MARIBELLE
No leads yet.
It’s been one day since that ridiculous meeting with Sunstar. I lost too many hours oversleeping in Atlas’s car, but I’m making up for it now. I’ve been patrolling Greenpoint for hours. It’s a hot spot for every hipster wanting to down Brew, the illusionary potion that gives its drinker a taste of what it’s like to have powers. One of Luna’s greatest mistakes was confessing to Brighton that she’s the creator of Brew. If I can track down a dealer, I can force them to give me information that will lead me to Luna and June.
Perched on top of a seven-story apartment building, I wait for a couple to round the corner before I jump off the ledge. Several feet above the ground I catch myself with a smooth glide like I’m walking down invisible steps. I tighten Atlas’s old baseball cap I found in the trunk and try to not be recognized so I can move discreetly.
I pass a celestial-run gym where I can see a woman through the window using her stretched-out, elastic-like arms as a jump rope. It reminds me of when Iris’s father, Konrad, would act like our coach and make exercising our powers fun. Mama and Papa always hoped I’d be able to fly on my own—and they always knew there was a chance my power of levitation would grow into flight. But they never told me that it might manifest in wings of fire. Not that it’s happened yet.
The Night Elk Bar on the corner has some life to it for a Thursday night. There’s a bouncer checking IDs underneath the tacky sign of an elk with crescent moons for eyes. I peek in and there’s a celestial dancing with his clone to impress a group of women. The music is fast with solid beats that Atlas wouldn’t have known what to do with.
Shortly after Atlas and Wesley began working with us, we hosted a welcome party at our haven. Iris DJ’d, playing all the hits that had us sharing headphones and dancing together. She played one of our favorites, this song in Spanish that begins slow before bursting with this beat that has you sweating by the end if you manage to keep up. I brought Atlas onto the dance floor and he didn’t stand a chance against this song and had to conjure his winds to cool down. That was the first time I was properly charmed by him.
Atlas can’t dance poorly anymore.
“Hey, you’re Maribelle Lucero,” the bouncer says.
I don’t pay him any mind. I cover my face some more with the cap’s brim and I walk away. I don’t stop moving like an emotional zombie until over an hour later when the Brooklyn Bridge comes into view. This is where I met Atlas. I want to feel closer to him, more than just being in his car or hugging his ashes, both of which I left behind in a school parking lot.
The very top of this bridge is where I first told him I was in love with him.
It was in April, three months after the Blackout. Atlas had taken care of me, and that day, it was my turn to take care of him. He’d just found out his parents’ prison sentence for robbing a bank was expanding for another five years.
“I was this close to having them back,” Atlas had said, snapping his fingers. He was pacing from one edge of the bridge’s crown to the other. He loved coming up here to relax with the wind in his ears. His blond hair was blowing in every direction and then he completely lost it. “I bet they didn’t even do anything wrong! They’re punishing them because I’m out here trying to do something right!”
He couldn’t even visit them. Not without walking straight into the Bounds, where all the enforcers wanted him.
Atlas tried drying his eyes and catching his breath. “I’m sorry, Mari, I know my parents are still alive, I’ll talk about this with Wes—”
“You’re allowed to miss your parents too,” I had told him.
It’s just as true then as it is now—I preferred a quick death for my parents than a long life of mistreatment in the Bounds.
I locked my fingers in his. “You can talk to me about anything. We make each other stronger the more vulnerable we are together.” I had to honor my own words no matter how much they scared me. I stared into his teary gray eyes. “I love you, Atlas. You always have me.”
The pain in his expression flickered away as he fully took me in. “I love you too, Mari.”
We kissed with the winds pushing us closer together.
I eye that spot in the bridge now, scared to go there knowing he won’t be able to hold me or tell me he loves me, but I hope it’ll make me feel closer.
I levitate several feet and dark yellow flames crawl from my fists to my elbows. It took Emil weeks before he realized he could fly, and that was born out of panic like when he first discovered he was a specter. I’m more capable than he is—I’m the daughter of powerful Spell Walkers, I’m a celestial-specter hybrid, I have been strengthening the gleam in my veins my entire life.
When I was a girl, I only tapped into my power for the first time when I was pushed by my loved ones. I’m all I have now. I’ll push myself.
I glide away from safety and toward the bridge. My yellow flames glow across the dark East River and I inch higher and higher, pushing past the height limits that have always separated me from everyone else graced with flight. My arms are shaking and my body is trembling and I’m sinking through the air. Atlas feels out of range more than ever, in this moment where I can’t even reach his memory, and the flames roar and roar until they stretch past my hands and become burning wings that carry me up into the night. I push and push against the winds and imagine Atlas and my parents beside me up until I land on top of the Brooklyn Bridge. I gaze at my wings, staying strong against the elements until I decide it’s time for them to vanish.
I’ve caught the attention of people below who were posing for pictures with the cityscape. I doubt many of them know that this bridge continues to exist because of me and Atlas and Wesley and Iris fighting off terrorists.
I sit in the center, imagining meeting Atlas under different circumstances. He could’ve been below playing around with Wesley while Iris and I were out on a stroll. Atlas and I could’ve noticed each other and just like when I coached Iris on how to talk to Eva she could’ve pushed me to say hi to Atlas. But reimagining history like this hurts because the reality is that we were brought together by battle and forever separated by it too.
It’s freezing up here, and I cast a fire-orb to keep me warm. I stare at the night sky, wishing I could find Atlas’s face glowing in the stars. There are all these nonsense prime constellations that I’m supposed to care about as a celestial, but unless one can bring my loved ones back to life, I really don’t. I break into tears and scream so loud and I’m so close to making it rain fire on everyone below me when the roaring wind gets so strong and loud that I can barely hear myself. I pretend that Atlas is around, casting the winds himself.
Then it begins pouring rain out of nowhere, dousing my fire-orb. I didn’t know it would rain tonight, but weather always catches me by surprise. Atlas was the one who paid the most attention to forecasts so he wouldn’t fly out into storms.
Lightning flashes across the dark cloudy sky and illuminates a massive phoenix that casts its shadow over me as it flies toward the city. The phoenix’s feathers are yellow and brown and its belly and crown are black. It’s the largest phoenix I’ve ever seen up close, the size of a racehorse, and as it moves away from me I see the silhouette of a rider—a young woman. My psychic sense thrums, warning me of some great danger. The rain stops pouring down on me and the river but continues to follow the phoenix like this bird is a storm cloud. I’m not familiar with this breed, I’ve never had any reason to study phoenixes since I’ve never been up against one, but as I stand there wet and shivering against the cold winds, I’m sure this might change.
The phoenix rider is a clear threat. Who is she hunting?