THE ART OF BURNING

IX: I DON'T WANT A MEDIUM GHOST

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BIANCA

THEY REACH THE CITY at twilight. It's only then, when the world begins to modernize and the dirt fades to cement, that they lose their trail.

Bianca likes it, this strange, familiar but unfamiliar, home yet not-home city. Berlin is so quiet, it seems like it's been built on its dead. It feels like the two of them are completely alone in the universe. Are they? she wonders for a moment. Is there anybody else in this universe? Is it just me and him?

Some part of her wishes it was, and she wishes it could be that simple.

She has every reason to hate him, and every reason to hate his family, especially his son. She has every reason to not want anything to do with them, and every possible method of wiping them off the face of the earth at her disposal. But that damn Terranova family: they're like liquor, and she's a hopeless drunk. She knows they're bad for her, and she knows they're destructive and violent and impulsive, but something about them is addicting and a little enticing. She loves Luca, and she loves his family, for the same reason people love cocaine. They're dangerous and comforting. Satiating some primordial thirst of her's that she hadn't known existed before she met them.

Cain had been the first one she'd met, and Luca hadn't been too far behind, but her relationship with them had begun with Rachel Terranova.

It hadn't even been two days after Thea's disappearance that Rachel had showed up at the Mendoza Institute. The little girl had thought she was seeing things, and she'd thought she was a witch. She hadn't known whether to pack her bags for Ilvermorny or a mental hospital, but then her brother brought home a strange girl, Thea—him bringing home strangers was the norm, but him bringing home a girl was odd; he was gay, after all—and told her the truth. And all of a sudden she knew what she had to do. But she hadn't come to the Mendoza Institute in search of treatment. She'd come seeking peace.

Rachel was a powerful host—even more powerful than Cain. She'd had the potential to be as powerful as Thea, if she worked at it hard enough. She was telekinetic, and Dr. Mendoza herself had been the one to experiment on—sorry, cure—her.

They didn't have much of a relationship, then. Rachel didn't talk much, but she reminded Bianca of herself, in a way. Intelligent and strong; clever and independent.

And then the Mendoza Institute burned down, and Bianca never thought she was going to see Rachel again. But Rachel's brother had been the one to burn it, and her father offered to help her save the whole freaking world, and suddenly she was swept right up in the Terranova riptide, unable to escape before she drowned.