Chapter 16 Baz
BAZ WASN’T SURE HOW LONG he waited in the Reaper section of the Decrescens library. Students came and went, and he remained, invisible, a ghost watching the living go by. Until one of those students sat across from him and looked directly at him, smiling.
“You got my message.”
Baz looked him over, wondering how he could have mistaken him for Clover before.
There was the House Waning Moon sigil tattoo, for one thing.
Plus, the boy’s hair wasn’t quite as pale or as long as Clover’s; his eyes were a deep blue, not the ghostly turquoise that haunted Baz’s every thought.
And where Clover’s features were delicate and finely chiseled, like a god sculpted out of marble, this boy’s were sharper, like they were hewn from stone.
Strong jaw. Strong nose. Rugged good looks.
Younger than Clover, yet timeless, somehow. And his clothes…
Slacks and a sweater that were too modern for these times. And around his neck, hanging from a chain, was a pocket watch identical to the one in Baz’s own pocket.
“You’re him, aren’t you?” Baz blurted out. “The god of balance’s apprentice. The one that came before me.”
The boy gave himself a half-hearted flourish. “In the flesh.”
Baz frowned, remembering how the god had made it seem like his apprentice had died. “But if you came before me… how am I seeing you now?”
“Haven’t you learned by now that time isn’t linear?
” He tapped the pocket watch around his neck.
“Working for the god means existing out of time, being able to travel between moments at will.” He shrugged.
“So two time travelers meeting in a time that holds significance for us both? Sounds pretty normal to me.”
“What significance does this hold for you?”
“From the looks of it, I’ve been at this far longer than you have,” the boy said, ignoring Baz’s question. “Being fate’s overseer… that’s my job. I’m here to ensure everything happens as it should.”
“That’s why you’ve been destroying my notes to Kai,” Baz said accusingly. “You don’t want me to change the outcome.”
At Kai’s name, the boy’s face dropped. “That’s not…” He looked guilty. Torn. “I’m mostly here for Thames.”
“Thames?”
A nod. “The way he dies is important. And you trying to mess with that could make everything worse.”
The way he dies… “You mean how he Collapses?”
“Taking that Tidecaller synth. Collapsing because of it.”
“But… why?”
“Because I wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Seeing Baz open his mouth to press him further, the boy added, “But that’s not why I wanted to meet with you. You’re trying to change Kai’s fate, right?”
“A fate worse than death, according to the god,” Baz said grimly. “The kind of oblivion that’s entirely irreversible.”
“Yes, well. Oblivion is what awaits all of us if we don’t save Kai from his fate.”
“What?”
The boy shushed him as a few students looked their way, frowning as they likely couldn’t see the two invisible time travelers talking to each other.
“All I know,” the boy said in a low murmur, “is that Kai ends up in the deepest recesses of the abyss, what we in this world call the Deep—but not as a soul, not as someone who died. And because that’s never happened before…
Well, let’s just say his fate isn’t something that’s fixed into the larger design of things. As such, it remains changeable.”
Baz’s mind raced, trying to imagine Kai in what was essentially hell.
“But what you’re attempting to do here, in this time, is futile,” the boy continued.
“Kai has to go through the door. You’re never going to be able to change this simple fact.
” Before Baz could argue, the boy held up a hand.
“Think of it this way: there are crucial points in the tapestry of fate, like sections of pattern that can never be undone. But the threads around those fixed patterns? Some are more fragile than others. Some are still waiting to be woven into the tapestry. Which means those are the threads you need to try and change. Kai going through the door, that’s an undoable pattern. But what comes after…”
“A loose thread,” Baz murmured, and the boy nodded. “But how do I get to Kai if I can’t follow him to where he is now? Does it mean I can’t save him from his fate at all? And what did you mean when you said we’ll all face oblivion if I can’t—”
“One thing at a time,” the boy interrupted with the ghost of a smile. “What you need to focus on is Kai, who you can save… but not now. Not here in the past.”
He took out a neatly folded paper from his pocket and unfolded it on the table between them.
It looked like a school document that was typed up on a typewriter, but the paper was old and thinning.
In between the faded block letters was tiny, handwritten script.
And in the middle of the page, someone had drawn a tree.
The top part of it was flourishing, while below, the roots twined in a way that could make a second tree, this one bare and dead looking, if the page were flipped.
In the middle of the tree was a spiral with a lock at its innermost point.
“What is this?” Baz asked.
“A ritual that might undo one of those undoable patterns. That might disrupt the entire fabric of fate.”
That might save Kai, was all Baz heard.
He studied the page closer, trying to decipher what the script said. “Wait—this is in another language!” he exclaimed. “Can you read it?”
“No. It’s the language of gods, a language very few know.”
“How is this helpful to me then?” Baz wasn’t daft enough to ask the god of balance to translate a ritual that might undo the very thing he lived for.
“If no one can decipher it…” He stopped short as the answer came to him: Selandyn.
The Eclipse professor was an Omnilinguist, able to understand all languages.
The boy was looking at him knowingly, as if he’d expected Baz to come to this very conclusion.
“Who are you?” Baz asked, trying to puzzle the boy out. His gut told him he could trust him, but there was something about him, about this whole situation, that set him on edge.
The boy gave him a sad smile. “I’m someone who wants the same thing you do. Which is why you can’t say any of this to the god. He can’t know you’re trying to undermine fate.”
“That ship’s already sailed, I’m afraid.”
“No, not like this. What you’re doing here?
This time traveling? The god knows you won’t end up changing anything.
Otherwise he wouldn’t have sent you. But this”—he tapped the paper—“this, he can’t find out about.
Because this is your one shot at actually changing fate. Not just for Kai, but for all of us.”
“If you have this ritual, why haven’t you tried it yourself?”
“It’s hard to explain, but where I am now…
rather, where I will be… I have a different part to play.
This one’s yours.” He got up, his chair grating loudly on the floorboards.
He studied Baz for a second, chewing on the inside of his cheek.
There was something wistful in his eyes, something like regret, when he finally said, “I hope we see each other again.”
Baz stared at the drawing of the tree intensely. A question on his lips, he looked up—only to find the boy had disappeared.
Baz did not know how to make himself go back to the god’s workshop besides coming to the end of the time loop, so he sped up time until it was the night before his past self and the others would set out to undo the wards.
He wanted a moment to himself to think all this through before he had to return to the god, and so he sat in the Eclipse commons, invisible, and studied the ritual the apprentice had given him well into the night.
Eventually he must have fallen asleep.
He realized he hadn’t gotten any rest while going through these time loops, save for once after his second attempt; the trauma of that one had made him reticent to jump back in, so he’d heeded the god’s advice and took some time to rest before jumping back in for the third attempt.
Now sleep pulled him into a familiar nightmare.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been haunted by the printing press.
It didn’t feel as nightmarish to him now, as Baz sat down in the wreckage, hugging his legs to his chest. Maybe he’d seen too much of actual fear to be fearful of this memory anymore.
He felt a familiar presence at his side. Kai sat next to him, watching the printing press with something close to fondness.
“Been a while since we’ve been here,” he said wistfully.
“Yeah,” Baz breathed. He realized with sudden horror that this might be the last time he spoke to Kai here in the past. That it might be the last time he saw him ever if he couldn’t work out the ritual.
Kai gave him a quizzical look. “You all right?”
A storm of feelings rose up inside Baz. How powerless he felt against the unconquerable beast that was fate. The sliver of hope he would hold on to now that he had this senseless ritual. This unending dread at the thought of losing Kai for good.
Without thinking, Baz leaned in to kiss him.
It was soft and lingering as he tried to etch the memory of Kai’s lips in his mind.
Of the supple feel of his hair against his fingers, and his scent like crisp midnight air.
Not wanting to break the kiss, he rested his forehead against Kai’s, closing his eyes.
He wanted to tell Kai he’d find a way to save him. Wanted to tell him how scared he was of losing him forever once he went through the door. But he’d tried this all before, and nothing had changed. So instead, Baz said, “Whatever happens, promise me you’ll remember that… that I love you.”
I love you.
Three words neither of them had ever said to the other, neither in dreaming nor waking.
Kai pulled back to look into Baz’s eyes with such depth and love echoed back, it made Baz want to cry.
The words felt momentous. They were truer than anything Baz had ever spoken.
And for a moment, he hoped those words would somehow survive the end of the time loop.
That future-Kai would remember them, wherever he was.
That he would hold on to them until Baz found a way to bring him back to him.
Kai opened his mouth to say something, but Baz pressed the tip of his fingers to his lips. “Don’t say anything back,” he whispered. “Not until all this is over.”
Not until I fix this. Not until we see each other again.
Because if Kai were to say it back, Baz wanted it to be real.
Kai pulled Baz’s hand away from his mouth and pressed a kiss into the palm before lacing his fingers through his. His smile was answer enough, and as Baz woke, he swore he could still feel Kai’s lips on his skin.
For the last time, Baz watched Kai go through the door without him. Then, when he appeared once more in the god’s workshop, he looked the god straight in the eye and said, “You were right. I can’t change the outcome.”
The god blinked at him a few times, clearly taken aback. “Well,” he bumbled. “I’m glad you’ve finally come to your senses. I know it can be a hard truth to accept, but there are still things you can change, Basil. Out there, in your own time.”
“I know.” The folded-up ritual burned in his pocket. He handed the god the pocket watch. “I’m ready to go now, if we’re done here, that is.”
The god looked delighted. And though Baz yearned to ask him about his old apprentice, to poke and prod about all the things the god was clearly hiding from him, he did not.
He had to trust that the apprentice was right.
And if the god of balance wanted Baz at present-day Aldryn, then that’s where Baz would go. Because there he would find a way to change Kai’s fate, even if it was the last thing he ever did.