Page 23 of Rejected Moons (Rejected Moons 3)

What must it have been like, before the Lunar Reversal, when people could start fires at the press of a button? That’s an unthinkable amount of luxury.

“Nate?”

I turn. Emlyn is behind me, standing in the stairwell and poking her head through the door. She looks concerned.

“I need you to come and look at something I found,” she says.

Chapter Sixteen: EMLYN

Ileadhimupthe stairs to the seventh floor of the building.

It’s laid out just the same as the two floors below it. Unlike the fifth and sixth floors, though, it’s clear that someone has been here, and recently.

The desks have been pushed up against the walls, for one thing. In the center of the room, the carpet has been scraped up to reveal cement, and there’s a dark circle there.

Nate squats and touches it. “Looks like someone was burning something,” he says.

I nod. That much is obvious, and not what I was concerned about. “Over here,” I say, taking him by the wrist and pulling him to the far wall beside the windows.

I point.

“Oh,” he murmurs. “Damn.”

There are strange shapes—figures—painted on the wall in a muddy red. The first one, all the way to the left side of the wall, is an X-shape, with four crescent moons in the angles of the X. In the middle of the wall is a shape that reminds me of the fancy glasses with stems people used to drink from in the old days. You can still find them hanging in bars or in private homes sometimes, though more often than not, they’re broken. It’s a really weird thing to have drawn on a wall.

The one on the end kind of looks to me like three trees—one tall one in the center, and two short ones standing beneath it and to either side.

The images are done carefully, as though someone knew it was important to get them just right. And I can’t deny that I feel curious about them.

“What do you think these are?” I ask Nate.

“I’ll tell you what they are,” he says. “Blood sigils.”

“Blood sigils? What is that?”

“They drew them in blood. Look.” He points to the wall.

“Are you sure?”

He looks at me. “You can’tsmellthat?”

Now that he mentions it, I can. I was focusing more on the acrid, ashy smell of the recent fire because I thought it was more telling. It let me know that whoever had been here probably left only a few hours ago.

But now I sniff again and take in the aroma of rust and bitterness, and yes, I’m looking at blood. Someone has painted on these walls with blood.

“What the fuck?” I murmur. “Who would do this?”

“Moon Casters,” Nate says. The disgust in his voice is clear. “There’s nothing they won’t do. Sap the magic from the moon, kill all the humans so they can have more power. Of course they would bleed their enemies to draw their little pictures. They probably feasted on their flesh afterward. I bet that was what the fire was about.”

I shudder. There was a time I would have engaged in morbid speculation about Moon Casters just like he’s doing, but can I really do that now? Knowing that I’m one of them?

On the other hand…what if what he’s saying is true?

“Moon Casters aren’t cannibals,” I say. “That’s what Ravagers do.”

“Like there’s a rule only one of them can do it?” He shakes his head. “Let’s get out of here. This is fucking creepy.”

“Hang on.” I look around the room. There were pens and paper on the floor below.

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