s around my arms are diminishing until I give it one last push that drags a scream out of me. The wings burn brighter and fuller and I sail over the roof’s balcony, crashing onto the floor and rolling besides a huge telescope.
I survey my surroundings as I catch my breath. The lights are off beyond the glass doors. There’s no sign of life out here. No one seems to be guarding the penthouse—no security, no acolytes, no Casters. I pull the oblivion dagger out from the new sheath I fashioned into my power-proof vest and burn off the door’s handle and let myself in. Lights immediately come on. Of course this place has sensors. No one pops out with a wand to take me down.
My psychic sense isn’t signaling any danger. But I remain cautious because I still don’t fully understand this power. If I knew everything there was to know about Sera’s visions, I could better figure out how to tune mine.
I still haven’t had time to fully process everything about what it means to be Sera and Bautista’s daughter. I only know that the world would find more grounds to hate me because not only do they blame Mama and Papa for the Blackout, but my biological parents founded the Spell Walkers they’ve deemed villains. I think back to my sentiment about how I’m done saving the world that doesn’t want to remember my parents as heroes, and I feel it doubly now. I’m including myself too.
Those who wouldn’t save me don’t deserve my saving.
Those who would’ve deserve my avenging.
I proceed through the penthouse. Starlight filters through some of the bay windows. There’s a dining table that can seat a dozen but no sign of recent life. Black ceramic pots rest in the white built-in bookshelves. Above the fireplace is a painting of a woman climbing out of the central mouth of a nine-headed hydra. The chandelier is the icing on this very expensive cake.
The bedrooms are down the hallway. One reeks of sweat and sewage and there’s dried skin on the pillowcase. All signs point to Stanton. I eagerly go to the next room, wanting more to confirm that the Blood Casters have indeed been here. I find newspaper clippings about Senator Iron on a bureau. This could’ve been Ness keeping tabs on his father. There’s nothing out of the ordinary in the next bedroom but there are drops of blood on the bathroom floor. It’s red, not gray like June’s, so maybe this was Dione’s room.
I keep my dagger ready as I enter the suite. It’s eight times the size of the biggest bedroom I’ve had throughout my history of haven homes, which was the archive room of the Amy Silverstreak Library in Queens. The walk-in closet is empty. The bed is made, but sticking out from underneath is a handkerchief stained with blood. This had to have been Luna’s quarters—living large and dying slowly as she tried to master immortality. I shudder thinking about Luna forcing Eva to heal her of her wounds and even going so far to try and get her sickness improved, even though Eva can’t even heal a common cold. But if anyone is going to figure out how to use the blood of a healer to save herself, it’s the alchemist who engineered potions combining multiple creature essences.
I exit the suite and continue down the hall when I see lightning flash outside the window. I was sure to check the weather this morning, and yesterday morning, since seeing that phoenix two nights ago, and there was no forecast for storms. There have been no sightings since then but those of us on the bridge that night weren’t the only ones to see them flying into the city. Multiple clips surfaced online, but no one knows where the rider settled. I was able to identify the phoenix and do a little research. The phoenix is a light howler and in a fight can be as fast as its personal lightning strikes.
Thunder roars and the second lightning flash reveals the phoenix and its rider.
Danger buzzes through my body the closer they get.
The rider is wearing a mask with a metallic golden beak and confirms my suspicion—she’s a Halo Knight, protector of phoenixes. The light howler hovers over the balcony as the rider hugs a crossbow to her chest, somersaults on top of the telescope, and fires an arrow at me. I spin out of harm’s way with a one-handed cartwheel. The arrow shatters the door and glass rains behind me.
Two can play this game.
I’m quick with a fire-arrow and blast the crossbow out of her grip. She flips off the telescope and lands in a defensive stance. She’s wearing the customary leather jacket with yellow feathered sleeves and finger-cut gloves. “You have no right possessing that sacred fire,” the Halo Knight says with fury and heartbreak in her voice as if I killed a phoenix right in front of her.
“I inherited my powers—”
Danger.
A dagger drops out of the Halo Knight’s feathered sleeve and she hurls it at me. I shift in time for the dagger to sail past my head. The Halo tackles me back inside the penthouse and pins my shoulders with her knees. She fidgets with a small pocket in her black leather belt and I horizontally levitate into the air, grab on to her, and spin rapidly until she must be dizzy before slamming her down on the floor.
I punch the golden beak, knocking the mask fully off her face.
The Halo Knight has dark eye shadow over her intense glare, a long nose that rounds out like a button, sun-kissed cheeks that are flushed from the fight, full lips that are cracked like she’s been biting them, and dark hair that’s been braided into a crown that’s coming undone.
Then her foot connects into my back and I roll off of her. We pick ourselves up and charge, locked in a dance of physical combat. She shoulder rolls across the dining table and hurls a chair my way. I dodge and she closes in on me quickly. I go for a crescent kick but she sneaks under my leg with an uppercut that I block. I use my power to flip over her, but she beautifully times her sweep kick to my landing and knocks me onto my back.
Halo Knights are self-appointed guardians trained by those who came before them to protect phoenixes against all human dangers—traffickers, hunters, alchemists. Seeing as all my enemies have been people, I’ve never had to fight a Halo Knight before. I wonder if all their skills are as otherworldly as this one.
“What do you want from me?” I ask from the floor.
“Your blood, Spell Walker,” she says.
“That line runs around the block,” I say. My dark yellow wings carry me off the floor and I charge a fire-orb while hovering over the Halo Knight.
She runs away from me and whistles at her phoenix. “STRIKE!”
The light howler sways on its black talons as a ray of lightning spits out of its throat. I glide out of the way before the lightning strike can blow a hole through my body, but as it blasts apart the fireplace, the aftershock throws me across the room and I slam against the painting of the woman and the hydra. Colors dance across my vision as the Halo Knight crouches over me and stabs my arm with a needle.
“No more fire out of you,” the Halo Knight says as she waves a tiny dart in my face. “No-Fly Tranquilizer. The same used to sedate phoenixes. You have roughly three minutes before you’re unconscious.”
I’ll be impressed if I can make it three minutes. I want to punch her but I can’t get my mind to connect with my fist.
“My parents were slaughtered at the Museum of Natural Creatures protecting a newborn century phoenix,” the Halo Knight says.