Page 94 of Of Flame and Fury

Blood.

FORTY

She’d known what Cristo was doing. She’d found ash inThe Prism. Here, hidden away with only slivered moonlight for company, there was no way to deny the truth. Cristo’s team was tearing apart phoenixes to experiment on.

Why?

With numb hands, Kel grabbed at the notepad beside the microscope. Through the darkness, she could only make out a few scattered notes:

… historically no way to preserve… Trial D-249 offered no new results… plucked from a rebirth and preserved among ashes… when kept at ~2300 degrees Celsius… breakthrough… Mr. Cristo—approved…

Those few lines were enough for the bile in Kel’s throat to creep higher. A cold sweat broke out along her neck as she moved to the next bench.

More samples, more notes, more sketches of dissected phoenix parts—lungs, gizzards, crops, eyes.

Kel felt lightheaded, but she kept moving. Eventually, she made her way to the back of the room, beside the towering glass cabinet.

A stark white bin stood to the left of the glass case. Pristine and clinical, like everything else in the room.

Kel didn’t give herself time to think. She wrenched off the lid and peered inside.

A dry sob wracked her throat.

There were so many—toomany—bloody tissues and rags. Feather quills and hollow bones. Used syringes and stained vials. Shattered vertebrae and cracked skulls.

Fine, black molecules with miniscule flares of orange.

Ashes.

Kel ran to the nearest sink and heaved up the contents of her stomach.

She wanted to curl up and wake from this nightmare. How many phoenixes had Cristo torn apart?

Against her smarter instincts, she’d let him break through her walls. But she’d kill him for this. She’d take Savita and leave Salta forever.

Her hands were trembling, violently enough that she could barely lean on them for support. She used her elbows to push herself up from the sink, wiped her mouth, and shuffled over to the glass enclosure. The last remnant of the room to search.

As soon as she focused on the cabinet she realized that it wasn’t made of glass. Even in the shadows, she couldn’t believe she’d mistaken it.

The tall, chute-like cabinet, gleaming and fractured, was made entirely of diamond. Just likeThe Prism.

Kel couldn’t see inside; the front panel was locked. She movedaround the thick casing until she found a glass window inlaid into the back.

Even a few steps away, Kel felt the heat emanating from the cabinet. Eyes watering, she shifted closer to peer inside.

The air moved like ripples in a river. Halfway down the chute was a shelf that Kel assumed was also made of diamond, though it was blackened and cracked.

A pile of ashes sat at the center. Red and orange grains flashed amid the black heap, like burning stars. A circle of feathers was carefully arranged around the ashes. Each feather was a different hue, with a different pattern. Each from a different subspecies of phoenix.

Kel pressed closer to the small window. She didn’t care about the heat. She didn’t care about the vomit in her throat or the lead in her bones. Nothing existed beyond the confines of that little, lonely window.

Dancing above the ashes, writhing above each feather, were flames.

Phoenixflames.

It was…impossible. Every Cendorian knew that all traces of phoenix magic died with the phoenix. Despite superstition, despite what underground markets claimed, there was no way to preserve their magic for human use.

There was no way for the flames above the ashes and feathers to exist.

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