“I’m not sitting here for two days,” I say.
“Then let’s hope Emil and Maribelle can find their way back sooner,” Wyatt says.
“By trusting their instincts?”
“It’s gotten them this far.”
But how far is that? Truly. They’re limited by what they could do, even someone as special as Maribelle, a celestial-specter hybrid. I’m the Infinity Savior, and the reason I must not be able to retrocycle is because I don’t have all the powers my Reaper’s Blood has promised me. Even if the ghost powers don’t have much to do with my phoenix ones, everything is packaged together within me and is sure to affect each other, just like how Maribelle couldn’t fully fly until she activated her fire too.
I might be left out now, but once I have all my powers, I’ll make their retrocycling and everything else they can do look like child’s play.
Count on it.
An hour passes, then another, and I spend the next three replying to my YouTube comments and answering a few questions on Instagram, but by the eighth hour of waiting around, I’m beginning to wonder if my brother and Maribelle will find their way back to our time.
Forty-Five
Sera Córdova
MARIBELLE
I’m the granddaughter of the woman who has taken everything from me.
This is some cursed darkness I’ve been born into. I’ve always loved being a celestial, but I’ve never wanted these powers less than I do right now. I crave family drama more along the lines of my mother not speaking to my grandmother because she doesn’t approve of my father or arguments over how best to raise me. Instead there have been hidden pregnancies, secret parents, and a villainous grandmother like some awful fairy tale.
I share blood with the most feared gang leader who is behind the deaths of Mama, Papa, Sera, Bautista, and Atlas. I want to rage-cry, but Luna’s made sure there’s no one to hold me anymore.
Emil tries approaching me, but I hold out my hand. I don’t want his comfort.
“Are Konrad and Finola back?” Sera asks.
“I don’t think so,” Bautista says. “Iris’s appointment with the savant should be happening now. Do you think they’re okay?”
“I didn’t see them getting harmed in my vision,” Sera says.
“What did you see? How does it happen?”
“What does it matter how it happens?! We’re dying, Bautista. The best thing we can do right now is make sure our daughter and our friends don’t die with us!” Sera is shaking as she switches off the cauldron’s fire. “I didn’t even get to finish the potion for Aurora, and I’ll never get to see Maribelle speak or watch her walk. It’s happening too soon, far too soon. I hate these visions that only show me pain and death but never life.”
The baby is crying, but Bautista tries shushing Sera to calm her down instead. He holds her face to his chest and rubs her back. Neither of them are particularly settled by this.
What Sera says about the visions only showing pain and death syncs up with how my psychic sense has only ever warned me of danger. I don’t know where this power comes from. An ancestor of Luna’s? My grandfather? Whoever that is. As much as Sera believes she wants to see my future as if I have some beautiful life, she would only see how the world has gotten worse and taken me down with it.
“We have to bring Maribelle to Aurora,” Sera says.
“No, come on. I’m getting you out of here. We’ll prove your vision wrong,” Bautista says.
“This warning is written in the stars, and even we’re not powerful enough to change the fates. Grab the journal. There’s still time to set up the Walkers for success against the Blood Casters.”
As Sera leaves the room and rushes down the hallway, I’m dragged with her, like she’s the earth and I’m a moon pulled into her orbit. Bautista catches up, clutching the journal. Emil is side by side with me.
“Are you okay?” Emil asks.
I’m surprised I can hear him. I ignore him like I can’t.
Sera and Bautista are rushing through the hall, dreading their deaths, but not saying anything to each other. Had Mama and Papa known they were about to die, they would’ve used every last minute to express their love for one another. But I was grown when Mama and Papa died. Here I’m a baby who needs my biological parents to pass me on so I can become who I am.
I can’t believe I’m going to get to see Mama and Papa.