The celestial broke the illusion.
The tanks speed toward the school, and I don’t understand how celestials can turn their back on their own kind. But who am I if I turn my back on Emil and the Spell Walkers when they may need me the most?
Forty-One
Gravesend
EMIL
On the way to pack, I wish I had more than scars and memories to remember Ness by. I should’ve taken him up on that amateur art. Maybe he would’ve painted two boys sitting closely together on the floor. But after seeing how Atlas was used against Maribelle, maybe it’s best if we don’t let anyone get to know our hearts.
I enter the room and almost bump into Prudencia.
“I was about to come find you,” she says. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I was . . . I was seeing Ness out.”
Ma is on my air mattress beside a stuffed duffel bag, and she stops folding a shirt. “He left?”
I nod. “How are you two?”
“We’re done,” Prudencia says. “But Brighton’s stuff isn’t here. No clothes, no bag, no laptop.”
He’s probably camping out in someone else’s room. “I’ll go find him.”
I put down the egg, and it glows brighter than before and begins hatching.
“It’s happening!”
The room gets warm. I can’t believe I’m about to witness the birth of a phoenix—especially a century phoenix. Brighton should be here for this once-in-a-lifetime experience, getting it on camera like I always wanted for him, but there’s no time to find him. The shell cracks on one side and within seconds, a bronze beak is hammering away, yawning a song of chaos. Then Gravesend breaks free from her egg with her crown of midnight-blue feathers and eyes as big and shiny as marbles.
“What a beauty,” I say as I scoop her up in one of my shirts. She’s as light and soft as a bouquet of flowers. Her war-hungry cries grow louder and louder as she squirms around my arms with one wing shielding her eyes from the light.
“She needs to be fed,” Ma says.
“Good luck making Gravesend vegan,” Prudencia says.
“Challenge accepted,” I joke, even though I know it’s not in her breed’s nature to eat anything but other animals. “I’ll see if there’s anything left in the kitchen and—”
Gravesend squirms more viciously, and her song chills my bones like when I’m walking through a bad neighborhood and can see shady characters watching me.
Then spellwork and screams echo in the hallway.
The Blood Casters are here for Gravesend.
“Turn off the lights and lock the door,” Ma says.
Was Gravesend warning us?
“We can’t stay here. Gravesend is too loud. Pru, get Ma somewhere safe.”
“You’re coming with us,” Prudencia says.
“I have to find Brighton.”
I can’t believe I’m doing this to Ma again, I can feel her heart breaking every time, but I’m not leaving without my brother. I peek out into the hallway, and a familiar blur is moving door to door, banging on each one.
Wesley appears before us, sweating and panting. “Enforcers. Enforcers are here. Get to the back and go past the fence. Cars will be waiting on the other side.”
“How did they—”
Wesley dashes off. How they found us doesn’t matter right now.
I hug Ma and Prudencia and tell them I’ll see them soon, then I run with Gravesend in my arms before they can stop me. I go for the roof first, shuddering whenever spellwork explodes, shaking the floors. I shout for Brighton, but he’s not up here. Over the ledge, I see six enforcer tanks parked by the front entrance. I rest Gravesend in the corner of the roof, praying to the stars this will be the safest spot to leave her while I hunt down Brighton. I kiss her forehead and rush back down. Her cries follow me the whole way.
The halls are crowded. In the chaos, I see an enforcer kick down one door. Then there’s a whistle, and the enforcer falls asleep on the spot, allowing that celestial Zachary and an elderly woman to escape. I burst into rooms, calling Brighton’s name and ushering stragglers out. I round the stairs when an enforcer hurls a citrine gem-grenade at me, and I’m quick and precise with a fire-dart. The grenade explodes midair, and the shock wave blasts the enforcer down the stairs. My wounds burn when I use my power, but I have to fight through it. I run to the lower level to find Eva healing that girl Grace, the one whose loud voice Maribelle hoped to use for security—like tonight. Once the colorful lights close the hole in Grace’s stomach, I guide them into an empty classroom.
“Eva, what’s going on?” I ask.
“They broke in. They must’ve gotten through our defenses, and our evacuation plans have all gone to hell without Atlas and Maribelle. I haven’t seen Iris. . . .”
“Wesley said there are cars in back, beyond the fence. Go there. I’ll send Iris your way if I find her.”
I can’t imagine Brighton would be in the music room right by the entrance, but if enforcers or anyone got their hands on him, maybe there will be some evidence that he was there in the first place, like his laptop or clothes. I cross paths with a duo of enforcers, dodging their spells that explode against the lockers behind me. Fire-darts take them out and I make it to the room. Everything is wrecked—sheet stands have fallen on their sides, holes have been blown through drums, and the piano has folded in on itself. But no sign of Brighton.
Where the hell is he?
I move for the back door that leads to the auditorium’s stage when someone shouts for me to freeze. I don’t know if it’s one enforcer or half a dozen, but I don’t move.
This is it for me. I hope Brighton is okay, that Prudencia and Ma escaped, that Ness got far away, that the Spell Walkers win, that I won’t be reborn into a world where Luna and the Blood Casters are living forever.
I brace myself when I hear a spell discharge. An enforcer blasts past me and slams into the wall, unconscious. I turn around to see my savior, expecting Iris, but it’s another enforcer who’s very muscular and taking deep breaths as gray light transforms him.
Ness.
“You’re back,” I breathe, and I feel so energized and strong, like I could fight every day for the rest of my life.
“I saw the tanks. I wasn’t fast enough to warn you, but I had to help.”
I crash into him with a hug and squeeze hard because everything is going wrong and he came back for me. “Brighton’s missing, and Gravesend is alive and crying on the roof, and I can’t do this alone.”
“I’m here. Let’s find your brother, grab Gravesend, and get the hell out of here.”
We run through the auditorium, where two celestials are dead onstage. Ness drags me away, reminding me to focus as if forgetting dead bodies is easy to put out of my mind. The celestials here are trying to live, even if that means holing themselves up in an abandoned school so they won’t be treated as threats to society. At the entrance to the cafeteria, Iris is deflecting spells with her fists as Eva guides a dozen familiar faces out the back. She’s alive and they found each other. Between Ness popping back up like he’s the firefly, I have hope for Brighton.
“Maybe he left already,” Ness says.