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  Praise For FATE OF FLAMES

  “With its cast of diverse, well-drawn heroines, colorful world building, and action-packed story line, Fate of Flames is an immersive and monstrously fun read.”

  —Elsie Chapman, author of Dualed and Divided

  “Raughley depicts the cost of power, the lure of fame, and the trauma of overwhelming stress in a compelling story with memorably flawed heroines. . . . An engrossing kickoff to the Effigies series.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “This series opener has it all: strong females, intrigue, a dash of romance, monsters, and a sequel in the wings.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “It’s a compelling concept, and the mix of fragility, defiance, strength, and utter exhaustion that plays out in the girls feels authentic. . . . A sequel will likely be eagerly anticipated.”

  —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

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  To every geek girl ever

  Before

  I’M DEAD NOW, SO IT’S pointless to remember. But the last time I saw my twin sister, she was pissed at me.

  What did we even fight about?

  When I was alive, I’d think of the future. I figured I could be anything if I could dream it: doctor, president, firefighter. I believed in possibility.

  The hubris of youth.

  I thought I had time to figure it out. But time had other plans.

  If I’d known, I wouldn’t have fought with her that day. But what did we fight about?

  I don’t think I’ve been dead very long. I have a general sense of that. My body’s gone now, but my memories still exist. Strange. My consciousness should have faded the second my soul left my body. But they were still part of me.

  Memories.

  Memories of pain.

  Remember . . .

  Last year

  Early April

  Buffalo, New York

  “Hey—hey, I said stop!” Before she could escape up the winding steps, I grabbed the crook of my twin sister’s arm and pulled her around.

  “What?” she spat, but I knew my sister. She was all bark and no bite. She couldn’t even look me in the eye—lots of attitude pointed like a dagger, not at me, but at the peeling paint on the walls of our two-story house. Typical.

  “What do you mean ‘what’? Really, Lil Sis?” I hoped I sounded as appalled as I was. “You don’t have anything to say for yourself? After what you just did on the bus?”

  She let her schoolbag slide off her shoulders. “I didn’t do anything. What the hell do you want from me?”

  “Yeah, that’s the problem. You didn’t do anything.” I swept my long, curly brown hair over my shoulders, my too-long fingernails getting caught in the thick curls. “You were sitting right next to Jake and you didn’t lift a finger when Austin started messing with him. You were right there and you didn’t even tell him to stop. That’s just messed up.”

  I let her go because I knew I had her attention.

  She stayed put, fuming just as I anticipated she would. “It wasn’t my problem to begin with.”

  “Wasn’t mine either, but I still tried to stop him.”

  “Oh, gee.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, aren’t you Miss Perfect Little Mary Sue running into burning buildings to save kittens?”

  This was rich. Stooping down, I pulled the day planner out of her schoolbag pocket. The Sect had made limited copies of these, and the two of us made sure we were among the only ones to buy it. It was nothing special—just your typical planner, except it had Natalya Filipova’s face on the front and back, her battle stats printed on the first few pages before the memo section. A pointless but special item only a mega-fan would bother paying for. Lil Sis sighed impatiently when she saw me flap it in front of her face. She knew exactly what I was getting at.

  “I mean, I’m just saying,” I said. “The whole running-in-to-burning-buildings thing is pretty much what makes people worship them in the first place. Why else are you on that stupid forum every day?”

  “That’s them.” She snatched the planner out of my hands. “We’re not them. I don’t have to get involved in some other kids’ business if it has nothing to do with me. I don’t have to care, and I don’t.”

  But that wasn’t true at all. She did care. I could tell by the slight tremor of my sister’s hands as she gripped the planner. Trembling, just like they had done on the bus, when she’d pretended to listen to music while Austin was pushing the back of Jake’s head into the seat in front of them. She did care. She did want to do something. She was just scared.

  She’d always been like that, ever since we were kids. Walking down the sidewalk with her head to the pavement as if she were counting the cracks. Unable to stand up to the bully. Unable to stand up for anyone.

  I folded my arms. “You honestly looked so dumb sitting there, and it’s not like I was the only one who noticed you wuss out. Why don’t you grow a spine for once?”

  I left her bristling, passing her without a glance back, and began to climb the stairs.

  “You love acting so superior,” she whispered, and I could almost feel her shaking. We turned and faced each other at exactly the same time. “So self-righteous. You always have this thing where you think you’re better than me.”

  “If what I just saw on that bus is any indication, I am better than you.”

  I regretted saying it immediately, only because I knew about my sister’s complex. She already thought I was better than her, an assumption that kept her confidence on life support even if she’d never admit it to me. She shrank at my words, but stayed where she was, chin raised, her eyes wavering as she glared at me. An unsettling feeling always crept down my nerves, as if tiptoeing down a tightrope, whenever the two of us stared each other down like this. It was the mirror effect. As we looked into each other’s dark brown eyes, we both saw in each other the image of ourselves that we didn’t want to see. For me, it was a weakness I’d thrown away long ago. I could only imagine what it was for her—the image of who she wanted to be, maybe.

  Anyway, it wasn’t my problem.

  “So what should I have done?” She’d asked it just as I started to swivel back around. I could see the silent plea she kept locked up behind that deceptively calm expression. “That’s the lesson, right? When in doubt, I’m supposed to do whatever you would?”

  “I don’t know, Maia. But literally anything would have been better.”

  And those were the last words I told my sister.

  • • •

  Yes. I can still remember that fight.

  But why can I still remember? Why am I still reeling from the pain of it all?

  I shouldn’t be able to remember anything—or feel anything.

  Everything should go black when you’re dead. Everything just vanishes as you wait for the next phase: a secret of life only the dead know. We who are dead can’t “remember” anything because we don’t exist in one temporal spectrum. We exist everywhere—past, present, and future. We exist as the bedrock of space and time, the raw essence of matter.

  But here I am, remembering, feeling. That day, Maia and I didn’t speak to each other after the fight. I’d spent the night in the living room knitting my cosplay outfit for Comic Con, and she’d locked herself up in our roo
m, blasting music through her headphones and trolling the crap out of people on the Doll Soldiers forum again.

  Mom and Dad had been so busy bickering about some stupid family thing that they hadn’t even noticed we were in a cold war of our own. I’d assumed things would be fine by morning, so I didn’t care, not even when I heard Maia sneak out of our room late at night. She’d left her phone on the desk, so I couldn’t tell her to bring her butt back.

  Maia would do stuff like that from time to time. Dad had caught her so many times, he ended up screwing the window shut when we were fourteen so she couldn’t sneak out that way. But I don’t remember being worried that night. I already knew she wasn’t in any trouble. I was damn sure she wasn’t out meeting guys or drug dealers or older neighborhood kids, even if that was what she wanted me to think. I was so sure then that Maia would come back in a couple of hours like she always did, with some chips, donuts, and soda from the twenty-four-hour convenience store, sufficiently satisfied with her rebelliousness—at least, enough to pretend that she didn’t feel like a total loser.

  That night I went back to sleep thinking I’d have the opportunity to set her straight. I’d tell her that there were better ways to feel good about yourself, to feel strong. I’d help her because that’s what big sisters did—yeah, big sister. The two minutes that made me the “older” one, the two minutes I’d always used to justify calling her “Lil Sis,” had generally given me a sense of responsibility that Maia had ended up interpreting as self-righteousness. But I’d hoped she’d come to understand me someday.

  I’d hoped for a lot of things.

  It wasn’t Maia who’d woken me up again, but the smell of smoke.

  The smoke. I remember the smoke. I remember how it’d stung my eyes, filled my lungs whenever I gasped and inhaled poison instead. I remember stumbling out of bed, unable to see. I remember pounding on the window, forgetting it wouldn’t budge, courtesy of Dad.

  Stumbling, stumbling. The smoke alarm not working. The smoke billowing, swallowing everything. My mom screaming, yelling for me. Everybody yelling:

  “Where’s Maia?”

  “Where’s the door?”

  “Where’s the fire coming from?”

  The flames in the living room. The door out of reach, out of sight. A cough, deep and ugly from my throat. My clumsy feet losing their footing. My body falling down the stairs. Bones and organs bruised, head hitting the hard wood.

  I remember it all. Every second. I remember lying on the staircase unable to move, thinking about Mom and Dad . . . thinking their names with my mouth open, but frozen.

  What will happen to me after I die? Where will I go? I’m scared. Please, god, I’m scared. I can still remember each terror-filled thought racing through me. I don’t want to die. Not like this. Not like this. Please let a miracle happen. Someone save me! God, don’t take me! It can’t be me. I’ll never accept it. Never! Someone! Anyone . . .

  The saliva pooling around my chin, slipping down my throat. Choking without feeling the physical pain of it. My body convulsing, then going lax.

  A painful death.

  In the moment of my passing, I saw a white light come and pull my soul from my body. It was supposed to go dark after that. That’s the normal way. That’s how people die.

  But it isn’t dark here, where I am now. I can see nothing except that which I shouldn’t: white streams flowing, filling the world in an expanse of darkness. The same light that came for me in death. A white, almost silver sheen blanketing everything.

  That’s it.

  I don’t know where I am. I see no plains or rivers, no cities or buildings. No cobbled streets or the people to be found on them. No stars, no planets.

  All I can see now are white streams.

  The pathways of fate.

  That’s what they are. The knowledge simply exists inside me—one of many cosmic secrets withheld from us while we’re still breathing. All matter is connected through the power of fate linking life and death in an endless dance. I and other souls are one with this energy, this ether. The substance of starlight and souls, the fated destination of all creatures: this nothingness from which other forms spring.

  Forms. Space. Time. Life. Death. And the final mystery: fate. Fate is the culprit connecting us in the never-ending cycle of rebirth. All forms are destined to take another. It’ll happen to me, too. All people, beings, life, and death are held together by this mysterious, magical force, this effervescent energy encompassing everything.

  The skies, the sea, the earth, and the flames bringing us to ruin.

  The ashes and the new breath rising from them.

  Everything is connected. Predetermined pathways continuing the dance of life. Everything in order.

  Everything . . . in order . . .

  Except for them. Those girls. The Effigies: the ones who stand apart in a cycle of life and death all their own, the pathways of reincarnation twisted by a desperate wish . . .

  The secrets of the world. I understand it all. I understand everything. I know that I’m supposed to be nothing. I’m supposed to see, feel, and remember nothing. I’m supposed to exist as part of this energy. I’m supposed to wait quietly as fate scoops me up and molds me into something else. A human newborn perhaps. Maybe a seedling. I’m supposed to be passive. I’m not supposed to feel this emotional. This scared.

  This furious.

  Why should I just wait quietly to be reborn? I shouldn’t even be dead in the first place! It was a ridiculous accident. A fluke. An electrical problem in the walls. It shouldn’t have been me. I should still be alive. My parents too. We deserve to be alive.

  I may not be alive, but I’m frustrated. I want to tell Maia all the secrets I know now! I want to tell her about fate, about the Three who, with their eyes that see all, govern the pathways of destiny, deciding who lives and dies. I want to tell Maia everything, but I’ll never see her again. That’s how death works: Our souls will follow different paths. Once it’s time for me to be re-created into a new form, I may not even have a mouth to speak, even if she does.

  Maia. Mom. Dad. I will never see any of them again. And I hate it. I hate it so much. I can’t stop wishing for that body of mine, already burned and rotting. I want to come back.

  Is it all a game to them? Life and death? Maybe our lives mean nothing to those three sadists. Maybe my pain means nothing too. Why would it? I was born and then gone in an instant, just one life of the billions that’d come before me. Insignificant.

  Why? Why must any of us die?

  I hate it. I hate this. It’s hate I shouldn’t feel.

  Hate I wouldn’t feel if the pathways of fate were as they should be.

  Something is terribly wrong with us souls. We’re all supposed to find peace in death, but all I feel now is agitated. I know I’m not the only one. A bitter poison is flowing in the ether. The pathways of fate . . . As the energy itself is strained by unnatural forces, so too are we souls. Some of us are able to hold on . . . but others give in to their anger.

  And when they give in to anger, it happens.

  It’s happening right now.

  I can see a soul convulse and distend in agony. Smoke is rising from it as it darkens pitch black, growing like a tumor. A soul in chaos. It’s descending now from the ether, its body funneling with the force of a tornado. Bones are sprouting from the smoke, encasing itself around dead flesh, rotted and stinking.

  A phantom.

  Its jaws are dislocated as it snaps open, revealing ivory teeth. As it breaks the barrier between life and death, I know it’s not just the dead but also the living that can see it now. And then, soon, just the living. As it disappears from the ether, it leaves the realm of the dead. Elsewhere others appear. And more will appear after that.

  Monsters birthed from anguished souls.

  Phantoms are of soul. Souls are of ether. Ether is of the realm of the dead, though now, because of the twisting, poking, and prodding of this energy by human agents, part of its presence ca
n be felt, can be quantified, in the world of the living. Like the tip of a submerged iceberg. Cylithium. The mystic energy that controls the cycle of life and death and the fate of all matter. The source of an Effigy’s magic, drawn into their very bodies. The source of phantoms.

  Phantoms are not natural to this world. They don’t belong to the cycle of life and death. They’re aberrations. Abominations. Distortions of fate. Distorted by the arrogance of those men. Distorted by the cruelty of that girl.

  That girl . . .

  Because of her, I can’t let go of my anger. I can’t find peace. I just keep getting . . . angrier. I can’t stop it. What if I become like that thing one day: a monstrous phantom, peering at the world through dead eyes, snatching innocents into my ugly, rotted jaw?

  It’s that girl’s fault.

  But is it really?

  Isn’t it the fault of the Three? The cruelest ones of all. The ones who’d decided to see with their own eyes the path humanity would take when given the power of gods.

  Yeah. The phantoms are their fault, in the end. Souls will keep rotting. Phantoms will keep appearing. People will keep dying. I can’t stop any of it. I can’t protect anyone. I can’t change anyone’s fates. The dead have no agency. The dead have nothing.

  It’s not fair. It’s not fair!

  It isn’t fair. Three words. Just those three words. I repeat them for seconds, centuries, eons, in the past, in the future, in the present, until I no longer know words. Until the anger takes me over. Until my soul begins to writhe in agony, a monster’s rebirth waiting for it.

  Until I awake again. In agony.

  • • •

  What’s happening?

  The first thought slipped into my consciousness like feeble, dying breath. Every cell in my body burned. Dirt slipped through the cracks of the opening casket as a pulley lifted it—lifted me—into the air. Where were my legs? I couldn’t see them. I couldn’t move. The box was too tight and my vision still black behind heavy eyelids. My dead flesh was slow to wake. Cockroaches scuttled across my skin looking for the detritus they’d been feasting on. Crawling, scratching, they traveled up my face and down my neck, into the loose dress I’d been buried in.