Chapter 44 Baz
NO MATTER HOW LONG HE stared at it, no matter how much he turned it over in his mind, Baz couldn’t make sense of this new multilayered world before him—especially not as those black holes appeared.
They tore open the skies and swallowed whole sections of the cove below where the tide had started to come in, sweeping through the rotten trees of the forest that now stood there.
There were quiet gasps and quiet sobs and a desperate, quiet bewilderment as the students around him watched the scene unfold. From somewhere near, they heard screams and the sound of crumbling stone, and Baz suspected those hungry pockets of darkness must have appeared on campus, too.
He has fueled himself with death itself, and so death will keep eating away at this new world of his like termites until there is nothing left of the realms.
Equilibris hadn’t lied. It was as if each dissonant puzzle piece of this new landscape Clover had created were vying for dominance over the others.
Baz thought someone might be speaking to him, but all he heard was a dull ringing in his ears, folded in with the echo of the hourglass breaking. He stared and stared at his bloodied hands, the cuts from the broken glass.
He’d broken fate. That careful pattern Equilibris had spent all of existence overseeing. All those intricate threads woven into a tapestry older than time. Gone. Undone by Baz’s own two hands.
The barest thought had the threads of time around his wounded palms pulling back to when the gashes had never existed. His hands were clean and healed in an instant.
If Baz had thought the power his Collapsing allowed him was limitless, it was nothing compared to what he felt now.
It was as if breaking fate had shattered the bottom of a far-reaching well inside him to unveil something even vaster, almost unfathomably so.
Power thrummed in his veins like a steady vibration.
He could see the threads of time all around him without even trying to—threads untethered from any sort of pattern, or rather choosing to make their own patterns at will.
Perhaps the fabric of the universe had changed completely with Clover’s meddling, and maybe that applied to time, too, unbinding it from the constraints it used to answer to. Baz wasn’t sure what that meant for his magic, and thinking of it made him sick to his stomach.
“Brysden. What now?”
The sound of Kai’s voice brought him back to reality.
“We have to go find the others,” Baz whispered.
They weaved through the gathered students, searching for their friends’ faces, but Emory and the others were nowhere to be found.
Baz had to believe they had made it out of the Reaper tree.
He was of two minds about where they would have disappeared to: either they’d headed for the safety of Obscura Hall…
or something terrible had happened to them.
Answers found him when he and Kai emerged in the quad.
It was a jarring sight: part of the cloisters had been devoured by a pocket of darkness, and the ground was littered with the corpses of strange beasts.
Small groups of students remained. There were a few Shadow-masked protesters here and there, but most were gone or in the process of fleeing.
“Baz!”
He spun around to see Penelope West heading their way, eyes wide with horror. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” she said.
“What happened here?”
“Your sister did this—well, the Tides. They tried to stop the black holes from destroying everything and… and bled Emory of her magic. Right there in the fountain. Said this was how to fix whatever’s happening to the world, by giving back the power she stole and sending the Shadow back to the Deep. ”
Baz’s stomach dropped. “Where’s Emory now? Is she—is she all right?”
“She’s alive.” Penelope’s face was grave.
“But she was given the Unhallowed Seal. The Tides drained her power and gave it to the Selenic Order who now have access to all lunar magics. They’re not going to stop until it’s restored for everyone.
I’m scared of what they’ll do to Emory at the Institute. ”
“The Institute?” Baz repeated with bleak horror.
“That’s where they took her. Her and the Shadow and the others who were with them.”
“What others?” Kai asked.
If Penelope recognized him, she didn’t bat an eye at the fact that he was a fugitive of the Institute. “Virgil, Nisha, Ife, and Javier. And a blond woman I didn’t recognize. Had a Waning Moon sigil.”
Kai’s eyes squeezed shut, his face falling. “Luce.” He swore. “We need to get them back.”
“We already have people at the Institute,” Baz said. “Maybe they can…”
The words died on his tongue. Jae and Vera and the others who’d gone to scope out the Institute would still be waiting for Sidraeus to magically appear with backup.
That had been the plan: to use the protest as a distraction while they got Kai and Luce out of hell, then head to the Institute to break free the Eclipse-born prisoners while everyone was still occupied at Aldryn.
But now that plan was shot. Sidraeus wasn’t here to whisk them back to the safe house. And with Atheia headed to the Institute, Baz could only hope Jae and the others would have the good sense to hide and find their own way to safety.
The sound of breaking porcelain caught his attention. Near the Fountain of Fate, a group of riotous students were smashing discarded Shadow masks on the ground and chanting hideous words.
“Down with the eclipse!”
“To the Deep with the Shadow!”
“Drop by drop, the Tidethief we will stop!”
“You should go,” Penelope said, face blanching. She’d taken off her own Shadow mask. “It’s not safe for you here.”
Baz couldn’t disagree. And with the remaining protesters fleeing and the other Eclipse-born he’d come here with nowhere in sight…
Penelope seemed to read the fear on his face.
“Those assholes over there are only a fraction of who was here earlier. Most people saw just how vicious the Tides were with Emory and anyone who stood with her. And those pockets of darkness? This pandemonium? Everyone is left wondering why any of this is happening if the Tides are in our midst, when they were supposed to be our saviors.”
Baz exchanged a glance with Kai. They both knew this had nothing to do with Atheia and all to do with Clover. And if the Tides were losing favor among some of the lunar mages, he could only wonder if they might start blaming the Shadow—and Eclipse-born—more intently.
His gaze drifted to the door to Obscura Hall, feeling torn. He had to make sure the rest of the Eclipse-born were all right before he even thought of helping Emory and the others.
He started toward Obscura Hall, but Penelope stopped him. “I saw Regulators rushing over there after you all left,” she warned. “Be careful.”
Baz nodded in thanks. They’d most likely find Regulators guarding the elevator. And if the Eclipse-born had managed to reclaim Obscura Hall, maybe the Regulators were trying to break past newly erected wards. Whatever the case, Baz wasn’t scared of them. And neither was Kai.
But when they stepped through the doors, the small hall that led to the lone elevator was empty—except for the bodies of Regulators strewn over the floor.
Lights flickered ominously overhead. The hall was a bloodbath, as if the Regulators had imploded, as if their every blood vessel had burst. A single pair of bloodied footprints wove a path through the mutilated bodies toward the elevator, where they disappeared.
Someone had gone down to Obscura Hall after this gruesome scene had taken place. Either an innocent bystander, a survivor… or the person responsible.
All Baz could think of was his father and Professor Selandyn and the other Eclipse-born who’d gone to Obscura Hall.
Had the same thing happened to them? He hurried into the elevator after Kai, not even taking the time to reach for the pocket watch that could let him see who or what had done this.
The elevator jerked downward, and Baz could only hope against all hope that they weren’t too late—that they wouldn’t find such carnage at the bottom.
When the door creaked open, Baz felt the floor slip out from under him.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected: the usual illusioned field of tall grass bowing toward the sea, or perhaps just a long, foreboding stone hallway, since the illusion magic must have shattered after the Regulators took over Obscura Hall.
The reality was neither.
Gone was the willow tree behind which stood the Eclipse commons.
It was as if someone had blown open a wall, revealing the inside of the commons, like entrails spilling from an open stomach.
The place they’d called home was eviscerated.
The threadbare sofas and chairs were overturned, the fireplace was a mess of crumbled stone.
The stairs leading up to the rooms stood precariously, as if they could topple at any second.
Part of the ceiling had come down, along with the entire wall where the window had overlooked the cove and the secret passageway door had stood.
The whole place was now open to the night sky above, the sea beyond.
Everything seemed to have been pushed aside by the appearance of objects that were entirely out of place.
An ominous stone chamber, torches casting long shadows over its contents: some kind of alchemical workshop or laboratory, full of vials and jars, most of them empty, though some contained golden flames.
Rusted metal chains were fastened to the wall, too big to be meant for humans.
People were scrambling around, dressed in curious clothes that seemed plucked from a fairy tale, red robes and chain mail and gold-threaded doublets.
There was not a single Eclipse-born in sight, and Baz could only hope they’d gotten out safely before the commons got destroyed.
There was, though, a man standing with his back to them, watching the scene with the same quiet stillness that Baz and Kai had been.
He turned to them as if he’d sensed their coming.
Baz wasn’t surprised to see Clover’s face.
He braced himself, ready to reach for his magic, but something about Clover’s demeanor made him hesitant to do so.
He looked almost… resigned. The wildness of the man he’d seen on the path between abyss and godsworld was gone, and what was left was raw, uncertain.
Baz could almost imagine they were back in time, reminded of the Clover he’d spent long hours in the library with, the Clover who’d cared about his sister and his friends and his fellow Eclipse-born.
Baz might have believed this was that Clover if it weren’t for his eyes—a shade of turquoise so luminous, there was no doubt it came from his unnatural godhood.
“You know,” Clover said, a wistful note in his tone, “I never got a chance to step foot in Obscura Hall before. Doomed to the secrecy of being a Tidecaller, denied a chance to be my true self. Now here I stand a god.”
“A monster, you mean,” Kai seethed. “You’ve destroyed everything.”
“Not destroyed,” Clover said. “Remade into something viable for all. A new world order.”
“What about those Regulators you killed up there?” Baz shook with barely leashed anger. “Is that the kind of order we can expect from our new god?”
Clover’s nostrils flared angrily. “Those Regulators,” he nearly spat the word, “had it coming for how they treat people like us, the Eclipse-born they deem too different to fit into their sacred lunar system. Enough with their tyranny. What I’m proposing is a world where no one is better than others, where everything and everyone work in balance with each other. Under my rule, everyone will be safe.”
Kai laughed darkly. “Tell that to the people you hurt to get here, and everyone watching the literal black holes swallowing up the world right before their eyes. Was that part of the plan, Cornelius?”
Doubt seemed to flicker in Clover’s unnatural eyes.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” Kai pressed further. “I think you’re too absorbed in your own godhood to see your downfall coming. You think you’re invincible, but you have no idea, do you?”
“No idea about what?” Clover said with a note of disdain, as if trying to mask his own ignorance.
“That the gods you tried to take power from are out here right now, gathering their strength so they can come after you. I might have a bone to pick with the bastards for abandoning me in the abyss, but I’ll gladly cheer them on when they end you.”
“They won’t,” Clover said with a confidence that might have sounded forced.
He glared at the disparate pieces of worlds laid out before him.
“I’ll hunt them down myself and absorb whatever’s left of their power so that I can fully embody the four worlds of the living.
Then everything will be as it should be.
” Clover studied Kai. “I am glad, you know, to see that you survived. Losing you and Luce was… Well. I never thought I’d see either of you again. ”
“We had your boyfriend to thank for that.”
Baz’s head snapped to Kai, wondering who he meant.
“I wonder if you’ll recognize him when the gods come for you wearing his face,” Kai continued, voice taunting. “He might not look like Thames anymore, but I can assure you, his reincarnation remembers what you did to him just fine. I hope he gets the revenge he deser—”
In a flash of anger, Clover was on Kai faster than Baz could call on his magic to stop him.
But his magic, it turned out, wasn’t needed.
No sooner had Clover wrapped his hands around Kai’s neck than he let go with a cry of surprise, pain flashing across his face.
As if he’d been burned by the tattoos on Kai’s collarbones, which had come to life in a faint silver light.
There was a second of complete surprise where all three of them remained still, too stunned to react. And then Kai pulled back his fist and swung at Clover.
Before his punch could land, Clover disappeared in a cloud of billowing dust.