“You have to be faster,” Grandmère shouts. “Smarter. Stronger. More alert. Use your power! Spin stardust into wishes.”
I push myself to my feet, only to be met with another attack. While I sway from my grandmother’s kick, she shouts at me.
“Wish your enemies gone! Wish them dead! It takes magic, might, and cunning to survive the Tether, girl!” She gives a shrill laugh. But her hooded eyes carry fear. “Right now, you don’t seem to have any.”
“You can do it, Emma!” Demetri says, shifting in his dark catsuit near the heavy bag on the side of the sparring ring.
“Boy, stop cheering and use your power on her!” Grandmère snaps.
“I can’t.”
“Then be prepared to bury another sister.”
Demetri’s face couldn’t look more hurt if Grandmère had punched him. His fist shakes.
I flop to the right to avoid Grandmère’s kick as Gracie, or this thingthat looks like her, spins around to face me on the left. Her brows lift in surprise as she looms closer.
“Sorry, Emma,” Demetri mutters as he pulls out shiny blue moonstones. He blows on them, and with a puff of blue smoke my shoes become rock.
“Come on!” I yelp. Grandmère’s games. Her vicious way of loving. Do I really need to endure all this to win? “How is this fair?”
With my feet trapped, I bend and dodge attacks from Grace, as Gran drones on. “War is hell,” she coos. “Hell no, it isn’t fair. Life isn’t fair. You live in a world that would label you angry or strong so they can ignore your pain. They’ll call your sons and daughters a drain on the economy, thugs, future prisoners, and welfare queens until some believe those lies.” She tries to punch me but misses when I bob again. “You’ll tuck your babies in at night knowing how vulnerable they are. Knowing the world can steal their innocence, their freedom. Or kill them at any moment. And you can’t stop it.” Her eyes are teary as she adds, “So you sure as hell betta teach them to fight.”
I bend my knees fast to duck another starlight bomb from Grace.
As I straighten, Grandmère’s kick to my gut folds me in half. I gasp for air as she says, “If you wanna live, learn to defend yourself. Move smarter. Win the Tether.” She swings at my head and misses. “You’re aBlack woman, Emma. Every day is a fight for victory. A fight to prove the world wrong. In the Tether and in life. You can’t let the enemy crush you or make you bend.”
My feet ache in Demetri’s stone shoes. I struggle to get free. White starlight bombs blast close to my skull. I twist my upper body backward, weaving out of their path. One barely misses me and bounces down, burning the mat with a sizzling boom.
This girl may have the look, but she isn’t my sister, Grace. Her accuracy is good, but this illusion is not as powerful as the real Grace was. The real Grace would have killed anyone she needed dead with the first starlight bomb. She would have been the perfect warrior to defeat Malcolm and win this Tether.
If she hadn’t been murdered.
If Grace was that perfect and she still got killed… I am toast.
Grandmère punches my face.
Burnt toast.
I struggle and kick. I free my feet from my stone shoes with an aching crack.
Demetri smiles proudly, standing outside the ring by a heavy bag.
“Stop grinning like an idiot, boy,” Grandmère commands. “Charm her like a snake. Use your mind control.”
“On my sister?” he yelps. “Grandmère… I can’t.”
“Now, boy!”
My brother squints his eyes, like he does when he’s staring down a tiger, ready to make it dance around the circus ring on its hind legs. I continue dodging kicks and bombs of moonlight and starlight from Grandmère and my dead sister’s look-alike.
Something grips me. I can’t see it, but it sends my body into a backward dance.
“That’s the moonwalk!” Demetri laughs. “Saw it in the future.”
“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” I shriek, and I counter with my power.
My brother’s head leans backward like I’ve punched him in the face, but he still controls me, making me spin on my toes, narrowly avoiding another attack from Grace.
