I’m digging my nails into Emil’s arm. I don’t care if it hurts him; maybe he’ll wake up. “Why didn’t he tell me he did this?”
“Emil wouldn’t willingly become a specter,” Prudencia says. “I don’t know what happened. Maybe he drank the potion without realizing what it was. Emil loves phoenixes too much to steal their essence.”
I know she has a point, but there’s something so off about all of this. And already, I’m struck with how badly I want to talk nonsense with Emil, how stupid I was to think that I won’t miss him when I leave for school. We can figure out the phoenix blood business later, but as I’m freaking out over if my brother is going to be okay again, I’m missing when we ask each other questions the world doesn’t need answering. Like what I would do if I suddenly grew two extra arms or how Emil would occupy himself if he were stuck in an empty room for a whole week. No one else cares that I would take up wrestling if I had four arms or that Emil would have the time to perfect his cartwheels, but this is the kind of stuff you talk about with someone you’ve known your entire life. And Emil isn’t allowed to die now because we have so much more to chat about as old men on our deathbeds.
I’m shaking too much to call Ma so Prudencia grabs my phone and takes over, giving her the heads-up to meet us at the hospital.
We arrive at the Vega Center for Gleam Care, where we haul Emil through the lobby until nurses place him on a stretcher, wheeling him away to a room where we can’t follow. I’m not trying to hang out in the waiting room or pretend a magazine will have the power to distract me. It didn’t work the countless hours we waited for Dad, and it won’t work for Emil. I pace the halls, feeling Prudencia’s eyes on me as I go back and forth between the check-in counter and the gender-neutral bathrooms. Who knows how long later, but I’m rescued from dark thoughts when my mother shouts my name.
“Where is he?” Ma asks with her hand pressed against her heart.
“He’s already in the ER.”
Ma sees how busted we look and pulls us both into a hug. “Are you okay? Do you need to be seen too?”
“We’re fine. Thanks, Carolina,” Prudencia says.
Ma runs her fingers over my swollen eye. “What happened?”
“We were headed home when . . .” I shut up. I’m not talking about Emil’s powers; that’s his call. “A specter jumped us on the train. We were okay until Emil fainted in the middle of the street, so we brought him here in case there was some side effect.”
She bursts into tears. “Is he okay? What powers did the specter have?”
“It was strange,” Prudencia says. “He could phase through us and the door like a celestial, but he also had phoenix fire.”
“Is Emil okay? Was he burned?”
“No, Ma.”
She takes a deep breath, but she’s shaking. We guide her to the waiting room, and Prudencia keeps her company while I stay by the doors my brother is behind.
I’m getting more and more steps in when my phone goes off and won’t chill. There’s a stream of notifications that keep coming in, like people asking me Do you have powers too? and saying Upload an interview with your brother! I finally stop in my tracks.
I’ve been tagged in several videos where all the thumbnails are cropped pictures of Emil holding phoenix fire. I click the viral video so fast, even though I know the scene firsthand. I watch, getting to see the moment the gray and gold fire first lights up my brother’s fist, paying close attention to Emil’s reaction—he’s just as shocked as anyone.
The video is making serious numbers. Any outsider would assume Emil is extremely popular online and not someone with a near-dead Instagram with posts that never even get a thousand likes. I check out all of Emil’s social media accounts. His Twitter of two-hundred-plus followers who hang around for his random musings on video games, nonfiction, and phoenix activism has exploded into six thousand followers; in the same way I feel weird that hundreds of thousands people peripherally know who I am, I can only imagine how Emil will react when he wakes up to this. After staring at a GIF of Emil’s flaming fist, I switch over to Instagram, where his following has skyrocketed. Everyone is leaving comments on his latest photo that have nothing to do with his review of some graphic novel, like asking whether he’s flying solo or part of a squad.
This isn’t something he’s going to be able to keep to himself.
For all I know, Emil is near death, and still, I envy everything about my supernova superstar of a brother.
Nine
The Spell Walkers
MARIBELLE
I’m the most hated celestial alive today.
I’m holed up in my room at Nova Grace Elementary, which was once a low-income school for celestials and which we’ve taken over as a hidden haven for everyone we rescue. There are more people in this building who resent me than I can count, but they know better than to say it to my face as long as we’re giving them shelter. Everyone swears my parents are responsible for the Blackout, and even when I finally prove otherwise, the Lucero line will still be blamed for the recent surge of intolerance that marked many celestials as terrorists.
If the world doesn’t want to remember my parents as heroes, then maybe I’ll stop saving it.
I kill that thought.
When I was little, I was always threatening to run away every time I didn’t get my way, and Mama made me promise I would never make any decisions with rage in my heart. If I still wanted to leave whatever haven we were camping out in after I calmed down, she would help me pack my bags, kiss my forehead, and send me on my way.
Deep breaths bring me back to reality. I will continue to protect celestials because it’s how I honor my parents’ legacy best, even though it feels pointless on most days. Our movement isn’t ever going to be a big enough tide to wash out the world that’s so ready to set itself on fire. Especially under our team’s current leadership. But maybe we can take down Luna Marnette and her Blood Casters since the enforcers never seem to be knocking down their doors.
I’m in the zone on my laptop, reviewing security footage for the millionth time of everything that went down in the Nightlocke Conservatory nine months ago. The only camera in the room was aimed at the students and teachers visiting for their class trip, and on the screen, they’re all surrounding a massive bronze telescope. I continue scanning faces in the crowd for one particular girl, but when shards of glass begin raining from above, I brace myself and watch as Mama and Finola crash through the ceiling, my mother’s hands wrapped around Iris’s mother’s neck. Papa and Konrad arrive through the entrance, trying to pry their wives away from each other, but Finola breaks out of the grip with her powerhouse strength and sends all three of them into the air and collapsing around her.
There’s no point turning away as Finola pursues Mama. The memory is all burned into my head anyway: Mama slams Senator Iron’s son, Eduardo, to the floor, and she pulls out two ruby gem-grenades from inside her power-proof vest. Mama throws one gem-grenade high into the farthest corner of the room, and Papa jumps into flight and soars after it. Then Mama throws another over Finola’s head, and Finola and Konrad try to catch it.
Everyone fails.