Page 51

FORTY

S he’d known what Cristo was doing. She’d found ash in The Prism . Here, hidden away with only slivered moonlight for company, there was no way to deny the truth. Cristo’s team was tearing apart phoenixes to experiment on.

Why?

With numb hands, Kel grabbed at the notepad beside the microscope. Through the darkness, she could only make out a few scattered notes:

… historically no way to preserve… Trial D-249 offered no new results… plucked from a rebirth and preserved among ashes… when kept at ~2300 degrees Celsius… breakthrough… Mr. Cristo—approved…

Those few lines were enough for the bile in Kel’s throat to creep higher. A cold sweat broke out along her neck as she moved to the next bench.

More samples, more notes, more sketches of dissected phoenix parts—lungs, gizzards, crops, eyes.

Kel felt lightheaded, but she kept moving. Eventually, she made her way to the back of the room, beside the towering glass cabinet.

A stark white bin stood to the left of the glass case. Pristine and clinical, like everything else in the room.

Kel didn’t give herself time to think. She wrenched off the lid and peered inside.

A dry sob wracked her throat.

There were so many— too many—bloody tissues and rags. Feather quills and hollow bones. Used syringes and stained vials. Shattered vertebrae and cracked skulls.

Fine, black molecules with miniscule flares of orange.

Ashes.

Kel ran to the nearest sink and heaved up the contents of her stomach.

She wanted to curl up and wake from this nightmare. How many phoenixes had Cristo torn apart?

Against her smarter instincts, she’d let him break through her walls. But she’d kill him for this. She’d take Savita and leave Salta forever.

Her hands were trembling, violently enough that she could barely lean on them for support. She used her elbows to push herself up from the sink, wiped her mouth, and shuffled over to the glass enclosure. The last remnant of the room to search.

As soon as she focused on the cabinet she realized that it wasn’t made of glass. Even in the shadows, she couldn’t believe she’d mistaken it.

The tall, chute-like cabinet, gleaming and fractured, was made entirely of diamond. Just like The Prism .

Kel couldn’t see inside; the front panel was locked. She moved around the thick casing until she found a glass window inlaid into the back.

Even a few steps away, Kel felt the heat emanating from the cabinet. Eyes watering, she shifted closer to peer inside.

The air moved like ripples in a river. Halfway down the chute was a shelf that Kel assumed was also made of diamond, though it was blackened and cracked.

A pile of ashes sat at the center. Red and orange grains flashed amid the black heap, like burning stars. A circle of feathers was carefully arranged around the ashes. Each feather was a different hue, with a different pattern. Each from a different subspecies of phoenix.

Kel pressed closer to the small window. She didn’t care about the heat. She didn’t care about the vomit in her throat or the lead in her bones. Nothing existed beyond the confines of that little, lonely window.

Dancing above the ashes, writhing above each feather, were flames.

Phoenix flames.

It was… impossible . Every Cendorian knew that all traces of phoenix magic died with the phoenix. Despite superstition, despite what underground markets claimed, there was no way to preserve their magic for human use.

There was no way for the flames above the ashes and feathers to exist.

The fire meant that the objects inside were still alive . No matter how small, no matter the detachment from the phoenix, Cristo had preserved phoenix magic.

How was this possible?

Kel edged away. She bumped into the nearest desk and sent a stack of papers flying across the floor. Her trembling fingers made it impossible to pick them up.

She needed to get out of here. She needed to get Savita out.

Savita… who was nearing a rebirth. Whose ashes Cristo could harvest.

Kel turned and stumbled for the exit. The closet’s darkness quickly enveloped her and she skidded into a bucket, sending a mop clattering to the ground.

Heart drumming in her ears, Kel fled the lab. She didn’t know what Cristo planned to do with the magic, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was Savita.

Kel sprinted down the hall, limbs heavy and aching, every movement jarring her hip. She raced through a maze of corridors before finally, finally , spotting a familiar hall.

The halls near the aviary were empty; the one scrap of luck she’d had tonight. She didn’t know where Cristo had disappeared to, but he’d been wandering through the far eastern end of the building. He was nowhere near Savita’s aviary.

And, Kel realized, as she tore toward the glass dome, neither was Savita.

Kel didn’t have her security pass to let her in, but she didn’t need it. She moved around the dome’s walls, squinting up into the trees. There was no sign of Sav. No flash of red among the green, no rustling in the leaves.

Kel’s mind raced back to what she’d overheard.

We moved her yesterday.

Had they been talking about Savita?

She flitted through the other scraps of conversation she’d heard.

Cristo had mentioned an inducement . They must have been talking about Sav’s rebirth.

The fear coursing through Kel begged her to slow, to think.

Instead, she ran, her hip screaming in protest. She knew exactly where Cristo would be keeping Savita.

As she sprinted, Kel told herself that Savita—for better or worse—was drawing too much publicity. She was on the council’s radar. If she suddenly vanished, Cristo would have to answer to all of Cendor.

That was what Kel told herself, even as she stumbled away from Sav’s aviary. Even as a shadow pooled along the ground around the next corner and she couldn’t stop fast enough.

Someone with rough hands knocked the wind from her lungs and shoved something coarse over her head.

“I’m so sorry, Kelyn,” a voice— Cristo’s —said.

Darkness consumed her.