Infinity Reaper (Infinity Cycle #2) - Adam Silvera Page 0,8

the most money came from people who wanted to know what it felt like to fly—and not just fly, but fly with then-beloved Spell Walkers. Why go skydiving when the Luceros could take you flying around your neighborhood for a few minutes?

Things weren’t perfect then, and they’ll never be perfect, but I would kill for those times.

I will kill for those times.

I round the corner, and someone is sobbing. Prudencia is sitting on the floor, crying into her hands. Emil must be dead. I know he has a good heart, but it only seems fair. If Emil hadn’t released June when we finally had a hold on her in the Apollo Arena, then Atlas would be alive right now.

“Did Emil die?” I ask.

Prudencia can barely get any words out, and she doesn’t bother wiping any tears from her glossy brown eyes. “I don’t know. The practitioners are working on him already, but Brighton . . . he’s unconscious too, and they have a team trying to save him.”

From what I understand, Brighton and Emil are the closest people in her life. Prudencia’s parents were killed too, and now she’s also on the edge of losing everyone she loves. She only got involved in this war because she wanted to see this through with her best friends. Will she stay with the Spell Walkers if they die, or go back to her celestial-hating aunt? I don’t know.

“There’s still hope,” I say. It’s true—I don’t waste my breath on empty words. “Specters have been known to faint early in their journeys—after consuming elixirs, when their powers first surface. Their bodies have to adjust. And the Reaper’s Blood is a whole other level. I’m sure Brighton will pull through.”

“Brighton isn’t supposed to be a specter,” Prudencia says.

Well, no one is supposed to be a specter. Myself included. But Emil’s ambitions to create the power-binding potion Bautista and Sera were working on before they died feels like an impossible task. It may not be easy to get an experienced alchemist to turn someone into a specter, but that task isn’t as daunting as reverting every specter back into an ordinary person. That star has long fallen out of sight, as the old proverb goes.

“Brighton made his choice,” I say.

“And you chose to help him, which makes me want to send you flying through the wall . . . but I also know Brighton. Even if you didn’t help him, he would’ve shown up. If anything, you kept him alive.” Prudencia stares straight ahead at the opposite wall, which has a calming poster of celestials running on water. I can’t imagine it’s having any positive effect on her right now. “What was his reasoning for drinking the Reaper’s Blood?” she asks.

When Brighton first presented his plan, I could see through what some people, even Prudencia, probably mistake as charm. “He said he had to be the one to drink it. He said it would be too risky for me since we don’t know enough about the blood type of someone who inherited both celestial and specter properties.”

“Oh yeah, like he didn’t have his own risks. Like how his own father didn’t survive having hydra essence in him, or how Luna prepared this elixir with blood from her parents’ ghosts, or how it was all untested and he knew all of this, but he did it anyway!”

She’s hyperventilating, and it reminds me of the many days following the deaths of my parents, when I would cry and scream so hard that Atlas and Iris and the others couldn’t even understand what I was trying to say.

“He’s going to die,” Prudencia says.

“Maybe. Gleamcrafters are not promised the luxury of time. You should’ve understood that already from losing your parents.”

She stands. “What are you talking about?”

“I never kept secrets from Atlas. You had your reasons for not telling Brighton you’re a celestial, I get it. But how do you think he felt when you trusted Iris, an absolute stranger, with your big secret before you trusted him?”

“I never wanted to be exploited by him. Look at the way he was using Emil to boost his own status and fame. And Brighton and I are different than you and Atlas.”

“I was open with the person I love and you weren’t.”

Prudencia rolls her eyes. “You don’t know me.”

“You went on missions involving dangerous people, knowing that you may even have to expose your telekinesis, to keep Brighton alive.”

“And keep Emil alive!” She’s shaking. This anger would be useful against the