Infinity Reaper by Adam Silvera (new books to read .TXT) 📕

than Bautista, I’m not going to let Iris put me in a corner like this. It’s tough enough feeling like I’m on probation with Emil and Prudencia, but I’m not letting Iris have that power over me too.

“Her loss,” I say.

“She’s not saying you’ll never be a Spell Walker,” Prudencia says. “Just not right now.”

I’m not going to sweat this because I have a lot to be proud of, even though I may never be an official Spell Walker and despite not getting all three sets of powers the Reaper’s Blood promised. It’d be so easy to let Iris’s slight get the best of me like when I didn’t get to be valedictorian, but everything about me now is undisputedly unique. Someone can get better grades than me—while my focus was down because I was grieving, don’t forget that—but it’s not as if there’s another specter running around who is going to stand a chance against me once I master my abilities.

I’m in a league of my own.

I grab my laptop and make a quick edit to the video, swapping out Spell Walker for hero. Before I do anything else I take a selfie, memorializing the Brighton whose extraordinary powers aren’t known to the public. I type out my caption—Brighton Rey just got a little Brighter. #BrightonOfNewYork—and upload first on the Celestials of New York Instagram. Then I get the video up on YouTube and Twitter and I even finally cave in and make a TikTok so I can dominate the primary online spaces. Every video has the event details for the livestream Emil and I are hosting in a couple hours on Instagram. I sit against the wall where I can charge my phone while hopping between all the apps and soaking up the comments. My views and following are skyrocketing, quickly catching up to Mr. Infinity Son himself.

There are so many questions about how I became a specter and I reply to some in my comments section, letting them know that all will be answered during the livestream. Followers around the world tell me all about their plans to watch—stay up late, be sneaky at school, take an early break at work.

I get a DM from Lore and they’re happy that I’m doing better and they would love to do a Q&A in the near future. Even though I have more followers than them, Lore still has an impressive social reach to other important influencers whose radar I need to be on. My growth will be huge as the Infinity Savior, but I expect that’s going to cap somewhere, so tapping into the audiences of the other influencers will be a great refresh. I promise Lore an interview when time allows; I have some missions to tend to first, after all.

“Someone wants to help make merchandise,” I tell Prudencia while checking out the user’s feed. It’d be helpful to have someone handle the administrative responsibilities and I can be the face of it all. “They seem legit.”

“Why don’t you follow up with them after getting ready? Your chat is in thirty minutes, superstar.”

“Please make that my new nickname,” I say.

“Dream on, dreamer,” Prudencia says with a smile.

I’m having a hard time picking what to wear, especially without my full closet in front of me, until I remember every influencer who puts time into looking casual even though they controlled every single-sleeve roll and wrinkle. I don’t need a tuxedo or some trying-too-hard-to-be-cool leather jacket. Ruth gives me her blessing to choose something from her closet, and even though she’s not actively selling anything from her Every Body Is Super line, I make a mental note to credit her in the caption. I choose a blue shirt with white lettering since it’s the closest one that matches my flames.

I go outside with Emil and Prudencia and the evening air is chilly. We go deep into the trees, finding a nondescript area with a couple rocks for us to sit on and enough moonlight so we can be seen. I review the talking points with Emil, making him repeat them back to me because I want this conversation to appear casual and we can’t have that if he’s sitting there with a notepad. Prudencia offers to hold the phone for us so we can stream at a wider angle, but I think it’s going to be cozier if I’m shoulder to shoulder with Emil. This way I also get to see how many viewers are tuned in and read some of the comments.

“We’re still not mentioning my past lives, right?” Emil asks.

We had this conversation back when we were doing the Spell Walkers of New York feature. “That’s not my call. You and Pru were the ones who didn’t want to bring it up.”

“Because people might hate Emil for being Keon once upon a time ago,” Prudencia says.

“Or they’ll love him for being Bautista,” I counter.

“Either way, they’ll take it out on phoenixes once they realize specters can resurrect with their essence,” Emil says. “I’d hate for the Blood Casters to get the jump on us and reveal this to turn the public against me, but they haven’t done it yet. Hopefully they have their own reasons for keeping it quiet.”

“Good point. The secret stays in the vault,” I say.

I still think there can be something so powerful about the world knowing that Emil wasn’t only adopted, but that he was reborn in fire from the two most popular specters in history, but the story isn’t more important than the consequences.

“We shouldn’t mention the ghost specters either,” Prudencia says. “We don’t need alchemists and necromancers pretending to be gods any more than they do.”

The more and more politics are getting involved in my business, the less enthusiasm I have for this livestream. But I hype myself right back up because it’s not like I have to hide any ghostly powers from the public anyway. I still get to show off.

Once it’s nine on the dot, we go live.

“Hey, Brightsiders, it’s