“Can we get you anything?” Wesley asks.

“My regular life back,” I say. Atlas and Wesley offer sympathetic looks. I sit at the center of the crescent table between Brighton, Prudencia, and Ma. “Why are the Blood Casters after me?”

“We’ve been keeping track of all the increased specter activity since the Crowned Dreamer surfaced,” Iris says from the dry-erase board. “The fight we saw online between you and that specter was horrific, but my mother confided in me to keep an eye out for any specters with gray or gold flames. You exhibited both, Emil.”

Maribelle finally looks up. “Wait. You didn’t tell us about this.”

“It was a secret,” Iris says.

Maribelle slams the textbook shut. “What kind of leader is trusted with some piece to the puzzle and doesn’t trust her team? Stars forbid something happened to you in our dangerous line of work. The secret would’ve died with you.”

“I knew, just in case,” Eva says, standing beside Iris and grabbing her hand. “I found out a month after the Blackout. This is only a working theory, and it could’ve been a distraction from everything we’ve had on our plates since January.”

“We’re not allowed to have secrets,” Maribelle says. “This is life or death.”

“That was the only secret,” Iris says. “I’m walking in the dark here on everything else.”

Before Maribelle can counter, I speak up. “Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

“You have the blood of a gray sun phoenix within you,” Iris says.

“I cracked that code.”

“So did Bautista de León. He never sought out blood alchemy, and his powers surprised him too. The only people who knew that were the Spell Walkers he first assembled, and they all reached the same conclusion. Bautista was a specter with phoenix blood in a past life, successfully reborn in this one.”

Brighton inhales a deep breath. “Do you think Bautista is Emil’s past life?”

“That’s impossi—”

I shut up.

Everything that should’ve been impossible today is proving itself extra possible.

“The timeline adds up,” Iris says. “Bautista died, and you were born days later.”

“Reborn,” Maribelle breathes as she stares at me in awe.

“It can’t be me! It can’t. Phoenixes are reborn as they were, and I look nothing like him!”

“It’s Bautista’s essence reborn,” Iris says. “Powers and spirit.”

Hours ago, I was a kid having a panic attack at the park, and now I’m the founding Spell Walker reincarnated. Enough already. The world needs to pick on someone else. I’ve got a good handle on history concerning specters carrying blood from gray sun phoenixes and it’s got me thinking. “Please don’t tell me . . .”

Iris is quiet, as if she senses the dread in my question. “Bautista believed he was reincarnated from Keon Máximo.”

I’m numb as I try to think of something that can disprove this. But there’s no known date for when Keon actually died. We only know that it was at the hands of the Halo Knights for his crimes against phoenixes.

“Why did Bautista think that?” I ask.

“Growing up, Bautista apparently had flashes of memories from a life he hadn’t lived, and he connected the dots himself. When he realized his past life was responsible for the existence of all specters, he created the Spell Walkers with the psychic alchemist Sera Córdova. He wanted to do good with the stolen powers he was reborn with against his will.”

I hop out of my seat, nearly banging into Ma, and I stand by the window to cool down. “But this doesn’t make sense. I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary. And phoenixes have accelerated aging! I’m eighteen.”

“The phoenix blood doesn’t make you a phoenix,” Maribelle says. “You’re still human, so you’re aging like a regular human . . . who happens to be the scion of history’s greatest and worst specters. Tough break.”

If I could transform into a phoenix and fly out this window before they can guilt me into fighting a war that my past life started, I would be gone in a millisecond.

“Does this mean any other specter with phoenix blood can be reborn?” Brighton asks.

“Possibly,” Iris says. “Specters make up a tiny fraction of our gleamcraft community. There’s no way for us to know their limits. The specter you fought on the train phased through the doors, which isn’t any phoenix or creature’s power. It’s possible he was a specter in a past life and his essence was reborn into a celestial host. We’re only speculating at this point.”

Maribelle lets out a laugh. “If only we just found ourselves engaging with a celestial with the same power. We could’ve asked her all about her powers and what she witnessed at the Blackout. Oh, wait!”

These are all theories, I keep reminding myself. No one can be sure of anything. “Let’s say this rebirth business is legit. Why did it take so long for my powers to kick in? Brighton and I are twins. Shouldn’t it have split between us in the womb?”

Brighton shrugs. “I have no idea how phoenix essence works, but maybe because we were born together, it messed with the powers?”

“Could be,” Iris says. “Again, there’s a lot we don’t know.”

Ma is looking back and forth between me and Brighton. “Boys, can we talk outside?”

On the verge of tears, I ask, “Did you know about my powers all along?” She doesn’t say anything. “If this involves what’s happening, you have to clue me in right now.”

Prudencia stands and addresses the Spell Walkers. “Maybe we should give them some privacy.”

No one moves. All eyes are on Ma. She’s flicking at her palm, which she does whenever she’s nervous.

“Ma, please tell me what you did to me, or I might blow up.”

“We saved you,” Ma says. “Your father and I, we saved you. You were abandoned, and we brought you in.”

“I don’t get it.”

Brighton stands by me and looks like he can barely hold his head up. “I think she’s saying that you . . . that you’re adopted, Emil.”

I have ten thousand thoughts and no words.

This world doesn’t make sense. It’s not even about the powers anymore. I don’t know who I am. My name is Emil. My middle name is Donato, which means gift from the gods. My last name is Rey. But even those basics being called into question make me feel hard lumps in my throat, blocking all air. Was I actually named after a man who isn’t even my grandfather? Am I actually a gift from the gods? Do I still get to be a Rey of Light if I’m not a Rey?

Why didn’t my biological parents want me?

I lived in someone else’s womb for nine months, and I have no idea who they are. I’ve grown up reading so many stories about orphans in books, and I was always so grateful to be raised by a family that wanted me. Parents who fed me and rocked me and took care of me and taught me how to talk and how to read and how to love. How could something so real now feel like an illusion?

I’m consumed in dark thoughts as I rewrite my history. I don’t belong with the Reys, and every family photo I’m in is a lie, like someone photoshopped me in out of pity.