Viri spoke up then, her voice trembling. “There’s a bigger problem. If there are no wards to keep the blackmist away, thenthe surface will become uninhabitable, and we’ll all be stuck inside the mountains and in the undercity. That means—”
Wynter clutched her throat. “The farms. The docks. We won’t be able to get to them.”
Viri nodded grimly. Without protection from the blackmist, it would be impossible to access their food sources—grains, vegetables, fruit, meat, fish,everythingwould be gone. They’d have only what was in storage, eventually leaving the entire population to starve to death.
“But…wait,” Wynter said, her forehead creasing. “It won’t benefit the Reaper Priest if we all die. Reapers are human. They need food, too.”
Sage gestured to her blackened veins. “Actually, we can survive on ellixen alone if we must.”
Wynter blinked at that revelation. “You still need people to siphon from. And if everyone’s dead, there goes your source of ellixen.”
Viri glanced between Sage and Jonas, recalling how reapers could also siphon from each other. But Jonas had said it was a detestable practice to most, since they preferred their ellixen fresh from the source. She was about to ask if Braedan would really damn the innocents of the city just to be left with a group of disgruntled, hungry reapers when Jonas spoke up first.
“Um, actually, ellixen doesn’t leave the body after death.” He clutched Walnut nervously. “Not unless it’s been siphoned, which therefore is the cause of death.”
A beat of silence passed, before Wynter said, slowly, “Correct me if I’m wrong—and please, Elders, let me be wrong—but it sounds like you’re implying that reapers don’t require people to belivingin order to steal their magic.” When Jonas said nothing,her voice pitched a full octave higher. “Are you saying you can siphon fromcorpses?”
Hesitantly, Jonas nodded. “It’s gross, though,” he added quickly. “I would never disrespect the dead like that.Wewould never.” He indicated himself and Sage. “And Reeve doesn’t siphon at all, so he’d definitely never do that.”
Both Wynter and Soren looked at Reeve in surprise. He just shrugged in response.
“The point is,” Jonas continued, “if the obelisks fall, and people are trapped underground, and the food runs out, and everyone dies…then reapers can still live on.”
“With full control of the city,” Soren said tightly, cursing at the scope of the threat. “If the Priest succeeds in destroying the obelisks, then reapers will have complete freedom. No more fear of arrest, no hunters or Nox to contend with. And they’ll have a whole population’s worth of people—dead or alive—to tide them over for years until they run out of bodies.”
“But theywillrun out eventually,” Viri noted, her brow furrowing. “And when that happens, they’ll be as trapped as the rest of us. The blackmist is just as dangerous to them—it absorbs the ellixen of anyone it touches,includingreapers, which makes it a death sentence toeveryone. That leads us right back to the reapers being stuck underground, where one day, they’ll have no more magic left to steal. And since Jonas told me earlier that most of them refuse to siphon from each other—”
“Wait, reapers can siphon fromeach other?” Wynter exclaimed.
“—then this doesn’t seem like a strategic long-term goal,” Viri finished over her friend. She chewed her lip and looked at Reeve. “Are you sure this is what the comet is being used for? Brae’s never been shortsighted. Even as a boy, everything he didwas calculated. This seems almost desperate, not something he’s been planning for months, maybe years.”
“I’m absolutely certain that the power of the Aurora sacrifice will be used to destroy the obelisks,” Reeve confirmed. Something about his wording tugged at Viri, but she was distracted when he scratched his neck and acknowledged, “But there could also be more to it. Something else we haven’t factored in.”
“Like Orion,” Viri guessed, recalling how the second comet had been a surprise to them all. “Brae might have plans for it as well, something that supports a longer-lasting goal for reapers once the city falls to the mist.”
“I still don’t think Orion’s a concern,” Wynter said. “But I’ll comb through every book I own for any references to it and itsellixen abyssusrequirement, just to be sure.”
“I can help!” Jonas offered, his eyes bright behind his glasses at the idea of inspecting more ancient magical tomes.
“That would be appreciated,” Reeve told them both, “but there’s actually a different reason why we need to be worried about Braedan. Something much more time-sensitive.”
“More time-sensitive than thethree dayswe have until he tries to kill us all?” Viri asked incredulously.
Reeve’s face was grave. “If he succeeds in what he’s planning, he won’t need those three days. It’s what I began telling you before we were interrupted. And speaking of…” He turned to Sage and Soren. “You should go find Ardin, see if there’s a chance of tracing Jessalyn while her trail’s still hot. But if not—”
“Find the other kids, or worst case, the location of the sacrifice,” Sage recited. She eyed Soren, a challenge in her expression. “What do you say, Nox? Are you willing to work with a reaper?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” He shook off his horror over what they’djust learned and returned her look with a challenging one of his own. “Help me find my sister, and I might not even arrest you afterward.”
Sage barked out a laugh. “You could try.” Her teeth flashed in a devilish grin. “But you’d fail.” She marched away without giving him a chance to reply, calling over her shoulder, “Haul ass, Archer. We’ve got kids to save.”
Soren looked at Wynter, who nodded in encouragement, then turned to Viri, his features flooding with uncertainty.
“Go. Find Jessy,” she told him. She made herself add, “Sage is rough around the edges, but she’s good to have in a fight and seems to have a decent moral compass.” For a reaper, at least. “That goes for Ardin, too. If you can resist killing each other, I don’t think they’ll let you down.” It went against Viri’s instincts to say the words, but surprisingly, she meant them. “Be on your guard, but—as strange as this is to say—I think you can trust them.”
“And you?” Soren asked, his gaze flicking between her and Reeve, then down to where they’d been holding hands earlier, something he hadn’t missed even in his panic. “Are you still on your guard?”
Reeve chuckled darkly and answered for her. “Don’t worry, she still hates me. Apparently more than ever—her words.”
