EMIL
On the way to pack, I wish I had more than scars and memories to remember Ness by. I should’ve taken him up on that amateur art. Maybe he would’ve painted two boys sitting closely together on the floor. But after seeing how Atlas was used against Maribelle, maybe it’s best if we don’t let anyone get to know our hearts.
I enter the room and almost bump into Prudencia.
“I was about to come find you,” she says. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I was . . . I was seeing Ness out.”
Ma is on my air mattress beside a stuffed duffel bag, and she stops folding a shirt. “He left?”
I nod. “How are you two?”
“We’re done,” Prudencia says. “But Brighton’s stuff isn’t here. No clothes, no bag, no laptop.”
He’s probably camping out in someone else’s room. “I’ll go find him.”
I put down the egg, and it glows brighter than before and begins hatching.
“It’s happening!”
The room gets warm. I can’t believe I’m about to witness the birth of a phoenix—especially a century phoenix. Brighton should be here for this once-in-a-lifetime experience, getting it on camera like I always wanted for him, but there’s no time to find him. The shell cracks on one side and within seconds, a bronze beak is hammering away, yawning a song of chaos. Then Gravesend breaks free from her egg with her crown of midnight-blue feathers and eyes as big and shiny as marbles.
“What a beauty,” I say as I scoop her up in one of my shirts. She’s as light and soft as a bouquet of flowers. Her war-hungry cries grow louder and louder as she squirms around my arms with one wing shielding her eyes from the light.
“She needs to be fed,” Ma says.
“Good luck making Gravesend vegan,” Prudencia says.
“Challenge accepted,” I joke, even though I know it’s not in her breed’s nature to eat anything but other animals. “I’ll see if there’s anything left in the kitchen and—”
Gravesend squirms more viciously, and her song chills my bones like when I’m walking through a bad neighborhood and can see shady characters watching me.
Then spellwork and screams echo in the hallway.
The Blood Casters are here for Gravesend.
“Turn off the lights and lock the door,” Ma says.
Was Gravesend warning us?
“We can’t stay here. Gravesend is too loud. Pru, get Ma somewhere safe.”
“You’re coming with us,” Prudencia says.
“I have to find Brighton.”
I can’t believe I’m doing this to Ma again, I can feel her heart breaking every time, but I’m not leaving without my brother. I peek out into the hallway, and a familiar blur is moving door to door, banging on each one.
Wesley appears before us, sweating and panting. “Enforcers. Enforcers are here. Get to the back and go past the fence. Cars will be waiting on the other side.”
“How did they—”
Wesley dashes off. How they found us doesn’t matter right now.
I hug Ma and Prudencia and tell them I’ll see them soon, then I run with Gravesend in my arms before they can stop me. I go for the roof first, shuddering whenever spellwork explodes, shaking the floors. I shout for Brighton, but he’s not up here. Over the ledge, I see six enforcer tanks parked by the front entrance. I rest Gravesend in the corner of the roof, praying to the stars this will be the safest spot to leave her while I hunt down Brighton. I kiss her forehead and rush back down. Her cries follow me the whole way.
The halls are crowded. In the chaos, I see an enforcer kick down one door. Then there’s a whistle, and the enforcer falls asleep on the spot, allowing that celestial Zachary and an elderly woman to escape. I burst into rooms, calling Brighton’s name and ushering stragglers out. I round the stairs when an enforcer hurls a citrine gem-grenade at me, and I’m quick and precise with a fire-dart. The grenade explodes midair, and the shock wave blasts the enforcer down the stairs. My wounds burn when I use my power, but I have to fight through it. I run to the lower level to find Eva healing that girl Grace, the one whose loud voice Maribelle hoped to use for security—like tonight. Once the colorful lights close the hole in Grace’s stomach, I guide them into an empty classroom.
“Eva, what’s going on?” I ask.
“They broke in. They must’ve gotten through our defenses, and our evacuation plans have all gone to hell without Atlas and Maribelle. I haven’t seen Iris. . . .”
“Wesley said there are cars in back, beyond the fence. Go there. I’ll send Iris your way if I find her.”
I can’t imagine Brighton would be in the music room right by the entrance, but if enforcers or anyone got their hands on him, maybe there will be some evidence that he was there in the first place, like his laptop or clothes. I cross paths with a duo of enforcers, dodging their spells that explode against the lockers behind me. Fire-darts take them out and I make it to the room. Everything is wrecked—sheet stands have fallen on their sides, holes have been blown through drums, and the piano has folded in on itself. But no sign of Brighton.
Where the hell is he?
I move for the back door that leads to the auditorium’s stage when someone shouts for me to freeze. I don’t know if it’s one enforcer or half a dozen, but I don’t move.
This is it for me. I hope Brighton is okay, that Prudencia and Ma escaped, that Ness got far away, that the Spell Walkers win, that I won’t be reborn into a world where Luna and the Blood Casters are living forever.
I brace myself when I hear a spell discharge. An enforcer blasts past me and slams into the wall, unconscious. I turn around to see my savior, expecting Iris, but it’s another enforcer who’s very muscular and taking deep breaths as gray light transforms him.
Ness.
“You’re back,” I breathe, and I feel so energized and strong, like I could fight every day for the rest of my life.
“I saw the tanks. I wasn’t fast enough to warn you, but I had to help.”
I crash into him with a hug and squeeze hard because everything is going wrong and he came back for me. “Brighton’s missing, and Gravesend is alive and crying on the roof, and I can’t do this alone.”
“I’m here. Let’s find your brother, grab Gravesend, and get the hell out of here.”
We run through the auditorium, where two celestials are dead onstage. Ness drags me away, reminding me to focus as if forgetting dead bodies is easy to put out of my mind. The celestials here are trying to live, even if that means holing themselves up in an abandoned school so they won’t be treated as threats to society. At the entrance to the cafeteria, Iris is deflecting spells with her fists as Eva guides a dozen familiar faces out the back. She’s alive and they found each other. Between Ness popping back up like he’s the firefly, I have hope for Brighton.
“Maybe he left already,” Ness says.
If Brighton and I were living that ultimate Reys of Light dream where we were unstoppable and had unlimited powers, we could reach out to each other telepathically to let each other know we’re good, that we’re alive, that we’re sorry for letting this war get in the way of our brotherhood. But since we can’t, I have to do this the painfully slow way and search room by room, even as this building is being blown apart by spells and gem-grenades.
Everything on the first floor is a bust and we’re doing one last sweep through the second when three enforcers pop out of Ness’s old supplies closet.
“There he is!”
I blast the ceiling lamps to slow them down and while we’re cloaked in darkness, we sneak into a classroom.
“I have an idea.” Ness takes a deep breath and begins morphing—his brown skin goes pale, he inches a little taller, his hair becomes curlier, and his face becomes mine.
“No.”
“They want you, right?” he asks, his voice unchanging. “I’ll lead them away from you while you check the last couple of rooms. But if Brighton isn’t here, you have to grab Gravesend and leave. Promise me.”
“No, this won’t work, I—”
“Promise me, firefly!”
I put my face in my hands as terror squeezes me and I nod a promise.
Doors are being kicked down nearby, and watching Ness boldly run while wearing my face feels a lot like watching myself being so unlike myself in Brighton’s videos. Spells light up the hallway as they pursue Ness and when the coast is clear, I check the remaining classrooms and closets, but Brighton isn’t here. Gravesend’s song has only gotten louder in these emptied halls and a figure steps out of the darkness—June.
Her face is bruised and covered in dried blood. She looks to the roof.
No.
I run, but she’s faster, fading in and out several feet at a time. She’s inches from me on the way up the steps, but when I lunge, she’s gone, and I fall hard on my chest. I force myself back up, and when I reach the roof, Gravesend is inside June’s arms. I run so fast I almost trip over myself, I have to get ahold of her, but June sinks through the floor, and Gravesend’s cries vanish.
“NO!”
I hold myself up by the ledge, and that’s when I see enforcers carrying Ness—unconscious and with no glamour. They load him into the back of an armored truck, and once it takes off, all the enforcers return to their tanks and follow, even though they never got me.
Except maybe they were never here for me. Maybe it’s Ness they wanted all along.
I don’t know how they knew he’s alive, but between losing him and Gravesend and not knowing where the hell Brighton is, I feel so lost.
My fiery gray and gold wings burst into life, painfully, and I leap over the edge, praying to the Crowned Dreamer above that my brother will be home waiting for me.