EMIL
The train’s air conditioner shutting down sucks in this September heat, but for once the train is getting me to the Museum of Natural Creatures early enough that I can linger a little before my shift begins. My back is sweating by the time I enter the cool indoors. It’s all good—my body is hidden thanks to the baggy work polo I ordered one size larger. I check my bag through security and throw on my name tag, stealing a second to marvel at the massive coal-black fossils of a primordial dragon suspended from the starlit ceiling. It sucks that I’ll never get to see a dragon in my lifetime, but it’s probably for the best they’re all extinct so we don’t have to worry about alchemists getting their hands on dragon blood. The way people are hunting down living creatures for power, it won’t be surprising if they’re all history soon.
I cut through the Ever-Changing Chamber, which doesn’t live up to its name anymore due to the museum’s budget being slashed, so I’m still caught up on July’s rotation of shifter art. I completely avoid the dark and chilly Hall of Basilisks, because no thanks. I had to brave it on my first day, and that was enough. I have not been about that serpent life since our sixth-grade field trip to the zoo, when this blind basilisk lunged at the barrier hoping to swallow me whole with its fanged mouth.
I reach the forked path where one stairwell leads downstairs and the other up, which during orientation I learned was intentional out of respect for the long-standing war between hydras and phoenixes, who seem magnetized to eliminate each other. The Hydra House downstairs starts off pretty innocent, with illustrations of hydras being tamed by fishermen to catch fish and ward off bigger sea animals, but it gets progressively scarier the deeper you venture. The last room shows footage of a territorial fight between a hydra horde and a cycle of phoenixes. I was speechless and heartbroken when I first saw the clip of a massive, seven-headed hydra biting phoenixes out of the sky and swallowing them whole.
Another room I haven’t returned to since.
I race up the spiral steps to my happy place, the Sunroom. Above the entrance is a stained-glass window of an egg and phoenix connected by a ring of fire. For our thirteenth birthday, Ma brought us to this exhibit. Brighton was into it just fine, but he got impatient quick as I stopped to read every card—I wasn’t a fast reader then, and I’m still not today—and I posed for pictures in front of every display in case I never got to come back.
The Sunroom has it all: flutes that mimic the music of a phoenix cry to train and communicate; wooden and iron crossbows shaped like wings; fans made from green and blue feathers; ceremonial candlesticks for believers praying to phoenix fire for renewal when loved ones pass; eggshells ranging in size and color and texture; an hourglass with ashes inside; clay masks with massive beaks and leather jackets with feathered sleeves, close to the ones still worn by the Halo Knights today; dried tears fossilized; a row of ender-blades with bone hilts that are charred black and serrated blades as yellow as the hydra blood they’ve been cruelly forged from, designed to snuff out a phoenix and keep it from ever resurrecting.
“Excuse me,” someone says in an English accent, which is no doubt my favorite accent. My chest tightens. I turn to find a young, beautiful guy with pale and freckled skin, stubble, messy red hair, and the kind of New York T-shirt someone only wears if they’re a tourist or lost a bet. He points at my name tag. “You work here, yeah?”
“Yup.” My face warms up and I wish I could turn invisible to hide my blushing cheeks. “You need help?”
“What time are the group tours?”
“Start of every hour.”
The guy checks his watch. “I have a show to catch at half eleven. Would you mind giving me a brief tour? Promise I won’t ask too many questions.”
With a voice like that, I want to hear all his questions. I got ten minutes before my shift officially starts, and man, I have no problem working a little earlier to hang out with him. “I could show you around. You with anyone else?”
“No.” He extends his hand, which I eagerly shake. “Charlie.”
I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m far from a know-it-all like Brighton, who always has answers, but this is one of the rare times when I have tons myself. I fight back against the thought that my fitted jeans and favorite brown boots from Goodwill don’t make me look as good as I usually swear they do. I don’t even care that Charlie doesn’t appear to live here—that’s what FaceTime is for.
“So what do you want to know?”
“I didn’t realize there are so many phoenixes,” Charlie says, running his hand through his hair like I’ve seen countless models do online.
“Tons of phoenixes,” I say, while wondering if I would compare the green in Charlie’s eyes to emeralds or trees in spring. I’m fantasizing about staying up late with Charlie on the phone to hear more of his voice when I remember I’m supposed to be doing the talking here, like a tour guide who has his act together. “Check this out.” I point at the suspended phoenix models above us. “There are dozens of breeds, and the curator, Kirk Bennett, highlighted some of the more popular ones for our guests. Walking through here with the phoenixes above me is one of my favorite things.”
“Can you tell me about them?” Charlie asks.
“My favorite things?” I don’t know where to start.
“The phoenixes,” Charlie says with a smile.
I’m suddenly extra warm, but I’m not standing underneath the sunbeams filtering through the skylight. I recover, pointing at each phoenix like a star and telling their stories like a constellation: the crowned elders, who are born old; sky swimmers, who live underneath water and can set an ocean on fire with their cerulean flames; century phoenixes, who only spawn every hundred years; obsidians with their glittering black feathers and eyes so dark I once thought they’d been hollowed out; breath spawns, who dive into battle like missiles and explode against their enemies, resurrecting moments later in fields of ash; blaze tempests, who conjure the fiercest storms with massive wings, three times as large as their tiny bodies. I stop to catch my breath after telling him about the sun swallowers, who breathe the hottest fire, but also burn out fastest of any breed.
“Amazing,” Charlie says. He wanders over to the replica of one of history’s most famous phoenixes. The gray sun phoenix is propped on a bronze perch. It has pearl eyes, a gray belly, dark tail, yellow wings, and a gold crown. In front of the model are pictures of the specters Keon Máximo and Bautista de León. “Sort something out for me. I read about the queen slayers that used to claw dragons in the eyes—now that’s a real phoenix! Why did these men bother with the gray suns?”
Yo, it’s like everything I found attractive about Charlie has been sucked away: his English accent is no longer music to my ears, his green eyes are not worth poetry, and dude needs to make a decision between growing out his beard or shaving because stubble is not the look.
“No one should harm innocent creatures for any reason,” I say defensively, but I’m unable to look him in the eye. “You’re also super underestimating the gray suns. Every time they’re reborn they come back with stronger fire and sharper instincts. Gray suns are good for a fight, but they aren’t weapons. They’re so . . . good-hearted, and they rescue wounded travelers in the wild and protect all animals and creatures.”
“These thugs killed them anyway,” Charlie says. “Why?”
I stare at the gritty photo of Keon Máximo, the alchemist who transformed into the very first specter. Keon’s piercing slate eyes are gazing to his left as he bites down on his thin bottom lip, and his ashy blond hair flows underneath his hooded cape.
Before I can try to answer, a voice behind me says, “Keon Máximo is responsible for this chaos.” Kirk Bennett is in his early thirties, and he’s got a brilliant mind. I wish he could take me under his wing. My eyes are drawn to the bright blue sky swimmers tattooed on his pale wrist as he continues to speak emphatically with his hands. “No one knows Keon’s motive, but historians believe the explanation to be simple—he wanted power.”
“You lot lucked out when this man stepped in,” Charlie says.
He points at the picture of Bautista de León: buzz cut, brown eyes, a shadow of a beard, and the original Spell Walker power-proof vest, which has the insignia sprayed on the chest like graffiti.
“His history is complicated because unfortunately we don’t possess direct answers,” Kirk says. “Some believe Bautista to be a hero, because while he was alive, he kept the threat of specters in check. Others point to the fact that by nature, as a specter himself, he couldn’t be a hero and was simply someone eliminating the competition so he could rule the city. Whether or not there’s any truth to Bautista sourcing his powers from a gray sun phoenix who had already been cut by a hunter’s infinity-ender, communities are still outraged that he perpetuated the cycle of creatures being killed for one person’s benefit.”
“They don’t even get all the powers,” Charlie says. “These men were never reborn, yeah?”
Kirk shakes his head. “Thankfully not. Phoenixes resurrect at different rates, of course, but no specter with their blood has ever reappeared. It would be a tragedy for phoenixes everywhere if their resurrection proved successful among humans.” He looks up at me with his thick frames. “Shouldn’t you be clocking in?”
“I thought you were working,” Charlie says to me.
“Have a great day,” I say, just to be on my professional flow, but I keep my eyes low as I head out.
Working up here in the Sunroom is the dream, but I go down the next set of stairs and walk inside the gift shop, where I actually make my money. One afternoon when I was visiting the Sunroom as a guest, sketching the suspended phoenixes, Kirk complimented my art, and I expressed how much I wanted to be a tour guide here one day. Kirk returned shortly with an application. I thought it was to work with him, but nope, just an opening in the gift shop. Wasn’t what I wanted, but it was a foot in the door.
My coworker, Sergei, is working the cash register. My anxiety spikes as he side-eyes me, and I pick at my cuticles before clocking in and taking over the register so he can handle some business in the office. The shop is busier than usual, thanks to some kid’s birthday gathering, but I knock out the line in minutes and get everything back in shape.
We only carry phoenix merchandise, and if I was better off, I’d be cashing my checks and giving them right back to the museum to buy these prints all done by local artists. I tidy up the ash-tempest plush dolls and restock the common ivories, which are top sellers even though they’re more snow white than they should be. I’m taking inventory with a faux-phoenix feather pen when Kirk walks in.
Kirk is short, with a thick beard that reminds me of Dad, and he’s always dressed in an oversized suit. I wonder if he’s hiding his body too, or if he doesn’t know how to shop for himself. None of it is my business, and this is the same kind of nonsense that invites people to comment on my own body.
You’re like a skeleton.
You need to eat more.
You look sick.
You’re so gaunt.
Normally whenever Kirk swings through the gift shop, he checks in on how his nonfiction book about one of his expeditions is selling—never well—but I know today is different.
“I’m sorry for giving that guy a tour,” I immediately spit out, since he’s no doubt here to remind me of my place. “I couldn’t beat the combo of him being interested in phoenixes and looking like that. If I’d known he was such an idiot about blood alchemy, I would’ve backed off.”
“Other countries have their own corruptive figures, but nothing in recent memory in the way of Keon, or even devastations like our Blackout, for that matter. They don’t understand how tense it’s gotten here in the States.” Kirk opens his folder, turning past pages of sealed crates and guard services. “I still don’t have an opening for you in the Sunroom, but I could use some assistance on a project that might bring in enough money to refresh our exhibits.”
“I’m in,” I say. “I mean, I don’t know what it’s for, but I’m game.”
“Something extraordinary. The museum will be hosting a gala toward the end of the month, but it has to remain a secret for the next few days. This is going to be the celebration of a lifetime. We’ll be witnessing the hatching of a century phoenix.”
“Say what?” I never thought I would see a century phoenix at all, let alone the birth of one.
Kirk’s eyes gleam. “It gets better, Emil. Century phoenixes are an exceptionally rare breed, as you may know. It certainly doesn’t help that they don’t often reproduce when they do respawn, but this blue egg was feathered.”
I give myself a second to figure out what that means, but nothing. I know I shouldn’t compare my knowledge to someone who has a master’s degree in Creature Sciences and years of experience raising phoenixes and building habitats, but every time I don’t know something, it’s hard to appreciate it as something I learned, and instead I feel stupid for not knowing it already. “What does that mean?”
“A century phoenix’s egg is only feathered when it’s a firstborn.”
“So this is the phoenix’s first cycle of life!”
“The world will be able to witness Gravesend’s first breath.”
“Where is the egg now?”
“Gravesend is being guarded by Halo Knights in a secure location. She’ll remain there until it’s time for her birth, to protect her from the traffickers and Blood Casters who will no doubt try to hunt her down once we announce the purpose of the gala. We’ll tend to her here for the first month before releasing her into the wild.”
I think about the specters with phoenix blood who made headlines this week.
“On the news, they said a specter regrew his arm before he died, but his fire looked like it came from common ivories or crowned elders or halos. The regeneration doesn’t make sense, right?”
Kirk looks around the shop, like it’s been on his mind too. “Nothing is more important to a specter than power. It doesn’t surprise me when anyone works around the clock to make the impossible possible, the way Keon did when he had his first blood alchemy breakthrough. My hunch? Someone has found a way to double their abilities. The world is always changing, and I believe we’re about to be audience to a particularly dark turn of history, especially with the Crowned Dreamer rising. Let’s brace ourselves and pray no one messes with Gravesend.”
It’s rare that I keep secrets from Brighton, but I’m holding this one close to my chest. He’s bouncing to Cali in two days, and this is my chance to grow. To transform. My own little rebirth as I study hard in school—for real this time, no giving up after a week—and prep for Gravesend and straight wow Brighton when he sees what a phoenix pro I’ve become. I got to get in good with Kirk, because it’d be a legit dream to hit up Brighton, invite him back to New York, and hook him up with some behind-the-scenes exclusives of Gravesend’s journey for his series.
If I can pull this off, maybe, for once, I’ll stop feeling like a little brother who is years younger, even though we were born seven minutes apart.
Maybe I’ll stop feeling like the sidekick.