creating a replacement for you since I’ve never met a single person—celestial or specter—who could transform into another as faithfully as you have. Recruiting another could be manageable for jobs with low stakes, but not changing the world as we’re asking of you.”

  I would rather be fired from this job instead of staying on as their top employee. “Now that I’ve dressed up as Eva and Carolina for the Senator, I take it you’re going to have me pose as the Spell Walkers next?”

  “It was an idea, but then the Spell Walkers will piece together that you’re alive and potentially find proof and methods to discredit your father’s campaign. The same precautions are in place from when you would go undercover for me—never impersonate someone who will have a credible alibi. Eva and Carolina won’t as long as they stay within our reach.” Luna coughs, violently, and I fight back these old instincts to help her. “But when the time is right, you may get to wear your lover’s face for us.”

  A chill shoots up my spine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I strung together the most groundbreaking alchemical formula since Keon Máximo discovered how to give humans the power of creatures. Do not mistake me for a fool who can’t see young love.” Luna might get that haughty smile knocked off her face if she isn’t careful. “It must’ve been painful when you carved into him like he was nothing but roasted meat. How much harm do you think would befall him if everyone knew the truth about who he is? About who he was?”

  It’s my understanding that a lot of people grieved Bautista de León. There were so many memorials for him across the country, even fans across the world were impacted by his death too. But there were many that celebrated this news. And then there’s every living soul who hates specters with their entire being who would take to the streets if they could pin all their anger on Emil. They wouldn’t even care that Emil doesn’t have a single memory from those lives, or that he’s his own person who would never do what Keon Máximo did. He could become the most hunted person alive.

  I’ve hurt Emil enough for one lifetime. I can’t let others know about all of his.

  “Why hasn’t the Senator used this yet to villainize Emil?”

  Luna grins. “As I told you, I only reveal my secrets when they benefit me. I have given Iron a blueprint to success that stands strong without him knowing that resurrection is possible.”

  “Why do you still care about keeping secrets? You’re dying. Set the world on fire.”

  “You spent the better part of this year under my care, and you still think I’m nothing but a match. There has been a lot of death, I would never deny that, but I have always been in pursuit of resurrection and immortality—of life in all forms. Out of the hundreds of alchemists across the globe, I’d wager only dozens are worth anyone’s time, and for the most part, we have failed humanity. No one has figured out how to cure the common cold, cancers, deadly infections, blood illnesses such as mine.” There’s color in her cheeks, but she still looks the weakest I’ve ever seen her. “Some have bought time, but never all of it,” she adds with a sadness.

  Her illness, haimashadow, is simply described as a sickness that blocks life. There’s no known cure, though Luna was always hoping the Reaper’s Blood could regenerate her arteries and make them good as new.

  “If you care so much about the world, Luna, maybe you should’ve spent more time trying to protect those in it.”

  “I don’t have to care for those who won’t mourn me.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt you to be more selfless,” I say. She could’ve learned a lot from Emil if she weren’t more interested in torturing him.

  “There is nothing wrong with being selfish. You’re allowed to have an agenda born out of your own need—fame, love, security, power, revenge. For some, it’s all those and more.”

  It seems really greedy, but I’ve wanted all of these things too. There’s been a lot of privilege in being a politician’s son with my own bodyguard and living in a manor with a panic room. Not to mention all the financial security we’ve had. I dreamed of trading convention stages for the ones on Broadway and theaters across the country. Red carpets, press junkets, popping into drama schools to share my wisdom. I was looking forward to getting older and discovering the power of my own choices, but instead I’m wondering how I can get my revenge on the Senator and Luna, who stole my free will with manipulation and threats. And there’s love, which maybe starts with running into a building to save someone when you’re finally free to become yourself.

  “I see it in your eyes that you don’t disagree,” Luna says.

  Even though I swear I’m masking my emotions, she still sees through me.

  “What’s your point?” I ask.

  “That it became clear to me ages ago that I wouldn’t achieve dominion over life and death in an average life span. It takes alchemists decades to master their craft, and even supreme ones such as Keon and myself were advanced thanks to the works left behind by those before us. Loss has put me on my journey, but don’t you think it would be a great sadness to rebuild the world and not live in it? That doesn’t seem fair at all.”

  “And it doesn’t serve you,” I mock.

  She’s stone-faced. “It does not. What I want most in this world is my dear sister, Raine, to be more than ashes in an urn. I have gone through incredible, unnatural lengths to bring her back to life, and despite my many breakthroughs and discoveries, I needed more time to solve the puzzle of true resurrection, which the Reaper’s Blood would’ve afforded me.”

  She’ll die before I apologize.

  “For the longest time, I carried many regrets. There were opportunities to claim powers of my own, especially when I was young enough that it wouldn’t pose the great risks to me that we’ve seen with those who are older, but the dawn of specters was still new. Their powers may be extraordinary, but above all, specters are still mortal; even my miracle June won’t live on forever. Thankfully, I didn’t make any rash decisions, since there’s nothing to suggest that phoenix blood on its own would’ve brought me back as I am, and we’ve seen that to be true with Keon and his scions. The creation of immortality always meant playing the long game, and I’ve done just that, from working alongside Keon to nurturing my marriage to empowering all of you Blood Casters.”

  “I didn’t know you were married.” Before she can say anything, I add, “I get it. It wasn’t my business.”

  Luna’s smile is interrupted by another cough, blood painting her palm. She wipes it on her crimson cloak, not bothering with a handkerchief. “Once Keon was killed by the Halo Knights and didn’t resurrect, I believed him dead and sought out other ways to get closer to death. There were quintuplets in Colombia, all brothers haunted by their deathlike powers.”

  I prop my elbow on my desk, finding myself pulled into this story that feels like a fairy tale. The eldest brother, Fabian, could hear and understand ghosts, but was so tormented by their pleas that he took his own life. Mattias’s howls grew to be so piercing that an entire town’s combusted brains traced back to him. Santiago secluded himself to avoid his visions of imminent deaths. Álvaro could smell someone’s bones and blood and predict how much time they had left. And the youngest was Davian, whose touch was so deadly that his mother died from childbirth.

  “Santiago was the last living brothe
r when I arrived in Colombia, and while I would’ve loved to work with Fabian and his direct line to ghosts, I arrived at Santiago’s house with promises of helping control his power so he could return to the world,” Luna says proudly, and as someone who agreed to shifting powers for the same dream, I’m not surprised that he embraced her. “I gained his trust, and he welcomed me into his home and heart. I was given everything after our marriage—the family’s estate, their darkest secrets, even a child with great potential who is no more. I don’t consider myself superstitious, but even I would say that family was cursed.”

  I’m wrapping my head around how she was a wife and mother and I never knew any of this. I can morph into her and capture the exact shade of green in her eyes and the cracks in her lips and the wrinkles in her neck and the dark red tongue from her daily tonics. But that’s all surface. I can’t ever imitate the shadowy heart inside her.

  “Did Santiago take his own life like his brother?”

  “No, I gave myself the honor of killing him. I took great joy in watching his eyes glow as he foresaw the death I planned for him, and how powerless he was to stop it.”

  I can’t even pretend this is shocking. This is the same woman who murdered her parents when she was young. It all tracks. “Sounds like he didn’t serve you.”

  “He gave me a child, and through that, I learned how to nurture those with powers. The Blood Casters were born years later.”

  “Thanks for the history lesson. It’s great to know you’ve always been this horrible.”

  Luna lets out a little laugh. “You once believed me to be the lesser evil—that your father was an even more dangerous criminal. You wondered about your next assignment. I’ll have you know that you’ll be impersonating Nicolette Sunstar in the upcoming debate. The plan is quite diabolical, designed by yours truly. But I am simply buying time until I can make my next move, and when I can, I’m hoping that these personal confessions of my past will have regained your trust. I don’t have any family left, though I consider you mine.”

  I don’t want to show my anger, but there’s no face I can hide behind. “You would have more family if you didn’t kill everyone off.”

  She inhales a deep breath as she rises from the bed and makes her way to the door. “You don’t—”

  “Shut up! You think you’re some manipulation mastermind and bragging about using others, as if the Senator isn’t using you right back.”

  I expect her to call for Stanton to punish me for lashing out like this, then I remember that he’s not in the picture and she’s in my house and she doesn’t hold full power over me anymore. Luna grins, like she’s proud that I’ve stood up to her.

  “It’s true that no matter how calculating one can be in a round of chess, the queen can still be overtaken by an unsuspecting force. But the game continues as long as the king stands, and a pawn may cross to the other side of the board, stronger than before. What I’m asking of you, darling Ness, is if you are on my side when I return to power or an enemy to be conquered?”

  Thirty-Five

  Morning Nox

  EMIL

  The only thing better than falling asleep to phoenix song is waking up to it.

  I’ve been so haunted by the sound of Gravesend’s final cries, it straight rings through my bones, but this morning I’m gifted new sounds as phoenixes call out to each other before taking to the sky. A phoenix’s cycle is life and death, but the past twenty-four hours have been the first time ever I’m getting to see so many of them live. Mad love to Brighton and Prudencia for giving me the bed by the window so I can experience all these sights. Sunlight creeps onto me as a common ivory flies past, so close that I could’ve brushed its silvery tailfeather.

  I wish every day could start like this. But today we may prove Wyatt’s theory nonsense, and then the Halo Knights will kick us out of the Sanctuary.

  I’m going to make the most of this while I can. I sneak out while Bright and Pru are still sleeping, her arms wrapped around him. I greet a Halo Knight good morning, but she continues extinguishing the lit sconces without a word to me. I’m trying not to take it personally. Part of me wants to tell them all that I didn’t actually choose this life for myself, but maybe I’m better off this way, instead of them knowing I used to be their number one enemy, the guy whose work has caused great devastation to all creatures, including the phoenixes the Haloes care for.

  I keep my eyes low until I get to the courtyard. I hang out under the shade of an apple tree because the sun is really going for it up on these mountains. Watching these phoenixes in the sky makes me wish I could’ve shared this experience with Ma and Dad. For our tenth birthday, I got a blue kite shaped like a phoenix, and Brighton took pictures of me flying it around on his new camera. I badly wish I could retrocycle to that day—the four of us stretched out on the picnic blanket Abuelita sewed for us, eating arroz con gandules and tostones with garlic and playing Uno in the park until we couldn’t stand the bugs anymore.

  Wind picks up behind me, and there’s a quiet thud. I turn, expecting to find a fallen apple, but there’s an obsidian phoenix staring at me with pitch-black eyes. His cabbage breath blows my way and I’m frozen in place until Wyatt dismounts Nox. Then I’m stuck for other reasons. Wyatt’s muscular thighs are tight against his shorts. His gray mesh crop top reveals abs that are paler than his toned arms; I guess his abs don’t get as much sun as the rest of his body. He’s sweating all over, and the white headband holding back his brown hair seems to have soaked up some of it.

  “Snuck up on you,” Wyatt says.

  “Yeah. Nox is quiet.”

  “Crucial for a tracker.”

  “Were you tracking me?”

  Wyatt sits on the grass. “Nox and I always begin our days with a flight. The sun can be bloody blistering, but he’s a cranky bird if he doesn’t have it his way. I spotted you walking toward this here tree when returning, but I’d be more than pleased to personally seek you out next time.”

  The way he can hold a gaze makes me so nervous.

  “So is the heat why you’re wearing that?”

  “You noticed, yeah?” Wyatt’s closed-lip smile is a turn-on even during questionable times, I can’t lie. “Here’s the business, love. Our signature cactus-leather jackets with phoenix feathers are beautiful, true works of art, I’d never deny that. But it’s absurd to wear them when the sun is high. The mesh tops are winners—they’re stylish, they’re flexible, they’re breezy. I’m thinking about getting some matching shorts so the lads can breathe.”

  He looks down at his crotch proudly.

  “I don’t see anything,” I say.

  Wyatt’s jaw drops and he holds his hand to his heart. “Ah, sweet Emil has died and an arsehole rises from the ashes. Interesting, interesting. Perhaps I should strip down so you can see for yourself.”

  I definitely walked right into that one. “Nah, you’re good.”

  “You sure? I love being naked, and I wouldn’t mind seeing you wear my clothes. I bet you’d look bangin’ in all of this yourself.”

  A mesh crop top is pretty high up on the list of clothes no one will catch me wearing. I’m not trying to make my bones and scars more visible. But Wyatt’s flirting takes me back to that art supplies room with Ness. I remember the smell of paint and paper, how hot I got when he said he believed my body would be as solid as my face, how safe I felt when his hands were roaming around me to clean my wounds, and how close I was to asking him to open his eyes so he could see me. And now he never will.

  “Are you okay?” Wyatt asks.

  “What? Yeah, yeah.”

  “You seemed to be in a pretty sad trance. I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

  “No, you’re fine.” I don’t want to get into it right now. I’m associated with enough death as it is. “I’m just taking in the Sanctuary while I can. I’m sure we’ll have to bounce once we fail at retrocycling.” He doesn’t deny it. The pressure to get it right so I can stay here longer has only grown. “It would no
doubt be my favorite power if it worked for my own lifetime. I’d use it to see my parents together again, even one more time.”

  Brighton’s got it good if his powers can carry him back to Dad’s life. He spent last night talking about how great it would be to see our parents when they first met and even experience all their highs and lows. He was very clear that he would avoid any moment that looked even slightly intimate because he doesn’t want to be scarred for life. Prudencia must’ve nudged him while my back was turned or something because he seemed to come to his senses and remember that I can’t witness anything from Ma and Dad.

  “No one knows for sure whether you can go back through your present life,” Wyatt says. “But I agree it seems unlikely, since the purpose of that ability seems to be to hop back to a previous life.”

  “Brighton swears that something being unlikely doesn’t make it impossible.”

  “That’s the smartest thing to come out of his mouth. Well, his mouth through your mouth. That all sounds terribly awkward.”

  “Yeah, go back in time and undo the hell out of that one, please,” I say with a laugh. “Actually, if you could go back in time, is there a particular moment you have in mind?”

  “Ah. Love this question.”

  Wyatt mutters different ideas, but he clearly won’t commit to any of them. I personally want to know more about his favorite book, which he wants to go back and witness himself finishing for the first time. “It feels like cheating, but I’m most keen on moments with Nox. I’m not even saying that because he’s right here,” he adds with a smile. Nox eats an apple off the tree, paying us no mind. “One possibility: I was struck for days after we first flew together. It was honestly better than sex, and let there be no doubts that I’ve had loads of great sex.”

  It’s definitely not a plot twist that Wyatt has been busy. I wonder if he’s hinting at something with a committed partner or casual encounters. Maybe a combo of the two. He’s what, also eighteen? Nineteen? Twenty? He’s definitely living up his life more than I am. I can only imagine what my situation would look like if I had even a tenth of his confidence.