Chapter 21 Emory
JAE AHN PARTED THE AIR like a curtain again, waving them through. Emory remembered Baz talking about the Illusionist, and seeing them now, the kind of magic they wielded, she understood Baz’s quiet reverence for them.
When the group stepped through, they were still on the beach, but Emory could feel magic crackling around her. Not just Illusionist magic, but Wardcrafter, too.
“We’ve shielded the perimeters with all sorts of magic,” Jae explained as they led the group up the dunes.
“Wards against the tide and prying eyes. Illusions to keep folks away. Helps that most people in these parts have evacuated farther inland because of the tides. It’s a wasteland. Perfect for our safe house.”
“How long have the tides been acting like this?” Emory asked, thinking about her father, alone in his lighthouse in the remote Harebell Cove. She hoped he was all right, that the Aldersea hadn’t damaged their home.
“Since last fall.”
“Which was how long ago, exactly?” For all she knew, more than a year could have gone by since she’d gone through the door, because time, as they’d found out, did not run the same in each world.
“It’s early March now, so I reckon about six months ago.” Jae gave her a sidelong glance. “Your father, Henry, is with us. He’ll be so happy to see you.”
Emory blinked at them. “You know who I am?”
“Of course. You’re the famous Emory that Basil here’s told me all about.” Baz blushed at that, muttering something under his breath that had Jae smiling slyly. “Everyone knows who you are. I’m afraid you’ve left quite the mark, and when people find out you’ve returned… the Shadow reborn!”
Behind Emory, Sidraeus gave a gruff snort. Emory bit her lip, not wanting to correct Jae and reveal Sidraeus’s identity just yet.
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Virgil muttered.
Ife asked him something, and he replied in a voice too low for Emory to understand, presumably filling her in on who Sidraeus was.
Emory was dying for a chance to ask Ife about the rest of the Selenic Order members—Louis and Javier—and how she’d found herself here to begin with.
She didn’t recognize the other woman who was with them at first, but seeing the familiarity between her and Vera, she had to assume this was one of the Kazans.
One of her aunts.
Emory found herself stealing a glance at Baz again.
She couldn’t believe it was really him. It was like her mind was trying to make sure he was real and not a ghost or a figment of her imagination.
But this was Baz. Though he did look different—there was a confidence to him she’d rarely seen, an assurance in his skin that made him seem taller, older, wiser.
Whatever he’d gone through had changed him.
She wondered how she must appear to him. Broken. Full of darkness. Something to fear, or perhaps to take pity on. Especially after seeing what she’d done on the cove.
She thought of her father again with trepidation now, uncertain how he would react to the new her. If he might take one look at her and know all the things she’d done. If he would accept the darkness that enveloped her now.
Her silent exchange with Sidraeus earlier came back to mind. When she’d asked him if he could take them here the same way he’d gotten them out of the sea of ash, his voice had echoed in her mind.
I might be willing to help, if you’d stop threatening me with that dagger and asked nicely.
Emory had fought to keep the surprise off her face; she hadn’t expected this mind connection to last. So you’re invading my mind now? she’d thought, wondering if he would even hear her.
He’d huffed in reply. Invading? Please. Your mind is laid bare to me. A consequence of this bargain you’ve made, I presume. His eyes had turned violent. Don’t think I won’t kill you for what you’ve done to me.
Emory had gripped the dagger tighter in response. So try it. I’d love to see just how far this connection between us goes.
She knew she’d won this battle of wills the moment he’d narrowed his eyes at her. Of course he wouldn’t try to kill her; not if there was a chance it might kill him, too.
“I own you,” she’d said aloud, the words tumbling out more confidently than she felt.
But those silver spiral runes were proof that Sidraeus’s fate was tied to her—to all Eclipse-born—thanks to the bargain she’d made.
And she would use that as leverage against him as long as it served her, if it kept him from killing Romie.
Emory cut him a glance now, wondering if he could hear all of her thoughts. She’d have to be careful, learn how to ward her mind.
They came upon an old building that used to be an orphanage long ago, then had been converted into dormitories for the prep school for a time, before falling into disuse and disrepair. It was a bit dilapidated, all crumbling brick and loose roof shingles.
The front door opened, revealing a familiar bearded face—and every worry Emory had was gone in an instant. She ran ahead of the others and threw herself into her father’s arms.
“My sweet girl,” he whispered, cheek resting on the top of her head. “I thought I’d lost you forever.”
“So did I.” Emory wanted to break down crying, feeling her throat close with all the emotions overwhelming her. He smelled like home, and she breathed him in, pretending for a moment that they were at the lighthouse in Harebell Cove, that she had never left, that everything was still the same.
She wanted to ask how he’d gotten mixed up into all of this and why he was here, but she let him go and held her tongue, conscious of all the people behind her—and those inside the old orphanage who craned their necks to see the new arrivals.
Emory recognized none of them except for Baz’s parents, who burst into tears as they engulfed their son in a tight embrace.
Most people, Emory realized, had Eclipse sigils on their hands.
There must have been more than two dozen of them, all gawking at her and the others as they stepped inside.
“Basil, my dear boy, come and give an old woman a hand.”
This came from an aging woman Emory recognized as Professor Selandyn.
She pushed her way to the front of the group, walking slowly with the help of a cane, which Emory didn’t remember her using before.
Baz extricated himself from his parents’ embrace and swallowed the professor in his arms. She seemed tiny compared to him.
Emory had never seen the Eclipse professor so frail, and it hit her how much the woman had aged in such a short time.
Professor Selandyn patted Baz’s cheek with a fond smile.
Her eyes flitted over to Emory, and that smile grew.
“I knew you’d find her,” she told Baz. “You brought the Shadow reborn back to us.”
“Actually…” Baz met Emory’s gaze. He swallowed thickly. “We only just found each other. I was… A lot has happened since we left.”
Professor Selandyn scanned their group, doing a double take as she saw Sidraeus. “Clearly.” She frowned. “Where’s Kai?”
Emory’s heart sank. She’d been so focused on Romie, Atheia, Sidraeus, and every little thing in between, that she hadn’t clocked Kai’s absence until now. Her gaze snapped to Baz. The devastation on his face was brief before he schooled his features into stiff tenacity.
“We lost each other. But I… I’ll find him again.”
Emory knew there was more to the story. Could see it plainly in his eyes, in the way his throat undulated as he swallowed back whatever emotion he was suppressing.
“And Romie?”
This came from Baz’s mother, Anise. She was looking at Baz with such hope, but when Baz turned to Emory, so did everyone else.
Emory closed her eyes to keep the tears from falling. Romie’s gone because of me, she thought. Again.
Familiar guilt threatened to choke her. But then a hand brushed hers, and she opened her eyes to see Nisha at her side, giving her a nod of encouragement.
Emory took in a steadying breath. “Romie became the vessel to the Tides. And she’s come back here…
” She peered at all the Eclipse-born staring back at her. “To eradicate Eclipse magic.”
People spoke all at once, their shocked murmurs rising ever louder. Emory could feel Sidraeus hovering behind her, watching with careful awareness as if ready to disappear if he sensed any sort of hostility toward him.
Jae managed to get everyone to quiet down. “Seems we have a lot to catch up on,” they said, looking between Baz and Emory, “but if what you say is true… if the Tides have truly returned…”
“It is true,” Emory asserted.
Jae blanched. “Surely they wouldn’t want to eradicate Eclipse magic.”
“Rosemarie would never want that,” said Anise. She clung so tightly to her husband’s arm, her knuckles were white.
“She won’t have a choice,” Nisha said in the gentlest way possible. “She’s the Tides’ vessel now, forced to do their bidding.” She met Emory’s gaze. “Unless we stop her.”
“How?” Baz’s father asked. “How can we stop a deity?”
Tell them.
Sidraeus’s voice in her mind.
Emory faced the Eclipse-born. “Because we have a deity of our own on our side.”
“The Shadow reborn,” Jae said, looking at Emory.
She shook her head. “I’m not the Shadow reborn. I’m just a Tidecaller.” She locked eyes with Sidraeus as he stepped at her side, tilting her head up to look at him. “He is the Shadow. And he’s here to help us.”
Silence swept the commons.
“But… he’s only a boy,” said a woman with tattoos like Kai’s peeking from the collar of her blouse. “And he looks so young…”
“I assure you, I am he,” Sidraeus said in that low, level voice.
Shadows gathered around him, slithering along his limbs.
They reminded Emory of when she’d first found him in the sleepscape, when he was still in his umbra form and had taunted her with his shadows.
The way her breath had hitched as they slithered around her limbs.
She chased the memory away, watching the awed faces around her as the shadows lengthened, as they took the shape of an obsidian crown atop Sidraeus’s head.
His eyes flashed silver and gold, the light swirling and dipping around his pupils, the very embodiment of the eclipse.
“Forgive me,” breathed the woman who’d said he looked young. “Mighty Phoebus.”
Your people did not always know me as the Shadow, Emory remembered him telling her. They called me Phoebus, once. The bright one. Associated with the sun because I appeared to them on an eclipse. The name seemed to draw the slightest smile from him now.
“We are at your mercy,” a man said with a hand to his heart. “We are yours entirely.”
He and the Luaguan woman bowed their heads in reverence.
A few other people quickly followed suit, holding their tattooed hands to their hearts, the Eclipse sigils turned to Sidraeus in recognition of this deity they owed their magic to.
But most, Emory noticed, kept their heads high and their hands at their sides, staring at Sidraeus with looks ranging from careful skepticism to outright distrust.
A young man, pale-faced and wearing a teal blazer embroidered with what looked like the emblem of one of the Trevelyan colleges, scowled at Sidraeus.
“I’ll believe you are who you claim to be once all threats to Eclipse-born vanish.
” His words were infused with a dark thread of anger.
“Until then, why should we bow to a deity who abandoned us? How are you going to set all of this right?” Nods of assent fueled him to go on.
“Most of us haven’t seen our family for months and can’t go home for fear of being caught.
We have friends imprisoned at Institutes all over the world, loved ones who’ve had their magic ripped away from them.
And let’s not forget about the people we’ve lost to Collapsing incidents or those who we might have hurt during our own Collapsing.
So much death and harm caused by the Shadow’s curse—your supposed curse. Can you undo that?”
Emory half expected Sidraeus to lash out at him, but all he said was a stiff, “No, I can’t.”
“Then why should we follow you, if you can do nothing for us that we can’t do ourselves?”
The question was met with silence. As Emory studied Sidraeus’s expression—the tightness around his mouth, the barest furrow between his brows, the sudden dullness in his eyes—she saw it for what it was.
Guilt.
Etched on his skin was the memory of the first Eclipse-born—of the Tidecallers he’d led to the godsworld and watched die as they burnt out trying to take the power from the fountain, and those he’d sacrificed to appease the god of balance.
But the runes must be nothing compared to the hard stares of the Eclipse-born who stood before him now, a stark reminder that they had survived in spite of him, fending for themselves in a world that had not been made for them, suffering the vitriol and hatred of lunar mages that wanted them gone.
Not everyone here saw Sidraeus as a savior. And maybe he wasn’t. But Emory knew they needed him, one way or the other.
“You don’t have to trust him,” she said to the displeased Eclipse-born.
“All I ask is that you trust me. I know most of you don’t know me, but I want the same things you do.
I want to save Eclipse magic and stop our world from being destroyed.
I’ve come face-to-face with all the monsters who are trying to ruin us, and even though I—I’ve failed to stop them, I think we can do so together. But we need the Shadow on our side.”
She wasn’t sure where the confidence came from. It felt false, a mask slapped on to hide all her insecurities, but an encouraging nod from her father had her believing otherwise. Those who had challenged Sidraeus kept quiet, maybe not entirely convinced but willing to listen, at least.
Emory wanted to prove herself to them. She would find a way out of this mess.
This time, she would not fail.