“Immortal? Emil, that’s not possible.”

“I would’ve told you the same before I came back to life,” I say. He’s quiet. This is the first time I’ve trusted anyone outside Nova with the big secret. “In essence, at least. Turns out Keon could resurrect. He became Bautista, and . . .”

“Now there’s you.” Then Kirk is quiet. “Emil, this is astonishing news, truly. I would love to help you work through this, but in the meantime, we can’t cancel the gala. The museum needs this funding to keep its doors open. The Halo Knights will already be present to protect Gravesend, but I’ll alert them to the threat.”

“Luna is planning to create her potion at the height of the Crowned Dreamer. Delay the gala.”

“Gravesend will have hatched by then. The Halo Knights are capable, I promise you. I’d like to ask you more about this resurrection business—”

I hang up. Between the Spell Walkers turning their backs on me and Kirk not taking my warning seriously, I’ve lost the little hope I had that we might defeat Luna.

I go to Ness’s room. He’s lying on his air mattress and puts down the book he was reading. “Finally, firefly.”

I sit in the center of the room, relieved when he joins me. I tell him everything—Luna pulling off the ritual, me flying away with the urn, Brighton being taken hostage.

He watches the video and hands me back my phone. “She wants me back.”

“It’s not fair, I know. I’m sorry. But Brighton is innocent.”

“What’s the plan? You offer me up, and once we secure Brighton, we all get away?”

If only it were that easy. “Iris would rather sacrifice Brighton.”

“She may have a point,” he says.

“I don’t care about some greater good. I didn’t ask for these powers and I’m not my past lives. I don’t know when Keon was born, and I can’t tell you what Bautista’s favorite meal was, and I’m already carrying around enough guilt for a war I didn’t cause. But Brighton getting jumped by the Blood Casters? That’s on me. No one matters to me more than my brother, and I won’t be able to live with myself if he dies.”

The door opens, and Maribelle and Atlas walk in.

“The good guys are here,” Ness says dryly while feigning a clap.

“They backed me up in there,” I say.

Atlas pats my shoulder. “We’re here to help you now too. You and Brighton have done more than we should’ve asked of you.”

Maribelle flips a dagger between her fingers while holding eye contact with Ness. “You coming willingly?”

“He has to make this decision himself,” I say.

“You’re truly not cut out for this life,” she says. It feels more like an apology than an insult.

Good on all the Spell Walkers who have stayed in this fight, even when they’ve wanted to bust out too, but the soldier life is too suffocating for me. Someone shouldn’t have to be a walking weapon simply because they possess powers. I’m not about it, and I’m done once I save my brother.

Ness stands. “I got myself into this, and I’ll get myself out of it.”

I don’t know how to thank someone who is willingly marching back into the life he doesn’t want for himself. “I’ll protect you too,” I promise.

“Sure.”

This would be easier if Ness were as awful as Stanton, but as far as I can tell, he’s a Blood Caster who was torn between two conflicts and chose the option that scared him the least.

“Eva has the urn,” Atlas says. “She’s not going to hand it over to anyone but Iris. This is where you come in, Ness.”

Ness looks puzzled. “You trust me to shift into your leader?”

Maribelle scoffs. “Not my leader.”

“I trust you,” I say.

Ness takes a deep breath and begins morphing before our eyes. There’s that muted glow as he shrinks, and his skin darkens while his hair shortens and turns green. There’s pain on his face the entire time, and within a minute, the transformation is complete. He looks like Iris, but still in his clothes. “I don’t know what she’s wearing,” he says in a voice that sounds like his own before it transitions into Iris’s halfway. He makes the necessary changes as we describe her resistance shirt, white jeans, and combat boots.

We walk down the hall. I sense Atlas is uneasy with all of this, but he’s going to do the right thing. Like Ness. If he had some master plan, this wasn’t going to be the time to make a move. Once we get the urn, I have to figure out how to save us all. I’ll honor my promise to Ness.

Maribelle barges into the professors’ lounge, which I haven’t been in before. Eva is stretched across a fold-out couch and comes out from under her pillow. “We need the urn before your girl has a change of heart,” she says, gesturing at Ness, who is standing tall as Iris.

Eva rubs her eyes. “It’s never going to work.”

“We have to try,” Ness says. It’s nice to hear what Iris would’ve sounded like had she said these words herself.

“I’m not going to let the Blood Casters get away with the urn, but I have to get my brother,” I say.

Eva gets out of bed, goes into a closet, and opens a safe, and when she hands Ness the urn, she turns to me and holds her stare. “You get one shot.” She knows what’s up, and she’s allowing it anyway. But there’s no mistaking the look on her face—this pure anguish and hope that she won’t regret handing the world over to someone who will risk it all to save his brother.

We grab our gear but don’t bother changing. We rush inside the car before Iris or Wesley find out what Eva has done. Prudencia comes banging out the doors, and she looks dressed for battle too. She pulls at the backseat door, but I keep it locked.

“Let me in,” she says.

“No. Brighton is in this mess because he couldn’t defend himself. I’m not risking you too.”

“I can handle myself,” Prudencia says.

“Please hang tight and explain everything to Ma in case . . .”

I’m not as hopeless as I was when I thought I was going into this fight alone. I will survive, and I will save Brighton, and Ma will never have to panic over the death threat.

I tell Atlas to drive, and we move a couple feet before the car stops. My face and Ness’s slam against the backs of the front seats. The wheels continue spinning like we’re stuck in a ditch. I think Iris must’ve caught up to us and grabbed the rear, but when I turn around, Prudencia is the only one there, and she’s walking toward the car with her arms outstretched as if she’s inviting me in for a hug. When she’s outside my window, she snaps her fingers, and the lock switches. She lets herself in, pushing me against Ness.

“I told you I can handle myself,” Prudencia says. Her eyes are fiercely glowing like ping-ponging stars. “I’m going.”

Thirty-One

The Trade

EMIL

My best friend has been a celestial all along.

“I wanted to tell you,” Prudencia says to me as we speed away from Nova.

“Why didn’t you?”

No matter how often Brighton, Prudencia, and Ma have been there for me, these have been the loneliest weeks of my life. When Dad passed, we were all united by grief. But no one could fully be there for me when I came into these powers because they didn’t understand firsthand. That’s what I legit thought.