Chapter 1 Baz #3
Soon, twilight settled outside. Baz watched the jack pines and spruce trees rushing past, their branches drooping with snow.
When the train stopped, Baz and Jae were the only ones to step off.
Unsurprising, given the remoteness of their destination.
The station wasn’t even that, only a tiny, solitary outbuilding on the side of the tracks, with no one there to greet them.
Baz tightened his coat around him, pulling up the lapels around his neck to fend off the biting wind.
He and Jae started painstakingly up the snow-covered road, and though Baz knew Jae had a cloaking illusion around them, he couldn’t stop glancing over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed.
Streetlamps were few and far between here, and Baz tensed at every sound, imagining Drutten’s face hiding in the darkness between trees.
His mind spun uncontrollably when they got off the road to borrow a narrow trail that wound its way through the wintry forest, hugging a jagged coastline.
The crashing of waves was unsettling in such a wild, forlorn place. Anyone could easily be made to disappear here.
“Almost there,” Jae said up ahead.
By the time Baz glimpsed the lighthouse at the edge of the world, his cheeks were pink with cold and exertion, his breath forming clouds around him.
The blue-painted door at the base of the lighthouse opened just as Baz reached for its handle.
From inside came warm light and laughter and music and the mouthwatering scents of fresh bread and chowder.
And there stood Henry Ainsleif, reddish-blond hair a tangled mess that fell to his shoulders, a broad smile in the midst of his beard. “Come in, you two. You’re just in time for supper.”
Henry opened the door wider, and as Baz stepped in from the cold, his eyes fell on Theodore and Anise Brysden. His parents both paused in setting the small kitchen table. There was a happy yelp, a clang of silverware, and then Baz was being smothered in a big hug and a familiar scent.
“Hi, Mom,” he breathed into Anise’s hair, his heart soaring to see her so full of life.
“Oh, I’m so glad you made it,” she said, squeezing him tight before holding him at arm’s length, her big eyes—so much like Romie’s—taking him in. “Was there any trouble? Are you well?”
“I’m fine, Mom.” He smiled to see Theodore and Jae clasping each other affectionately on the shoulder. “All thanks to Jae.”
Jae made a nonchalant motion before Anise smothered them with a kiss on the cheek, thanking them profusely.
Baz’s father took the opportunity to wrap his son in a hug that rivaled Anise’s, and Baz closed his eyes, savoring the moment, still in disbelief that his father was here.
A wanted man, but free of the hellhole that was the Institute, at least.
Baz looked into his father’s smiling face and noticed all the ways it had changed since he last saw him, after the horrors of years spent at the Institute had all but hollowed him out.
Life had returned to Theodore’s eyes, and he no longer looked frail and broken, but healthy and whole.
The Unhallowed Seal on his hand had been taken off, thanks to Baz’s magic, because even though Theodore had never actually Collapsed, he’d still had his magic put to sleep by the Regulators.
All because of Baz, whom Theodore had wanted to protect.
Baz, who’d been the one to Collapse that day in his father’s printing press, the blast of his unbridled power killing three people in the process.
A familiar guilt reared its ugly head up inside him.
And though there was no blame in Theodore’s eyes, Baz felt an aching pressure to apologize, a desperate need to make things right between them.
To make up for all those years Theodore had suffered in his place.
He opened his mouth, willing the words to come. They wouldn’t.
A voice like midnight, one he would recognize anywhere, came to his rescue.
“ ’Bout time you showed up.”
Kai hovered on the last step of a steep, narrow staircase, dark eyes fixed on Baz. His mouth was turned up as if they were sharing a private joke, and the whole world seemed to disappear around them, taking all of Baz’s worries with it.
“Hi,” Baz breathed, feeling silly for not having a better reply.
He was distantly aware of the others busying themselves in the kitchen, but his focus remained on Kai—on the casual way he flitted toward him, hair still damp from the shower he had clearly just taken.
On the faint smell of pine that followed him, and the way his eyes sparked with unguarded joy, a slip of that sharp stoicism he usually wore like armor.
For a split second, Baz didn’t know how to react.
Were they supposed to shake hands? Hug? Kai saved him the mortification of having to decide: he gave Baz a playful nudge on the shoulder, like it was the most normal thing in the world, completely oblivious to the strange fluttering in Baz’s stomach that this small touch elicited.
“Welcome home, Brysden.”
And Baz realized he was home, in all the ways that mattered.