Chapter 1 Baz #2
He pushed past the students, mumbling apologies as he went.
The skies above were a threatening gray, the air crisp with the coming of snow.
Baz hoped the storm would hold off until he got to his destination.
The weather had been unpredictable of late, something that experts blamed on a disturbance with the tides.
Massive flooding of coastal towns, beached ships that affected commerce, a record number of drownings due to flash swells—and this was all over the world, too, not just Elegy.
A phenomenon that had started soon after the door in Dovermere was opened.
An eerie coincidence, perhaps.
Baz reached the bustling station just as his train started to pull away. He cursed Drutten’s name—if it hadn’t been for his interruption, Baz would have made it on time. Now he had no choice but to give in to his magic.
Huffing a swear, he grudgingly reached for the threads of time.
The world around him came to a halting stop.
The sea of students stilled; the whistling of engines quieted.
Baz wove through the platform trying not to think of how easy this was.
He hopped on the train, brushing past the frozen porter who hadn’t fully closed the door yet, and with a breath, Baz let go of the threads of time.
The world resumed its motions, oblivious to the fact it had ever stopped at all.
Baz plopped down in his seat and flexed his hands, trying to shake off the unsettling ease of what he’d done. He hadn’t gotten used to his Collapsed magic yet, despite having lived most of his life with it.
The Collapsing was what awaited Eclipse-born who used too much power, an implosion of the self that there was supposedly no coming back from.
But Baz had discovered that to Collapse did not mean inevitably succumbing to the dark curse that was said to await them.
Instead, it was meant to broaden the scope of their power, making it feel almost limitless.
Though the knowledge of his condition opened many doors—too many he didn’t want to consider, the idea of such power at his fingertips making him nervous—he didn’t feel different in the slightest. Perhaps it was because he’d kept this limitless power in check all these years without even knowing, for fear of reaching a limit he had unwittingly already reached.
Then again, he wasn’t exactly pushing himself to see how deep his Collapsed power went, either. Still the same scared boy, never reaching further than he thought he should. Cautious to a fault.
As the train pulled out of the station, Baz thought of Drutten’s threat again and smiled to himself. At least his ruse was working. He’d known full well the Regulator would expect him to head to Threnody. Where else would he be going for the solstice holidays if not home?
But home had lost all meaning to him. His childhood house hadn’t felt like one in years, and though the Eclipse commons had been a refuge to him in the past, they were too empty now to soothe him the way a true home should.
There was no going home for Baz. So he was going somewhere no one would expect him to be.
The train screeched loudly along the tracks, pulling Baz from the half sleep he’d slipped into.
His face smooshed up against the fogging window, he was briefly disoriented at the sight of the busy station they were pulling into, despite having been here more times than he could count.
He blinked the sleep from his eyes, urgency making his senses come alive as he recognized the blue, green, and white tiled sign on the brick wall that read THRENODY CENTRAL.
While people filed into the narrow corridor outside of Baz’s otherwise empty compartment, he remained seated, eyes searching the platform wildly.
Panic seized him when he didn’t spot the person he was looking for.
And then, just as the worst scenarios began to play out in his mind, the door to his compartment slid open, nearly giving him a heart attack.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Oh, I—” Any excuse Baz might have drawn up died on his lips, replaced by relieved laughter. “Thank the Tides it’s you.”
Jae Ahn smiled down at him, dark eyes full of mischief, and Baz had never been happier to see them. “The timing could not have been more perfect,” Jae said as they shut the compartment door behind them and sat down across from Baz.
“Do you really think it’ll work?”
Jae nodded toward the window. “See for yourself.”
Standing on the platform with everyone else getting off the train was Baz—or rather, a perfect copy of him, dressed in the same clothes and hauling the same luggage that the real Baz had on him.
Jae had truly outdone themself with this illusion; even the expression of this make-believe Baz was the same, a mix of worry and aloofness that had the real Baz feeling a tad self-conscious. Was that really what he looked like?
Jae had planned all of it, this grand illusion that would deceive anyone prying into Baz’s whereabouts.
If the Regulators had eyes on Baz on this very train, they would be duped into seeing him get off here, at Threnody Central, while the real him kept going south, cloaked in whatever illusion Jae now cast over their compartment.
And if anyone looked in on the Brysden household over the holidays, they would find Anise and Baz holed up in their quiet home, neither of them wanting to venture outside or have company over, what with the shame of Theodore’s escape from the Institute weighing heavy on them.
As the fake Baz disappeared in the crowd, Baz couldn’t help but ask, “And you’re sure the illusion will hold?”
“Of course it will.” Jae kicked their feet up on the cushioned seat, looking pleased with themself.
“I’ve been playing around with sustaining illusions long-term, and none of them have failed me yet.
Now, if someone stops you in the streets and tries to have a conversation with you, we might be in trouble.
” They smirked. “Though you ignoring them wouldn’t be too far off from the real thing, would it? ”
“No, I guess it wouldn’t,” Baz had to admit. The sheer control Jae had over their Collapsed magic never ceased to amaze him.
Jae had been Collapsed for a long time now and had since been keeping tabs on both Baz and Kai, for whom this was all still new. Unlike most Eclipse-born who Collapsed, all three of them had managed to escape the Unhallowed Seal that strove to put their magic to sleep.
The train lurched forward, and as Threnody slowly disappeared behind them, Baz felt like he could breathe again.
“So how’ve you been, Basil?”
“Fine, all things considered. How’s the training been going?”
At this, Jae lit up with pride. “Honestly? Better than I could have anticipated.”
For the past few months, Jae had been living in Threnody under the guise of a research trip, but what they were really doing was training other Collapsed Eclipse-born in secret.
Jae had managed to get in contact with others like them who had avoided getting branded with the Unhallowed Seal and offered to help them manage their limitless power.
Most of these people were leading normal lives like Jae and Baz, hiding the fact that they had Collapsed from those around them with varying degrees of success.
But others were on the run from the Regulators after having very public Collapsings, living in shadows, struggling to survive, praying they never got caught.
Jae’s training provided them with much-needed asylum.
The point, as Kai would put it, was to ensure everyone had their shit under control so they could eventually prove to the world at large that Eclipse-born who Collapsed were not a threat to society. That they could overcome this Shadow’s curse that Collapsing was supposed to plunge them into.
“Makes you wonder if this whole curse business is bogus,” Jae said, as if reading Baz’s mind. “A cautionary tale, nothing more.”
“How do you mean?”
“Have you ever felt this darkness we’re warned of?
Has your Collapsed magic changed who you are at your core, turned you into someone who craves power no matter the cost?
” Jae shook their head, not letting Baz answer the clearly rhetorical question as they pressed on: “Our ability to control our Collapsed magic seems only to be tied to how powerful our magic already was to begin with. Take me for example. Illusions are a rather benign ability, one that I’d already mastered long before Collapsing.
And your Timespinner ability—well, I wouldn’t say it’s mundane, far from it, but then again you were always careful with it, so it makes sense for you to have control over it now.
But others whose magic is darker in nature, or whose grasp on their ability was already flighty to begin with…
Well. It makes sense for them to have a harder time dealing with this heightened magic, don’t you think? ”
A certain Nightmare Weaver came to mind at this. Jae seemed to have the same thought. “He’s getting better,” they added in a gentle voice. “Like I said, it’s an adjustment. And Kai’s magic is… There’s much we don’t know about it yet. But we’ll get there.”
Baz looked down at his hands. The Nightmare Weaver he’d known had always been in control of his magic, but now that Kai was Collapsed, it was like the nightmares were controlling him.
Nightmares spilled into his waking hours against his will, making it hard for him to distinguish what was real from what was not.
Like the bees he’d once jokingly conjured out of Baz’s dreaming, only no one was laughing now, especially not Kai.