Chapter 45 Kai
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” Baz screeched.
Kai stared down at his tattoos, which had already faded back to their normal black lines as soon as Clover disappeared.
“I have no idea,” he breathed.
And yet he had a sneaking suspicion. This had happened in the abyss, too, when one of the gods had grabbed him.
The four gods had stared at the tattoos as if they could sense a power there.
Because surely that’s what it was: some kind of protection against gods, perhaps.
Though why that was or how it worked was beyond Kai.
It wasn’t as if he were the one controlling it, nor had it ever happened before, but then again, he’d never had the displeasure of meeting a god until recently.
He would have loved to have never met a single one of them.
Before either he or Baz could say another word, two figures wobbled their way from the rubble of the Eclipse commons.
Kai recognized Theodore at once, as well as Rusli, whom he’d briefly met before going through Dovermere.
Theodore was leaning heavily on Rusli, one of his legs a complete bloody mess.
Baz ran toward them. “What happened?”
“He got caught in the wreckage,” Rusli panted as he set Theodore down on the floor. “I managed to pull him out with a little help.”
At this, he gave a nod of thanks to a young boy who’d appeared behind them.
The boy flushed. He was lanky and still growing into his teens, with green eyes and strawberry-blond curls.
The rust-colored surcoat he wore was similar to the strange clothing of the other people running around, bearing a faded crest as though this were an old hand-me-down that had seen better days.
Baz fussed over his father, who tried to swat him away. “I’m fine,” Theodore said with false bravado. “Really, it’s—”
His leg healed before their eyes. The blood disappeared, and his shredded pants leg was whole again.
They all stared at Baz, who hadn’t even blinked as he pulled back the threads of time.
“Well,” Theodore mused, “that’s a handy trick.” He turned to Kai then, his face splitting into a smile. “I see they managed to pull you out of hell.”
“Glad that part of our plan was successful, at least,” Rusli said.
A swell of emotion rushed through Kai. He was hit with the realization that it wasn’t just Baz and Emory who’d fought to get him out of the abyss, but a whole group of people who actually gave a shit about him.
“Where is everyone?” Baz asked, eyeing the rubble of the commons with worry. “Professor Selandyn…?”
“She’s fine,” his father answered. “We managed to get everyone down to the beach after… whatever it is that’s appeared here eviscerated Obscura Hall.” He glanced at the strange boy. “What did you call this place of yours again?”
“The Chasm,” the boy answered. “The seat of the Fellowship of the Light. The Golden Helm were in the process of raiding it when there was this big shift like the world was exploding. And all of a sudden, here we were.”
Nothing he said made any sense to Kai, but the names must have sparked recognition in Baz and the others, because they all shared a knowing glance.
“You’re from the Wastes—the Heartland, I mean?” Baz asked.
The boy nodded.
Theodore gaped at him. “How is any of this possible?”
Baz went on to explain what had happened—how Clover had risen as a god and fused together all the worlds. When he mentioned that Atheia had brought Emory and the others to the Institute, the boy’s head snapped up, his eyes going as big as saucers.
“Did you say Emory? Emory Ainsleif, the Tidecaller?”
“You know her?”
“Yes, I—wait here a second.”
The boy sprang off, and Kai had half a mind to follow him, but the others seemed to trust him.
“We need to get out of here,” Rusli said. “Go back to the safe house, regroup there. Obscura Hall’s useless to us now that it’s in shambles. And if they’ve captured some of our own, we need to get them back.”
Purpose sang within Kai. “Count me in.”
The Institute had kept him locked up, had tried to tear his magic from him. He wouldn’t stand idly by as others were subjected to the same harrowing imprisonment.
“How do we get to the safe house?” Baz asked. “And what about Jae and the others? It’s not like we can just jump on a train back to Threnody. The Regulators will be looking for all of us.”
“I could change our appearance with an illusion,” Rusli suggested. “And maybe everyone will be too busy worrying over what’s going on to even notice us…”
“With everything that’s happened, I doubt the trains will be running,” Theodore said grimly. “Maybe there are no tracks anymore, if the worlds have all been rearranged.”
Before despair sent them spiraling further, the boy came running back with two other people in tow.
Two women with umber skin, armed to the teeth, dressed in the same rust surcoat as the boy, though the crest on theirs was more visible.
It depicted a gold dragon and a black winged beast all twisted up together, forming a perfect circle.
“You’re Emory’s friends?” asked the younger of the two.
They all nodded. The two women exchanged a glance. The older one said, “Any friend of Emory’s is a friend of ours.”
“You’re Ivayne and Vivyan, aren’t you?” Baz said with recognition. “Knights-errant of the Golden Helm.”
The two women bowed in confirmation.
The younger knight clasped the young boy on the shoulder.
“Caius here told us Emory’s been captured.
Whatever you’ve got planned to set her free, you can count us in.
” She winked at the boy. “You’re proving yourself useful, page.
I’m glad the Golden Helm took a chance on you when you left the Fellowship. ”
The boy flushed, a smile on his lips.
“What we need is a way out of here,” Baz urged.
“We have friends down on the beach below, others at the Institute a few miles from here, and the people of our world are going to be after us. We have a safe house, but it’s too far to get there on foot, and we don’t know if the trains are still up and running. ”
“I don’t know what a train is,” the older one said, throwing a glance behind her, “but we do have someone that could help.”
As if on cue, a massive, winged beast appeared in the night sky behind her, talons digging into masonry as it clung to what remained of the torn-down wall that overlooked the cove. Its roar split the night.
It was a Tides-damned dragon.