“You built your following by shouting out how many lives you’ve saved or lost. They only see you as a warrior. Let’s take it to the next level and make it clear what you’re fighting for.”
“And you’re the one to do it?” Maribelle asks.
“My platform has grown since Emil.” I can’t say it out loud, but it does sting that my personal fame isn’t because of my own spotlight. The tables have now turned, and I’ve become Emil’s cameraman. “I can get people to pay attention. We start with you all, and maybe we can expand to the innocents you’ve saved.”
“Not every celestial wants to be exposed,” Prudencia says. “All the work they’ve done to blend into society gets thrown out the window.”
“Everyone will have a choice to prove they’re not walking weapons simply because they have powers. They can tell their stories through my Human Power campaign.”
I give them the rundown. We lead with a special feature—Spell Walkers of New York—on my channel and every video will be tagged with #HumanPower. When it trends—and it will—we’ll throw the question back at everyone: What’s your Human Power? Celestials can share their stories. Humans can prove they’re allies and energize others to step up their game.
Prudencia takes a deep breath and looks me dead in the eye. “I want to believe your campaign will work, Brighton. It’s inspired. I’m not all that confident that someone who’s a bigot learning that Spell Walkers have dreams and feelings will finally view them as equals. Then there’s the fake activism, which is exhausting. People show up for a hashtag, spend an hour preparing a picture to post to prove they’re good, and then they return to their regular lives where people don’t swing at them.”
It’s a conversation we’ve had before, but my cheeks flush having it in front of the Spell Walkers.
“It’s worth trying,” I say.
“I agree,” Iris says, and I hold back a smile. “Senator Iron is using the Blackout to silence Congresswoman Sunstar. It’s unrealistic to expect Brighton’s campaign to change everyone’s worldviews forever, but maybe now is the time to try. This could be a big push to get Sunstar in office, where she can continue her work on a greater scale.”
Everyone is talking over each other. Atlas is on the fence because not everyone’s stories are going to be received well by the public. Eva is worried about what this could mean for Nova if enforcers and alchemists find out there’s a healer on the team. Emil wants me to think about how this might backfire on me, but hateful comments are very different from what celestials face daily. Maribelle is resistant until she realizes the potential of this campaign catching fire—with a bigger platform, she can ask the world if they know the identity of the mystery girl who survived the Blackout. Wesley wants to talk it out with Ruth, but he’s open to it if she is.
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.