Infinity Reaper by Adam Silvera (best new books to read txt) 📗

put. I meet Brighton on the balcony, one hundred percent unable to look at him.

“Now I know why you never came back to the room,” Brighton says.

“We didn’t do anything,” I say.

“There’s no need to lie—”

“I know, which is why I’m not.”

“We’ll circle back to this later. More important matters anyway. Ma’s alive.”

All embarrassment forgotten, I turn to Brighton with tears already forming in my eyes. “For real?”

Brighton hands me his phone with a video loaded. I’m nervous that it’s going to be something horrible, like when Stanton beat up Brighton on camera, but it’s an interview that starts off with that Silver Star Slayer creep and Eva. I watch the whole thing with the heat of the rising sun on my neck, and I’m so relieved Ma and Eva are alive, but there’s something off about this.

“Ma would’ve called us,” I say.

“They’re not letting her.”

“But she has rights.”

“These are people who treat us like terrorists. The only way enforcers are giving Ma a call is if they believe it’ll lead them to us.” Brighton is so pissed that he looks like he might hurl some fire-bolts into the sky. “This has got to be some political move to stir up more trouble before the election.”

“Why wouldn’t they use an actual news network?”

“Probably because using the Silver Star Slayer is a middle finger to me.”

Too many mind games. “What’s our move?”

“I’ll grab Prudencia, and we can all figure it out together. I’ll be back in minutes, so you don’t have time for whatever it was you and your boyfriend were or weren’t doing,” Brighton says, and dashes away.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say to no one.

But I’m not against it.

A couple hours in the library and we haven’t come up with any leads.

Prudencia managed to get Iris on the phone right as she was on her way out with Wesley to hit the streets, even though there’s no guarantee Eva and Ma are even still in the city. Brighton has posted response videos online, running his mouth about the Silver Star Slayer and how Iron is messing with our heads and possibly harming our mother. Strong words, but he’s not pulling any punches. Wyatt watched the interview once and confirmed our gut feelings that there’s nothing in that setting that we can use to determine where it was even filmed.

“I’m this close to knocking down Iron’s door and demanding to know where Ma is,” Brighton says.

“Don’t see how that will help with your image,” Wyatt says.

“I don’t care!” Brighton shouts.

The door opens, and Maribelle and Tala enter.

“This is the loudest library,” Maribelle says. “Do I want to know?”

“Big updates since you’ve been out,” Brighton says, and then fills them both in on everything that we know.

“It’s all happening,” Tala says, setting down a bag on the round table. “When it rains, it pours. We have the ingredients.”

I open the bag, laying out all the ingredients and admiring them like pieces to my new favorite puzzle. This is how we’ll create the Starstifler, a potion that has been hidden in time for decades, and we’ll change the fate of specters everywhere. I’ll bind my powers, I’ll work to become a Halo Knight, I’ll fight this war in a way that’s more me. For the first time since those gold and gray flames appeared, I actually believe there’s life beyond them.

Brighton stares at the ingredients too, but I don’t think he’s seeing what I’m seeing.

“It’s going to take three days to brew,” I say.

Prudencia packs up everything. “We better get started.”

“Enjoy that. I’m going to sleep,” Maribelle says.

“Same,” Tala says.

“Only wake me if we’ve tracked down literally anyone we’re looking for,” Maribelle adds.

I let them go, and Wyatt leads us to the on-site lab where he had prepared the Dayrose salve for me. The room is small, occupied by a Halo Knight who is using a poster on different alchemic elements to teach a child about brewing. We give them as much space as possible, setting up near two silver cauldrons. I run back for the journal and return just as Brighton and Prudencia finish rinsing the cauldrons. Wyatt goes into a cabinet and hands me a jar of crushed torch grains, a couple Dayrose roots, a vial of phoenix tears, and packets of a crowned elder’s soot.

“I’ll fetch the eggshell from one of the nests,” Wyatt says.

“Make sure it’s from a reborn phoenix, not a first-timer,” I say.

“On it, Hot Wings.” He winks as he leaves.

Brighton snickers. “England and Hot Wings here may have been on each other last night.”

I ignore him, crushing the blood-plumed basilisk’s dead skin as instructed in the journal. We slowly find a flow through our first potion, triple-checking every step to make sure we’re making good use of our limited ingredients. Prudencia sprinkles the soot and torch grains into the steaming cauldron, and telekinetically stirs while Brighton boils some phoenix tears with the ground-up basilisk skin.

“The end of specters is really beginning,” I say.

I’m a mix of pride and anxiety all weekend as we work on the Starstifler. There’s a schedule we’re supposed to stick to so that nothing goes wrong, but of course Brighton would rather train and enhance his “signature moves” instead of wake up in the middle of the night to check on the potion that will one day bind his powers. I don’t say it out loud, but I’d rather lose more sleep to see this through myself than risk Brighton sabotaging it.

By Monday, everything seems to be going smoothly, though spirits are still down since we haven’t gotten any concrete updates about Ma or Eva.

“Hosting a debate watch party in an hour,” Brighton says.

“Watching Sunstar demolish Iron will be a nice break,” Prudencia says.

“We should take a shot every time Iron lies.”

“We would die.”

“You might. Emil and I are the Infinity Kings.”

Brighton smiles and tries to get a fist bump out of me but I shake my head.

Prudencia and I sprinkle shavings from the phoenix eggshell into the potion and meet