“Emil saved us,” Prudencia says. “He’s a hero.”

“You could’ve told me you had powers,” Ma says with a crack in her voice.

“Today was the first time. The dealer tried throwing Brighton onto the tracks, and I panicked and got really hot, and suddenly my fist was on fire.”

Ma takes my hand and inspects it, but there’s no marking. “Fire-casting wasn’t part of our bloodline.”

We’re all quiet. Brighton is staring at me like I’m some stranger who needs to spit it out.

“Please believe me, Ma, but . . . I think it’s phoenix fire. I didn’t do this to myself—”

“No one wakes up with phoenix blood inside of them, Emil!” This is the second time this week Ma is shouting, but she’s even more consumed in fury and disappointment now. I feel like a kid all over again. “You know what I’ve seen patients go through, what we saw your father suffer through, and you got involved with blood alchemy anyway?” She turns to Brighton. “I take it you have powers of your own too, huh?”

“I don’t have powers,” Brighton says. “Emil didn’t do this to himself. If you watch the video—”

“What video?!”

“Someone recorded the fight,” Brighton says. “Watch and you’ll see that Emil is just as surprised as anyone else.”

The chaos of the video begins, and I force myself to look after seeing the horror and heartbreak on my mother’s face as she watches us get rattled around by Orton. I feel guilty for a fight I didn’t start. I hear the burst of fire, followed by the stillness of the quiet car, and from the corner of my eye I see Ma shaking, well past the video’s ending.

“I’m so sorry, my Emilio, I’m sorry for not believing you,” Ma says. “But now I don’t know how to protect you. What if that man hunts you down to retaliate? What if the enforcers find us at home? I cannot lose you too. . . .”

I was counting on my mother to reassure me that everything will be okay, even if it was an empty promise, but she’s already so defeated, and my panicking keeps increasing and increasing, screaming at me to do the only thing that feels right.

“I need a second by myself.”

“I’m going with you,” Brighton says. “Alone together.”

It’s been a while since we’ve joked about being alone together. Whether it was in our bedroom or riding the train together, we could always go into Alone Mode. And no one disturbs Alone Mode. But this is different.

“Alone-alone. Sorry, I need to wrap my head around all of this.”

“I’m here if you need me,” Brighton says.

“Me too,” Prudencia says.

I leave the room and rush toward the nearest exit. I assumed I was at Ma’s hospital, but several practitioners here are all dressed in midnight-blue cloaks with speckled stars. I can’t believe I ended up in Gleam Care, but I’m getting out. Between my long legs and New York speed, I’m already such a fast walker, powering through all soreness, and I don’t stop until I’m a couple blocks away from the hospital.

I’ll go back home, pack a bag, and come up with a battle plan. I’m praying some shelter for celestials will take me in, even though I’m a specter. Someone’s got to help the famous Fire-Wing on his life-changing, life-ending day, right?

Eleven

The Blood Casters

NESS

I’ve been role-playing my entire life. Too bad my line of work won’t ever get me the audience I once dreamed about.

Times Square is extra hellish this evening. Tourists are lining up around the block to see some show about a historical privateer. Casting sheets were circulating in sophomore year, and I didn’t bother auditioning because I swore it wouldn’t grow beyond whatever small theater hosted the show. Going ahead and blaming my inherited arrogance for that error. That could’ve been my face lighting up on the Broadway marquees. I always imagined my acting career would involve action blockbuster movies and award-winning indie roles and musicals that get all the love on Tumblr. Instead I’m shape-shifting into whoever the Blood Casters need me to become.

Life’s funny that way.

I’m making my way back to base when I catch the reflection of the disguise I’m currently wearing. Dark blond hair, pretty enough, and most important, the pale skin that lets me coast by during charged moments. The impression is not a perfect match, but it doesn’t have to be. I can get by with a misshapen nose, shorter eyelashes, hazel eyes instead of brown. It’s the key targets that have to be studied carefully. The crow’s-feet, the gnawed-on nails, the birthmark on the neck, everything in place so loved ones don’t ever second-guess me. Tonight didn’t require a deep morph, so I lifted the look from someone swiping his way into the train station while I was on my way out. I needed to get far away from those enforcers after Orton broke code.

Luna is going to have his head if he’s still out there.

Mine too, maybe.

I’m not unfamiliar with great housing, but our current stay in lower Manhattan’s Light Sky Tower with the other Blood Casters is something else. Security for the city’s tallest building is intense, but as long as I have my password, they’re instructed to let me in at the back entrance, no matter what I look like. “Breath of wraith,” I say. The guard eyes me like he’ll be able to see past my disguise if he squints hard enough before letting me into the elevator that shoots me up to the one-hundred-and-tenth floor.

The penthouse is the only place in this skyscraper where I’m allowed to drop my morph. Only the gang knows who I am; the rest of the world can’t find out. Blessing and a curse. It’s worth it if it means the people I’m hiding from won’t ever find me, but it also guarantees no one will ever know the real me. Whoever that is these days.

I wish morphing were as effortless for me as it was for the shifter whose blood Luna stole to give me these powers, but unfortunately, holding a shape weighs on me. It’s tougher than holding in a piss on a full bladder. I feel lighter as my disguise falls. The pale skin finds its natural brown complexion. Hair turns dark and shrinks on the sides and curls on the top. My mother’s amber eyes are restored; I miss her, but I’m relieved she’s not around to see who I’ve become.

Blessing. Curse.

I cross the empty living space. Dione has been out for days gathering intel on the hydra shipment, but I don’t know how Stanton is keeping busy tonight. I go to the balcony, expecting to find Luna gazing at the Crowned Dreamer through the massive telescope. But the only ones out here are June and that awful alchemist, Anklin, who reeks of days-old corpses. I was raised to maintain straight posture whenever I’m in the presence of people I should respect, but I relax my shoulders now because I wouldn’t move a muscle if Anklin or June fell over the railing. Luna swears June is a miracle, but I believe she’s the end of everything we know. Still not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

“Good evening,” Anklin says to me as he studies June.

“I wouldn’t call it that,” I say. “Would you, June?”

June is still as a mannequin. She doesn’t answer, of course. She never speaks. Luna is probably the only one who has ever heard her voice. She’s short like the first girl I kissed and has the same dead-eyed stare as the first boy I admitted having a crush on. It’s chilly tonight, especially way up here, but June isn’t shivering, even with all the goose bumps running along her white arms. None of the Blood Casters are natural, but June is the strangest of all. Maybe she’ll be the one tasked with taking out the Senator before November.