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

head and heart. Ness gained my trust, time and time again, and that’s saying a lot considering he had multiple chances to kill me. He paid the ultimate price trying to save my life. The world grieved him after the Blackout, but I’m one of the few people who knows that he was still alive and now he’s dead for real because he wanted to save me. I got to honor Ness by making sure his father doesn’t become president. And to do that, I have to disempower the Blood Casters who are only supporting Senator Iron’s case that gleamcrafters are dangerous.

I can’t undo their wrongs, but I can try to make things right.

I have to go back to my last life to do good in this one.

Thirty-FourPawn to Queen

NESS

I’m in my bedroom dreaming up ways to beat the Senator.

The first step is incapacitating Zenon, wherever he’s stationed in the manor, so he can’t sound some alarm if I manage to get past Jax and morph into someone else to escape. The polling numbers I last saw were favoring the Senator, and I’m sure he’s only gained more support since the propaganda videos, but if I can go live on national TV wearing the Senator’s face, I’ll own up to every single crime of his.

No more White House. Straight to jail.

There’s a gentle knock on my door and Luna slowly enters in a crimson cloak that contrasts her sickly white skin. It’s the first time I’m seeing her in the seven or eight days since she broke into the manor and built some arrangement with the Senator. She’s also alone without even June at her side.

I could take her right now.

Luna picks up an unlit candle from my bookcase and smells it. “Eucalyptus. One of nature’s many deceptions. It invites you in with its smell but its oils are a welcomed touch to any poison.”

“You lied to me,” I say, cutting to the point.

“When?”

Her question is genuine. She has trusted me with her life, with her pursuit for immortality, and who knows how many times she’s lied to me.

“About the Senator,” I say.

“You not asking the right questions isn’t my fault.”

“Would you have told the truth?”

“It’s best to hold one’s cards to one’s chest until it’s necessary. You were already more than willing to work for me—to work against your father.” Luna sits beside me on my bed, bringing me back to the days when she first took me in and cared for me. “Besides, your betrayal proves why I was wise to keep secrets from you. There are many Blood Casters spread across the country, but the few I keep at my side are the ones I trust the most. The things I’ve asked of you could land me in prison, make me a target, but I asked them of you because it was important, because I believed in you.”

There’s a softness to her voice, like a mother trying to get her child to understand something very important without yelling.

The day of the Blackout, after June saved me and brought me to one of Luna’s hideaway homes, Luna surprised me with lulling words of second chances. I didn’t see it back then, but she was manipulating me into talking about my struggles with the Senator. She set herself up as the trusted ally who would keep me safe if I worked for her. Even though it meant risking my life to become a specter. It wasn’t an easy decision, and the Cloaked Phantom was rapidly approaching. But it felt like a sign when Luna obtained a shifter wounded by a hunter, and Luna told me the poor creature could live on in spirit if I fused its blood with mine. I agreed and drank the potion thinking my new life would be better, thinking I could trust this woman who nursed me back to life with tonics when my body was dangerously morphing against my will.

Never in my life did I feel more special than when Luna taught me to shift. I was so dazzled by her praise that I couldn’t see how she can transform without any gray lights.

I get up from the bed and sit at my desk. “Hopefully your next Blood Caster cooperates. Yeah, Dione told me what you were up to the night of the constellation; I’m not the only big mouth.”

Luna turns to the doorway. “I’ll be sure to have a word with her,” she says, and then her green eyes land on me again. “It’s unclear how much time I have left in this world, but I know that time isn’t best spent nurturing new specters. I was using the Cloaked Phantom to fulfill a favor. Your father and I could only dream of creating a replacement for you since I’ve never met a single person—celestial or specter—who could transform into another as faithfully as you have. Recruiting another could be manageable for jobs with low stakes, but not changing the world as we’re asking of you.”

I would rather be fired from this job instead of staying on as their top employee. “Now that I’ve dressed up as Eva and Carolina for the Senator, I take it you’re going to have me pose as the Spell Walkers next?”

“It was an idea, but then the Spell Walkers will piece together that you’re alive and potentially find proof and methods to discredit your father’s campaign. The same precautions are in place from when you would go undercover for me—never impersonate someone who will have a credible alibi. Eva and Carolina won’t as long as they stay within our reach.” Luna coughs, violently, and I fight back these old instincts to help her. “But when the time is right, you may get to wear your lover’s face for us.”

A chill shoots up my spine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I strung together the most groundbreaking alchemical formula since Keon Máximo discovered how to give humans the power of creatures. Do not mistake me