Infinity Son by Adam Silvera (e book reader free txt) 📗

There are risks, of course, but the Spell Walkers decide to give me a chance.

Maybe this war can be removed from the streets and won online.

I set up my camera on the auditorium’s stage, facing two chairs against the black curtains.

The Spell Walkers took the night to sleep on their involvement in my series, and now everyone is desperate enough for change that they’re honoring their yeses. I prep them on how this is going to go down: I’ll ask personal questions about their origin stories and lives, and the more honest they are, the better our chances will be at gaining sympathy for the campaign. We’ll each film for fifteen to twenty minutes, and I’ll stay up editing down to three to four minutes because of my viewers’ attention spans. Emil is my cameraman like the good ol’ days.

“Who wants to go first?” I ask.

Between his active Instagram and convention appearances, Wesley is the least camera-shy, but even he’s tense as I ask him about being kicked out by his parents at fourteen and forced to use his powers for survival on the streets. He admits to abusing his swift-speed for personal gain, but he turned it all around when he met Atlas, who gave him purpose, and later Ruth, who grounded him with love. He needs this war to be over so she doesn’t have to use her cloning power to raise their baby girl. Wesley will do whatever it takes to be the loving father he never had growing up.

Atlas hugs Wesley before sitting with me and opening up about his parents being locked up in the San Diego Bounds after using their powers to rob a bank, since no one wanted to hire them. At ten years old, Atlas was acting out as he bounced between foster homes, but after the high of saving someone at seventeen, he ditched Los Angeles to make a positive difference with the powers he inherited from his mother. He changed his name, dyed his hair, and set out to New York with the air of someone enlisting in the military. He prayed he would attract the attention of the Spell Walkers with his heroic deeds, all tracked on his @AtlasCounts account, and he’s committed to creating a world where celestials won’t have to abuse their powers to make ends meet.

Iris cuts in before Maribelle because she insists she has to get back to surveying specter activity to figure out what the Blood Casters are planning with the Crowned Dreamer. Iris tells the story of what it has meant to not only be a legacy Spell Walker, but to come from a line of women who are stronger with each generation. Leading the Spell Walkers after the Blackout has felt like impossible work, but her parents never shied away from the importance of the mission, even when the stars felt dimmest, so Iris will continue carrying the world on her shoulders instead of letting it roll away, hoping she can one day live as an ordinary twenty-year-old.

Maribelle joins me onstage with a photo in her lap. She defends her parents, saying that the media has got it all wrong about the Luceros and the Chambers. Instead of harping on how the Spell Walkers are responsible for the Blackout, she urges a deeper investigation on the girl everyone saw on the surveillance footage. She holds the missing pages of the story that the country is misreading. I’m about to ask her about what it’s like to be in a relationship that was born from tragedy, but Maribelle storms off with red eyes, and Atlas chases after her.

Two more to go.

Eva’s dark hair flows out from behind her rainbow cap, gifted to her by Iris to beat any urges to yank more strands from her head. She doesn’t make eye contact with me or the camera as she introduces herself as the hidden Spell Walker the world has never met because her healing power has made her too valuable. Three years ago, after losing her parents, who were working in a celestial shelter that was annihilated by a terrorist, Eva moved in with her lifelong best friend’s family. Eva had exposed her power to heal a child who’d been hit by a car, only to be followed by men who tried to kidnap her and sell her off to some shady alchemists. Her friend’s mother fought them off long enough for a celestial to come to the rescue, but she was shot in the conflict and died before Eva could heal her. Her friend watched, powerless, and soon after that, the friend sought out power to protect herself—she became a specter. Even scarier, she’s now the Blood Caster with hydra blood.

I had no idea Eva was once friends with Dione Henri. I’ll admit, I was curious how Eva’s videos were going to track compared to the others in the series, but once this story gets circulating, I’m sure everyone is going to be holding their breath to see what happens between the Spell Walker and Blood Caster who have so much history together. I know I am.

Emil comes out from behind the camera, and Prudencia takes over.

“How honest should I be?” Emil asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe if I own up to my past lives, we won’t lose the spotlight.”

“Solid.”

Prudencia shakes her head. “It’s not solid. Emil, there might be a bigger bounty on your head to make you pay for what Keon did. Violence against phoenixes will only increase. It’s all too risky.”

So we go with what’s safe for the video. Emil talking about how he was excited for college and how things were picking up at work. It’s fine, but it’s all surface level. Everyone would lose their minds to hear about how he was adopted, how he was found on the streets. It was a plot twist that shook us greater than our favorite stories. It doesn’t matter, I guess. If Emil