Infinity Reaper (Infinity Cycle #2) - Adam Silvera Page 0,113

not a hero in your books,” Wyatt says.

That catches me off guard. “Really? But you don’t even battle.”

“Again, it’s in our line of work. Three years ago, I was visiting the States to investigate a farm in Colorado that was stealing phoenix eggs for breeding. It happened to be the night of the Future Watcher, that lovely little prime constellation that aids celestials with all forms of foresight. My mum and dad had seen it years before, so they stayed in to prep while Nox and I flew atop the Chalk Cliffs to stargaze. Unfortunately, a psychic had sold us out to an alchemist and specter aspirant on the hunt for a phoenix, and we were ambushed.”

Wyatt looks even more horrified than when he was telling me about the history of cruelty Nox suffered from his former companion.

“You don’t have to talk about this. I’m not judging you,” I say.

“No, no. It’s important. It was a firsthand experience dealing with one’s violent desperation to become a specter. Paired beautifully with another great American problem—being held at wandpoint. The alchemist trapped Nox in an electric net that shocked him the more he resisted. I had one opportunity to snatch the wand and I took it. I cast spells, and while I didn’t intend to kill them, kill them I did.” Wyatt stares out the open window, fixed on the sky. “It was self-defense, but that’s a lot to take on at seventeen. It took about a year of therapy before I accepted that I’m not like those predators. My hope for you, sweet Emil, is that you’re kind to yourself if you ever have to kill for those you love. I can’t imagine you’ll feel alive if you have the opportunity to save them and don’t take it.”

After a sleep troubled with haunting nightmares of Bautista’s heroics, I settle into the meditation room shortly after dawn, more determined than ever to make sure my life doesn’t echo his. Brighton isn’t trying this time, only observing with Prudencia, and he’s managing a pretty neutral attitude about it, I got to say. Maribelle is eager to give retrocycling another go. She sits cross-legged in front of me as Wyatt and Tala remind us that the goal is to find Sera and Bautista on their last day alive.

“Understood,” Maribelle says.

“How are you feeling?” I ask her.

Maribelle glares as if I have some nerve to say anything to her.

I could offer her a lifetime of apologies, and it wouldn’t matter as long as Atlas is dead. Instead of bothering her anymore, I close my eyes and take deep breaths to mentally prepare for this next attempt to the past.

“Trust in your instincts again,” Tala says in a hushed voice. “Remember the history, breathe it, and fly back to it.”

I hear Maribelle’s flames burst to life, and I ignite too. I haven’t used the Dayrose salve since two nights ago, but thankfully my power is significantly less painful than before. I’m able to build Bautista’s life, beginning with his voice, which I know better now from those broadcasts, and I search and search for a way into his last day. I feel stuck, like my legs are buried in sand, and I think about how desperately I want to figure out those ingredients so I don’t have to be trapped in this war.

Everything becomes blurry as muffled voices surface. A younger Bautista flickers against a darkness, screaming as he finds his hand on fire, telling someone that he doesn’t want to be a weapon. I’ve been asked before if I ever experienced any flashbacks to lives I didn’t live, and now I can say I have. For several moments I forget my own face and name and history. I’m brought back as Emil Donato Rey with this memory of Bautista begging not to fight, and I can feel his hopelessness like fingers in my throat, suffocating me. We share this pain across lifetimes. Bautista wanted an escape too, and I urge him to help me even though he’s dead, even though I’m the new us, but it’s like asking yourself to solve a problem you can’t possibly know the answer to. Then Bautista, much older than the flashback, slightly older than the videos, flickers in the darkness again, mouthing words I’ve never heard him say—words like dry-tear and crimson root. The ingredients. I keep reaching for his voice like it’s something physical I can grab and squeeze. The other ingredients keep coming to me, like how