“I’m already trying to figure out a cure. I don’t want to die, but I refuse to live forever.”

“You don’t get it, firefly. It’s too late. Luna is a chess master who has been setting up the board before any of us were born. She is patient and calculating. She could’ve given herself power years ago, but what use would that have been to her? She’s like the Senator that way—powerless herself, but one of the most powerful people out there. But now she’s dying, and the Crowned Dreamer has arrived in time for her to make her final move.”

Prime example of someone I wouldn’t ever want to live forever. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Blood illness,” he says, and my chest squeezes. “Once a host has taken in blood from one creature, it can’t take another.”

That’s great news for whatever cure we come up with to bind powers.

“Luna’s attempts to merge multiple essences have only gotten people deathly ill and weakened the power from the original creature significantly. It was pointless to her end goal.”

“Which is what?”

“Immortality,” Ness says.

“True immortality is impossible,” I say. “Even phoenixes die.”

Ness nods. “Yeah, but when Keon first died and he wasn’t reborn, Luna realized she wouldn’t have what was necessary to create immortality for herself on phoenix essence alone. She didn’t quit like many alchemists before her—she went darker.”

“Is there something about me that she thinks is the key?”

“No. She can’t drain you for your blood. It has to come pure from a creature. And Luna isn’t looking for the key. She already found it. Your old friend Orton is proof.”

“What is it? Celestial blood mixed with creature blood?”

“Orton wasn’t a celestial. He was full specter.”

“But he could phase through solid objects. No creature has that power.”

“Correct,” Ness says. He lets me sit with it, but I got nothing. “It’s the most superior blood of all, and Luna partnered with alchemists who specialize in necromancy to get it—she’s been killing ghosts.”

Oh, come on. I feel played, like he’s been telling me some campfire story all along. “But you can’t touch a ghost.”

“Tell that to June, the first ever specter with ghost blood, who not only possessed Maribelle’s mother and framed her for the Blackout, but saved my life when that explosion went off,” Ness says. “This is what I’m talking about, firefly. Luna is next level. She will unite the blood of three entities—a hydra, a ghost, a phoenix. If you decapitate her, she’ll regrow a new head. If you try to harm her body, she’ll fade away. If you somehow manage to obliterate her completely, she’ll be reborn.”

“But it doesn’t work. Not for long, anyway. Her test subjects are dying.”

“Luna hasn’t been using pure blood on her test subjects. But for her true elixir, she needs the head of a hydra that’s never been decapitated before, a phoenix who has never been reborn, and ghosts with ties to her bloodline. Unite them all underneath the Crowned Dreamer’s zenith at the Alpha Church of New Life, and she’ll have her so-called Reaper’s Blood. She will be the closest thing to Death to walk the streets, and she will make history by never becoming history.”

I wish this was some story, but it’s all truth. Luna has lived a life engineering essences to make herself invincible. There’s no winning.

“But if she dies, she’ll have to start over like me, right?”

Ness shakes his head. “If her calculations are correct—and let’s count on them being right—she’ll be away from the world for a single moment and reborn as herself.”

“So she’s got the hydra now. What’s her next move?”

“What’s today?”

“Tuesday.”

He takes a deep breath. “Luna moves for Older Cemetery to capture the ghosts of her parents—tonight.”

“What? We’re screwed.”

“Probably. But the summoning is tricky enough that she’s hired Anklin Prince, this top alchemist, for the assist. The longer someone has been dead, the harder it is to catch their ghost. Unless they died violent deaths and didn’t have a chance to make peace with their lives. Luna murdered her parents when she was seventeen. The only time I believe she’s ever gotten her own hands dirty.”

“If it was that long ago, they’ll never find their ghosts.”

“They died very, very violent deaths. Luna was just as creative back then as she is cruel today.”

So Luna’s parents have been lost and wandering for decades, and she was going to bring them back to obliterate them forever. I don’t want to go up against someone so twisted.

“What about the phoenix?” Then I figure it out, the light bulb moments I always envy Brighton for having, but this one scares me. “The century phoenix.”

Ness nods. “If you want to put an end to her madness, you have to end her, firefly. Period. Problem is, you don’t have a killer’s bone in you. You wouldn’t even let Maribelle murder a remorseless assassin. Face it. Luna has you beat.”

I hug my knees, tight, and hold back a scream.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask after a stretch of silence.

Ness holds my gaze. “You’re the only person not expecting anything from me either.”

Twenty-Six

Rise

EMIL

The Spell Walkers are hitting me with questions left and right. How do we know Ness isn’t sending us straight into a trap? Why did he reveal everything to me? Is June stoppable? Do we have any chance in hell at actually beating the Blood Casters? There are no sure answers, but we’re thrown into a frenzy as we suit up and head for the cars. Iris tries convincing Ness to come along, but he simply tells her that the only way he’s going to the cemetery to face Luna is if he’s a dead body they can bury.

I can’t find Brighton for a see-you-later when we head out, and it turns out it’s because he’s been sitting in the far backseat all along.

“Get out,” Iris says as she takes the driver’s seat.

“No. If Luna is actually going to be there then I can film her, and we can finally pin her to her crimes.”

“It’s too dangerous,” I say. “Please, Bright, sit this one out.”

“You guys are going to have to drag me out, and that’s time better spent getting to the cemetery,” Brighton says.

“I hope the stars are with us,” Iris says.

Maribelle, Atlas, and Wesley get in, and we take off. Prudencia isn’t here to watch his back either.

The Spell Walkers are hoping to use the Crowned Dreamer for that much-needed power boost to get us through this night. They’ll have an advantage over the Blood Casters too, since their gleam is natural, which makes me lucky to be on the right side. But as we pull in and park, my chest is so tight. There’s no preparing for these impossibilities.

Older Cemetery is so damn winter-cold that everyone’s breath is clouding the air around us as we continue searching for the Blood Casters. This darkness is too much for a city boy; I need streetlights the deeper I go across the field, past unmarked graves, but all we have to guide us are the brightening stars of the Crowned Dreamer, whose shape is becoming clearer every night. If we don’t stop the gang, Luna will be closer to remaking the world. And if there’s any possibility for a power-binding potion, who knows if it’ll be enough to work on Luna once she drinks the Reaper’s Blood.