NESS
The Senator has spent the afternoon watching final cuts of my propaganda videos.
We’re up in the attic with Roslyn, and she’s explained her updated rollout plan. The majority of videos will be fed out online through sock puppet accounts. The ones capable of doing the most damage to celestial reputations—also known as the Senator’s favorites—will be offered to pro-Iron networks such as Wolf News for more prominent airing.
Roslyn pulls out a script from her folder. “I wrote this one last night. I created a victim who claims that Iris Simone-Chambers broke her arm and threatened to punch a hole in her stomach if she didn’t turn over surveillance footage that would’ve identified her as guilty of a robbery.”
The Senator slides the script back across the desk. “We can’t involve detailed personal accounts like that. Not for the Spell Walkers or Sunstar or any of my opponents. If they sense something is off, it could open an investigation that would stanch the wound we’re trying to widen. Only videos that can’t be traced back to us.” He turns to me, where I’m sitting in the corner by the window. “We can’t have Eduardo’s wonderful work go to waste. Isn’t that right, son?”
I don’t react. That’s what he wants and I’ve given him enough.
Filming for the past two days has been absolutely draining. The closest I’ve come to actively using my power for long stretches of time like this is when I once went undercover as one of Luna’s rival alchemists to get him some intel for blackmail. For how physically exhausting this has all been, it’s got nothing on how it’s affected me mentally. I’m the person behind all these masks of lies. Once these videos are out there, everyone who suffers—rights taken away, jailed, killed—will be because of my performances. The whole thing makes me want to morph into a little boy and cry into my mother’s chest.
The Senator stands. “Great work, Roslyn. I have to finish getting ready, but we can discuss your phase two proposals on the way to Florida. Be downstairs in three.” On the way out, he looks over his shoulder and says, “Behave while I’m away, Eduardo. Don’t stay up too late.” His laughter follows him out of the attic.
Roslyn lets out a happy sigh.
“How do you sleep at night, fraud?” I ask.
“A lot better since I started sharing a bed with your father,” she says with a smile.
So they are together now—or at least, hooking up. It seems like there are only a handful of people on the Senator’s team who know about me being alive. I haven’t seen any other bodyguards except Jax and Zenon, and Jax truly should’ve been fired for the way he failed at his job during the break-in this week. But if it’s really just those two, Bishop, and Roslyn, I have to manipulate them. Get into their heads.
“You’re never going to be his First Lady,” I tell her. “I know what it looks like when he talks to a woman he loves. That’s not what’s happening here.”
“My love for him and his work is enough for the both of us,” Roslyn says as she finishes packing up her laptop and files. “That’ll keep me warm in the White House’s master bedroom.”
She leaves the attic.
I want to call her a monster, but that won’t faze her. Roslyn needs time to become unsettled and I have to trust that I’ve planted a seed. I didn’t even have to lie. My mom wasn’t perfect. Her views weren’t always in line with where mine are now, and she didn’t always challenge her husband like she encouraged me with others, but she would’ve never supported all this cheating, let alone help engineer it. She didn’t have to perform her loyalty to the Senator to get him to love her. I saw his private grief when she was killed.
I hope every corrupt person on this team ends up in prison like the criminals they are. Right on cue, Jax arrives—his face fully healed because of Eva—to lock me back in my cage after this torturous session in the attic. I would’ve been happier alone and peeling paint off my walls than having the Senator and Roslyn for company. But Jax doesn’t take me to my bedroom. We go downstairs, where the Senator, Roslyn, and Zenon are waiting by the front door with luggage.
“We said bye already,” I say to the Senator.
“But not to Jax and Zenon. They’ll be joining me on this trip. Fear not, you won’t be left alone,” he says.
Dione steps out of the living room and leans against the grandfather clock. “Enough talk. You can go now,” she says to the Senator.
He doesn’t challenge her disrespect. He must understand already that she won’t ever favor him. It’s one of the reasons I trusted her after joining the gang.
I see the Senator and Roslyn in this new light knowing they’re together and I’m thrilled when they leave with Jax and Zenon following them out. That leaves me with Dione. We’re not friends, though I thought we could’ve been. She was always the most human in rooms with bloodthirsty Stanton and ghostly June. But she’s quick to anger, doesn’t show remorse around killing those who try to overpower her, and she’s very loyal to Luna. I have to be smart around her if I’m going to make the most of this time away from the Senator and his team.
“Should we throw a party?” I ask.
“Anything that helps trash this place,” Dione says, eyeing the grandfather clock as if she’s considering tipping it over. “But I have to catch up with Luna.”
“Where is she?”
Dione chuckles. “The Cloaked Phantom is hitting the sky tonight. Where do you think?”
“That’s tonight?!”
The twice-a-year constellation that made me a shifter. How has it already been eight months since I’ve had these powers? I would’ve never thought I’d be back here in the manor, forced to be a weapon once again for the person I happily played dead to never see again.
“For someone who’s credited as being very alert, this important detail flew right over your head.”
“I wasn’t exactly given a calendar with every upcoming prime constellation when forced back here. Take that up with the host you’re working for.”
Dione’s eyes are daggers. “I don’t work for your father. If Luna is successful, you won’t have to work for him either.”
This must be what Luna and the Senator discussed the evening she arrived—my replacement. Maybe she has someone in mind who will be more eager to help them fulfill their vision. “So who’s the young bastard Luna is preying on this time?”
Dione grabs me by the arm and drags me down the steps to the basement. “It’s not your business.”
I struggle, but she’s far stronger than me. “Dione, this is what she does! This is what she did with you too! Luna is an opportunistic predator who buys our loyalty with power, I know you know this!”
We reach the landing and Dione shoves me to the floor. “If you were loyal, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
The panic room is a gigantic black box with one-way windows so those inside can keep track of the intruder’s movements. It’s protected by the gleam-shield, a dome of yellow energy. In a demonstration video provided by the supplier there was a celestial who cast fire at the gleam-shield and it rebounded back at them so quickly they didn’t even have a chance to move. The Senator has mused about improving upon his grandfather’s legacy and upgrading the power-proof vest with similar protections so enforcers will be extra armored against gleam attacks. Dione reads the twenty-digit security code posted on the wall and types it into the keypad; I once had those numbers, or similar ones assuming they’ve been changed, memorized in the event I had to lock myself in the panic room. The shield drops and Dione opens the door.
“Go in or be thrown in,” she says.
“You’re making a big mistake,” I say as I pick myself up from the floor. “If you fail her she won’t even bother with you. Look at Stanton! She’s not even breaking him out! She will replace you like she’s trying to replace me!”
Dione doesn’t wait for me to go in peacefully. She grabs me by the wrist and throws me through the door and I roll into a couch. Someone gasps. She peeks in, stares at Eva, then slams the door behind her. In moments the gleam-shield is up and running again.
I massage the shoulder I landed on as I look up at my new roommates who are sitting together on one of the two beds. Emil’s mother, Carolina, looks exhausted and it’s possible—well, likely—that she’s been crying too. For the most part, she’s fine. Unlike Eva. Her brown skin seems paler, her hair is thinning on one side, she has a black eye the size of my fist, and there are bandages all over her arms. It’s like she’s been strung up like a punching bag, which is something we did once with a former chief enforcer who didn’t get the memo that no one messes with Luna’s Casters; here’s hoping we can get Eva out of here before she finds a wand to her head like the chief did.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
Eva sits up. “Do we look okay?”
I don’t say anything. No need for my stupid answer after my stupid question.
“Why are you locked away with us?” Eva asks.
“Everyone else is busy, so I needed a babysitter. Was Dione this terrible back when you were both friends?”
Eva shakes her head. “She used to be my favorite person.”
Carolina comes and kneels beside me, taking my hands in hers. “Please tell me that my boys are okay.”
“I was hoping you could tell me. I’ve been cut off from all live news since the invasion at Nova.”
“Everyone made it out,” Carolina says.
I get a recap on everything major that happened while I was busy reuniting with the Senator. The Spell Walkers took on the Blood Casters. Luna stabbed Emil with an infinity-ender dagger, and then Brighton showed up and shot her in the stomach with a spell before drinking the Reaper’s Blood. But apparently the elixir didn’t make him immortal, and he’s likely going to die. Emil is still alive too, as far as they know. Take the wins when you get them, and that’s a big win in my book.
“We don’t know anything else,” Carolina says.
“If there had been any mention of Emil or Brighton or any Spell Walker dying, I’m sure the Senator would’ve thrown a party.”
Framing the deaths of her sons as cause of celebration doesn’t help her mood. She releases my hands and sits on the couch. I join her. How relaxed Carolina is around me releases a lot of tension.
“I regret my last words to Brighton,” Carolina says. “I called him ‘high and mighty’ for choosing those powers, and now I may never get to tell him how much I love him.”
“He wasn’t kind to you either,” Eva says. “He’s got to be regretting his words too.”
“What did he say?” I ask.
Carolina doesn’t meet my eyes. “That his father was the better parent. I often think that’s true, but I’ve been trying my best.”
“I’m sure your best has been great,” I say.
Brighton doesn’t know how great he’s got it. I would kill to have my mom back instead of being left with a man who is using me to ruin the country.
This is the first time in days I don’t feel watched. Not by Jax from outside my room or from Zenon wherever he is within the manor. My life for the past few years has been putting on all these metaphorical masks and some literal ones the past few months. The last time I’ve really let down my guard was when I was around Emil, and he caught me in a vulnerable moment where I had morphed into one of my victims. I think about him as I inhale a deep breath with my eyes closed and embrace this peace.
Eva snaps her fingers. Peace killed. “What were you talking about with Dione? You’re being replaced?”
“Apparently,” I say. “The Cloaked Phantom hits the sky tonight.”
“Which constellation is that one again?” Carolina asks.
“Not as epic as the Crowned Dreamer,” Eva says. “But it was one my mother admired because this constellation invites change. Sort of like the beginning of a new year. It’s also really important to any celestials who can shift . . . and now apparently anyone looking to become a specter who can shift too.”
She can judge me all she wants; she doesn’t know me. “I would undo everything if I knew I was going to end up here again. All the propaganda I’ve been filming to build Iron’s case against gleamcrafters will be some other specter’s problem soon.”
“Will they keep you down here with us?” Carolina asks.
I shrug. “Probably not. It’s a lot smarter to throw me out of a helicopter and into some basilisk-infested waters. Good way to get rid of someone who’s supposed to be dead.”
Carolina rubs my shoulder. “I’m sure that won’t be the case. You’re his son.”
I see where Emil gets his sweetness from. I don’t need to tell her that the Blackout existed so I could be killed.
“I’m sorry we never got to properly meet before this,” I say.
“Me too. You must mean something to Emil given how much he wanted to defend you.”
“I think Emil would’ve done that for anyone. You raised him right. I swear I’ll do everything I can to get you back to him in one piece. No one’s harmed you, right?”
Her voice shakes before she can fully form her first words. “Senator Iron demanded that Eva heal his bruised-up bodyguard and when I defended her Dione struck me. Eva healed him and took care of me too after they all left.”
I don’t know how I’m going to do it but I’ll make sure Dione and Jax feel double the pain they put Eva and Carolina through.
Eva massages one of her bandages. “Healing is becoming harder. I haven’t been under the stars in however many nights we’ve been trapped here and Luna keeps draining my blood, even though she’s okay.”
Her own sickness. Luna is probably mixing some potion to try and buy herself more time.
“I haven’t been apart this long from Iris since we met,” Eva says. “I’m not making it back to her.”
She states it like a fact. I understand her in my own way.
“How’d you meet?” I ask.
Eva hesitates, but gives in. “Alchemists were hunting me for obvious reasons,” she says, gesturing at her whole body. “My foster family couldn’t protect me. I’ve always avoided violence, but I needed the Spell Walkers. Iris’s mother, Finola, answered our call for help. She brought me into their haven and introduced me to Iris.”
“Love at first sight?” I ask.
“No, not at all. It was better. Iris brought me a change of clothes and we talked until the sun came up, even though I was exhausted after weeks of never being able to get a full night’s sleep.” Eva is crying and I’m about to grab her some tissues when she continues. “Iris told me this story about how her parents took her to see the Moon Belle constellation when she was ten. Finola bought her a shirt off the street, but Iris didn’t get to try it on beforehand. It was a perfect fit, and I couldn’t help but feel like Iris was talking about us too. We fit, and I feel naked without her right now.”
Carolina gets up and drapes a shivering Eva with a blanket around her shoulders and the kind of hug that makes me miss Mom even more. Then she turns to me. “Do you feel this way about my son?”
I’m so thrown off by the question; then I realize this is coming from a woman who understands she may never get to see her children grow into full adults who choose to have partners and start families. I don’t know anything about Emil’s dating history though I bet he had tons of guys attracted to him.
“I wouldn’t say I feel naked without him,” I admit. “But I feel cold without him. If that makes sense. It’s like someone finally let me out into the sun and I was so into how warm it made me feel. But then I was forced back inside and I regret how much I sat around instead of actually embracing the day.”
I would do things differently with Emil. I didn’t kiss him when I left Nova or when I came back to save him. Kissing when a literal war is breaking out never comes to mind. If the stars cross for us again, I’ll give it my all.
“He’s the best person I know, and I haven’t even known him that long,” I say.
“That’s my son,” Carolina says proudly. “Ever since he was young Emil always wanted to make someone feel better. I didn’t know until his teacher told me, but in sixth grade Emil wouldn’t play with Brighton and their friends during recess because he was comforting a girl who had lost her sister. The boys were always close, but it only made them closer because Emil was so scared of losing Brighton too.” Now she’s crying. We have no idea if Emil and Brighton are dead or if one is alive and missing the other. Both thoughts are devastating. “When we lost Leo, Emil managed to hold on to his warmth. He fought so much to keep it together for us. My hero. Whenever he would give into his grief, the warmth would come back.”
I chuckle, thinking about how Emil is true to his firefly nature. “Funny, I have a nickname for him and—”
The buzzing of the gleam-shield goes quiet and the door opens. Dione enters with Zenon behind her. But he’s supposed to be gone.
“Storytime is over,” Dione says. She turns to Zenon. “Do we have enough?”
“Should do the trick,” Zenon says.
I stand. “You’re not even supposed to be here!”
Dione stands behind Eva and Carolina. Her expression is mostly menacing, which always feels for show, but there’s a hint of a conscience like when she hit pause on our mission to give some cash to a celestial whose eyes had been gouged out by some gleamphobic hunter. “We needed you to get up close and personal, Ness. How else are you going to play the roles if you don’t understand your subjects?”
Play the roles? Then it hits me. “No, I will do everything else, I will keep making up fake people, but you can’t make me impersonate them—”
“Shut up!” Dione shouts as her eyes glow and two extra sets of arms grow out of her sides. She chokes Eva and Carolina and pins down their hands. “You will become them or you will watch me rip them apart.”
I hold up my hands in truce. “Let them go.”
Dione releases them, and even though she has six hands she only uses one to drag me out by my wrist. I don’t even get a chance to apologize to Eva and Carolina.
I got played tonight—the manipulator manipulated. If the Senator’s team is still using me to morph into other people, then what’s the plan for the new specter with shifter blood? Just a new Blood Caster? That can’t be right. Any plan that Luna helps design runs deeper than new recruits.
For now, I’ve got to get ready to cause more damage while wearing the faces of two women who trusted me with their hearts.