Chapter 20 Baz
ALDRYN COLLEGE LOOKED GRIM AGAINST the bleak winter sky.
Baz emerged from the caves surprised to find he could do so by simply walking out instead of treading water; the low tide was pulled farther back than what was normal, making the entire cove a stretch of dark, wet sand as far as the eye could see.
The unveiled shoreline was in a state of erosion like Baz had never seen before, hinting at powerful tidal bulges.
Indeed, from his low vantage point on the beach, he could see parts of Aldryn College had been worn away by the ravaging tides.
The secret staircase that led to the Eclipse commons was still intact, though it was missing some steps, large gaps where rock had broken off.
The old lighthouse had toppled over, lying on the uncovered seabed amidst a pile of dark gray rock that Baz had to wind his way around.
If it had fallen a bit closer to the cave mouth, it might have blocked the entrance completely. Destroyed Dovermere altogether.
Baz felt like he’d appeared in another world.
The feeling was stranger—bleaker—than when he and Kai had fallen through time to an older Aldryn.
If this was the physical state of the world, if the tides were already acting out of sorts like Clover had anticipated they would, what did that mean for them all?
He didn’t know what to do next, didn’t even know where everyone was. Would his father and Jae and Selandyn be in the Eclipse commons, relying on the wards to keep them safe from the Regulators? Would they have taken refuge elsewhere, like at Alya’s Veiled Atlas tavern?
A great roaring split the silence, followed by the sound of a hundred seagulls taking flight, crying in what sounded like alarm.
Baz scanned the coastline and froze as he saw the horizon.
The tide was coming in. Not gradually, as it should have, but all at once. The wave unfurling toward him was gaining momentum and height, until it was a great, impenetrable wall of dark blue steel. A tsunami that would no doubt be higher than the cliff itself once it reached him.
A wave like that would take down the cliff, and the whole school with it.
Before Baz could call on his magic to stop it, another kind of magic crackled overhead.
He saw a shimmer of something at the top of the cliff, which trickled like water down to the seabed.
He realized what it was: a ward being put up, a shield stretched over the cliffside to protect Aldryn from the incoming tide.
A face appeared in the window of the Eclipse commons, but it was not one Baz knew. It wasn’t even an Eclipse-born. The person spotted him on the sand and shouted something Baz couldn’t hear.
And then a second face appeared in the window, one he knew well.
Drutten. The Regulator who’d made Baz’s life a living hell.
A predatory sort of smile touched Drutten’s face. More people appeared in the window, pointing at Baz and shouting things he couldn’t hear from down here, and he realized by their charcoal uniforms that they were all Regulators.
They sent a wave of magic toward Baz. He knew it was magic by the unnatural way the dozen of arrows came at him, precise and in sync, ethereally translucent as if they were made of air.
Some kind of mixture of Wordsmith and Reaper magic, perhaps?
Funny how his brain went into scholarly mode trying to decipher what magic this was when death was coming straight at him.
Baz tried to get out of their way, but the arrows changed course, following him. He flung out his magic at the very last second, stopping them midair, and unraveled their threads backward so they never existed at all.
His heart pounded in his chest as he stared wide-eyed at Drutten and his companions. They were trying to kill him. They had taken his home, and now they were out for his blood. And the tide was ever rising. Soon Baz would be annihilated, trapped between a wall of sea and one of rock.
Baz tore toward Cadence, away from the caves and the Regulators.
He flung his magic out toward the giant wave on his left, trying to halt its progress, but it was like trying to stop the entire sea, the world itself.
And half his mind was on the magical assault that was happening still, another volley of enchanted arrows shooting his way.
And then Baz heard his name.
Emerging from the path in the tall grass that led to Cadence were two people running toward him, waving their hands wildly to get his attention.
Baz squinted, adjusting his glasses on his nose to better see who it was.
One of the girls had dark brown skin, with long, tight braids swinging behind her as she ran.
Ife Nuru. One of the Selenic Order members.
Baz tensed, not knowing if he could trust her. But then, why would she risk running toward deadly arrows and the monstrous incoming tide?
And that’s when he recognized the other woman.
Alya Kazan, her white-blond curls so similar to Luce’s that Baz felt a pang of grief like a punch to the gut.
Alya, he knew he could trust. And when both women stopped at the edge of the grass, beckoning him over with increasing urgency, Baz knew they would get him to safety.
He ran as quick as he could, lungs burning as he drew in cold air and breathed out magic to stop the arrows behind him and slow the tsunami coming in. When he finally reached them, he nearly crashed into Alya, panting loudly.
“What are you—” he tried, “how did you know—”
Alya was bent at the waist, fighting for breath. “We’ve been monitoring the coast in case any of you returned from the other worlds,” she explained.
“And I saw you coming,” Ife said. “In a vision, I mean.”
She was a Seer, Baz recalled, catching a glimpse of the House New Moon sigil on the back of her hand.
Alya eyed the wave warily. “There’s a train that’ll take us to Threnody—”
“Threnody?” Baz echoed, confused.
“That’s where everyone is. We needed a safe house away from the Regulators. Jae’s got a place there.”
Of course—the safe house where Jae had been training Collapsed Eclipse-born in secret.
“Are the others not with you?” Ife asked, searching the coastline behind Baz.
“Others?” Baz repeated.
“Vera, Kai, Nisha, Virgil…”
Right. The last thing people here would remember was Baz going through the door with all of them. They didn’t know about their group being separated, about the time travel, about Clover.
“It’s just me,” Baz said softly. “Is my dad…”
“He’s fine,” Alya cut in. “In Threnody. But there will be time for all that later. We need to get behind the wards around Cadence before that wave hits and—”
Ife drew a sharp breath. “What in the Tides’ name is that?”
She was pointing to the mouth of Dovermere, where shadows spilled from the cave, slowly crawling over the silt and sand and lighthouse ruins. Drutten and his people had also spotted the disturbance and were now turning their magic on the cave mouth rather than Baz.
Baz had half a mind to let go of his magic so that the incoming tidal wave would drown whatever was trying to seep out of the cave and maybe break against the cliffside so hard that it would take Drutten with it.
He was already straining against the force of the Aldersea, wouldn’t be able to hold it much longer.
But then—shapes emerged from the shadows.
Baz’s first thought was that the umbrae might have slipped through the cracks when he emerged from the door, but these were people.
Three faces Baz recognized as Virgil, Nisha, and Vera, dressed in clothes that belonged to another time, another world.
One he did not recognize at all, a boy with dark auburn hair, his features timeless and his eyes flashing oddly in the daylight. And the last…
Mousy blond hair that was longer than he remembered. Messy fringe no longer kissing her brows but curling around her chin. Eyes like the Aldersea rising to meet them.
Emory.
She was here.
And she was walking straight toward Drutten’s arrows.
“No!” Baz shouted, reaching desperately for the threads of time that would stop the arrows from hitting their new target.
But the arrows exploded before they reached Emory or the others, crackling with dark energy that was then shot back toward the Eclipse commons, making Drutten and his people scramble for safety.
Baz’s grasp on the tidal wave slipped, and there was a horrible sound as the wave picked up speed, momentarily freed from time’s hold.
Alya clutched her neck, Vera’s name on her lips.
Ife was shouting Virgil and Nisha’s names, but they didn’t seem to hear her.
More magic shot from the Eclipse commons toward the beach, but it never reached the newcomers, as if some sort of protective ward enveloped them. A ward no doubt erected by Emory.
But even she wouldn’t be able to stop the Aldersea coming for them.
Baz ground his teeth and with all his might pulled on as many threads as he could grasp.
He couldn’t control the entire Aldersea at once, but he erected a perimeter around the cove that stood outside of time, frozen to the elements outside of it, so that the wave would break against it, and not them.
He wasn’t prepared for the sheer force of the tide as it hit.
It beat relentlessly against his magic, wave after wave breaking against his time shield, quickly eroding it despite his best efforts.
Miraculously, he managed to keep the shield up until at last the tide was drawing back out toward the horizon, leaving those on the beach unscathed.
Baz fell to his knees, out of breath, out of strength. But Emory and the others were still in the line of danger, not from the Aldersea but from Drutten and his Regulators.
With the tide receding, it was safe for them to climb down the secret stairs from the Eclipse commons. Half of them were heading for Emory and the others, and the rest toward Baz, Ife, and Alya.