Maribelle crouches and gets in his face. “Tell us everything we want to know or we’ll release you.”
“That would be more threatening if I wasn’t holding the keys to the car you want to drive. There’s no way you’re letting me out of your sight.” Eduardo’s cocky grin reminds me of his father’s confidence during speeches. “You won’t find anyone alive more calculating than Luna. She’s taught me how to play the long game.”
“I promise you’re not as smart as you think you are,” Maribelle says.
“Maybe not, but I was clever enough to get you to the arena,” Eduardo says.
She doesn’t say anything.
Gray light washes over Eduardo, and he shrinks into a shorter white girl dressed in acolyte gear. He plays with the long blond hair and stares at Maribelle with bright blue eyes. “Have hope,” he says in a high voice.
“I don’t get it,” I say.
Maribelle glares. “She—he—was Hope, the acolyte at the dock who tipped me off about where we could find June and the other Blood Casters.”
“I knew you were gunning for her because of that YouTube interview. Figured I would give you what you want.” Eduardo morphs back into himself. “If you’re pissed that I manipulated you, then go ahead and release me. It’s win-win for me as long as I don’t sell out Luna.”
I can’t believe the boy we have chained up is the one who has us cornered. He’s definitely the son of a corrupt politician.
“You’re right that we won’t let you go,” Maribelle says. “If you’re not going to tell us how you’re alive or who June is or what Luna is up to, then you leave me with no other choice but to beat it out of you.”
She arches her fist. I speed forward and catch her punch with both hands. I can’t know what she’s going through in trying to avenge her parents. The only mystery revolving around Dad’s death is whether or not he would’ve lived longer if he hadn’t gone for the clinical trial. Maribelle’s heart may be in the right place, but she can’t come undone to get answers. I have to believe the person who helped train me is better than this.
Maribelle rips her fist out of my grip. “You have no idea what the hell you’re doing. You’ve been here for what, two weeks? All of a sudden you think you know what we’re about.”
“I know what you’re supposed to be about,” I say. “We can’t go attacking people for answers. That doesn’t make us better than their side.”
“I want justice, and treating our prisoners with comfort is not how we’re going to get it.”
“Couldn’t hurt to try,” Eduardo says.
Maribelle looks like she might throw me across the room so she can stomp out Eduardo, and I can’t blame her if he keeps running his mouth. “Emil, I would love for this to be black-and-white, but war makes us do things we didn’t know we were capable of. We’ve shown compassion, but we’ve also had to become violent to stay alive. To try and win.”
“That’s not me,” I say. “I’ll be a soldier, but I’m not a murderer.”
Eduardo’s posture straightens as he eyes me.
“Take a walk, Maribelle,” Iris says.
“You don’t boss me around!” Maribelle gets all up in Iris’s space and looks down at her. “We’re going to lose. We don’t stand a chance under your leadership or with Emil playing nice with the other side.” She spins, and she’s so close to me that our noses almost touch. “What do you think soldiers in the military do? Do you think they gear up for battle and then lay down their wands? No. They take their shot, and they do their best to not miss.”
“I get that, but our endgame is peace with the rest of the world. So many deaths will be in vain if we can’t get everyone to trust us, right?”
“Don’t talk to me about deaths that will be in vain. Not while you get in the way of me figuring out who assassinated and framed my parents.” Maribelle closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I was wrong to put my faith in you. We all were.”
She storms out, and the door slams behind her.
I’ve never pretended I was going to be some incredible savior, but I still ache from that guilt laying into me like a boxer.
“Will you talk to us now?” Iris asks.
Eduardo points at me. “I’ll talk to him and him only.”
“Not happening,” Iris says.
“Good luck cracking Luna’s big plans before the Crowned Dreamer goes away,” he says.
Iris releases a deep sigh. “Be careful with him.”
She leaves me alone with the shape-shifter. I’m trusting it’ll all be good since he’s tied up, but if he gets funny with me I got to be quick with a fire-dart.
“Why’d you only want to talk with me?” I ask.
“You’re fascinating,” Eduardo says. He’s eyeing me with pure wonder. “I’m in the business of never being seen more than once, but we’ve crossed paths serendipitously multiple times already.”
“I wouldn’t call you trying to trick me in my home or leading us to the arena as serendipity.”
“Before that.”
Eduardo’s eyes burn like a gray eclipse as he glows and transforms. It takes me a minute, but he’s the same guy I saw on the first night of the Crowned Dreamer, the one who was filming the brawl. Then he transforms again into James, the guy who was selling Brew with Orton—the one who had the same phone case. Then again as the only acolyte who fled the fight at the factory. And one last glow and he becomes himself again.
“Pardon me if I got some of the details wrong—keeping track of eye colors or hair length or height doesn’t matter in this moment. But you get what I mean now? New York is huge, Emil. You will see someone once while you’re out and about and never again for the rest of your life. But you keep popping up like a firefly at night.”
“You’re one to talk, Eduardo. You’re supposed to be dead.”
“That’s not my name anymore. Eduardo Iron died during the Blackout,” he says. All his intrigue has been swallowed by darkness. “You’re not the only who gets another shot at life.”
He knows about my origin. More than ever, I hope the Spell Walkers keep him here.
“So what’s your name?”
“Ness Arroyo,” he says.
If I remember right, Arroyo was his mother’s last name. He’s erased every connection to Iron.
“Does your father know you’re alive?”
“No.”
“Maribelle can use that against you if you don’t speak up about June.”
Ness nods, like he’s considered this already. “I imagine the enforcers have a unit devoted to locating this haven, but if the Senator gets word that I’m alive, then that’s when every officer will be dragged out of bed to track me down. He can’t risk the country discovering that his entire campaign is a lie, not this close to the election.”
He calls his father the Senator. It reminds me of when Brighton and I were kids and he got pissed at Dad, so he called him Leonardo for a week. It was so impersonal, and Dad refused to let Brighton win by showing how much it bothered him.