Chapter 3 Baz
THE LIGHTHOUSE IN HAREBELL COVE had not been Baz’s first choice for a secret hideout, but it turned out to be the perfect spot, somewhere the Regulators wouldn’t immediately think to look for their two most wanted fugitives.
Though if they did, Jae had concocted an illusion that would conceal Theodore and Kai, so long as no one looked too close.
For a time, right after their escape from the Institute, Theodore and Kai had hidden under everyone’s noses in Cadence, under the protection of the Veiled Atlas.
Alya Kazan and her niece Vera Ingers had taken them in, hiding them away in the small apartment above the taproom they managed.
It had been the perfect location, a place where all of them could gather to share information and start building their case against the Institute and the Selenic Order.
But after the case got thrown out, the Institute’s search for Theodore and Kai seemed to intensify.
The Regulators sowed the seeds of fear in Cadence and its surroundings, plastering the escapees’ faces everywhere, painting them as dangerous, unstable convicts.
The safest course of action for Theodore and Kai was to leave before someone discovered them.
The list of alternative hiding places had been a short one with no good options.
Alya suggested they sail toward the Constellation Isles, even as far as the Outerlands.
Kai thought it best if they stayed under the Regulators’ noses at Aldryn College, in the Eclipse commons that only Eclipse-born could access.
Theodore wanted nothing more than to see his wife again, though they all knew the Regulators had eyes on their house in Threnody—which also made Jae’s offer of housing them with the other Collapsed Eclipse-born they were training unwise.
It was Baz who’d suggested Henry Ainsleif’s lighthouse.
Baz had gone to visit Emory’s father shortly after the events at Dovermere, when he knew rumors of Emory’s supposed drowning would have reached him.
Baz couldn’t bear the idea of keeping the truth of Emory’s fate from her father.
He didn’t think it fair for Henry to believe she was dead when she was decidedly not—especially not after telling his own parents the truth about Romie and seeing all their grief replaced with careful optimism.
“Telling them the truth will only give them false hope,” Kai had warned Baz at the time. “What if Emory and Romie are dead?”
“They’re not,” Baz had countered, refusing to believe anything else.
And if they never came back… Baz didn’t want to think of that, either.
But he certainly didn’t agree about the truth giving his parents false hope.
If someone had done the same for him when he’d thought Romie had drowned—if they’d told him there was still a chance for her to make it out of Dovermere alive—it would have saved him an ocean of hurt and grief and doubt.
It would have given him the hope he’d so desperately needed then.
So he gave that to Henry. He told him everything, making it as clear as he could that Emory was not dead but simply gone.
To Henry’s credit, he’d taken the news about doors to other worlds and the fact that Emory was a Tidecaller rather well.
It seemed Emory had previously written to him about having odd magic and suspecting her mother might have lied about her birth, and so all the pieces came together to form a coherent picture in Henry’s mind.
It had felt good to talk to Emory’s dad.
To voice all these things to someone from outside of their little group.
Baz had found himself saying more than he’d intended, venturing into the Eclipse situation of it all, their failed quest for justice against the Selenic Order and the Institute at large.
He had certainly not anticipated it enticing Henry to their side.
“If my daughter is Eclipse-born, I don’t want that to ever happen to her. I want to help. However I can.”
And so Baz had taken Henry up on his offer, sending Kai and Theodore to hide away in Henry’s secluded lighthouse in the tiny hamlet that was Harebell Cove.
Emory’s ties to the Selenic Order raised some concerns over this decision, because while the rest of the world might know Emory Ainsleif as a Healer, the Selenic Order knew she was a Tidecaller—and that might put a target on Henry’s back.
But the Regulators had no reason to believe Henry Ainsleif might be involved in the harboring of two Collapsed Eclipse-born fugitives.
To them, he was but a humble lighthouse keeper with little to no magic, a reclusive man who didn’t overly concern himself with the outside world, the grieving father of a girl who, despite having ties to Baz, was believed to be dead.
Another victim of Dovermere’s dark whims.
It was a risk nonetheless. Especially the part where they’d let Anise Brysden in on the truth.
Theodore had insisted on it, and Baz couldn’t deny the good it had done both his parents.
He’d never seen his mother this happy. It was like she had shed all those years of loss like a second skin, making herself shiny and new again.
But Baz feared it was the sort of precarious happiness that would make her spiral into despair again if it was ripped away from her—which was a very real possibility, if they were ever to be found out. Or if Romie never came back.
But as all of them drank mulled cider and exchanged gifts, their bellies full of savory chowder and fresh brown bread, music scratching away on the gramophone and laughter ringing in their ears, Baz couldn’t help but think it was worth it.
All his worries had slipped away, as if here in the lighthouse at the edge of the world, nothing bad could reach him.
Not Artem or Drutten. Not the stress of figuring out the extent of his Collapsed magic or the burden of seeking justice for his fellow Eclipse-born.
Here was the connection he’d been craving. The sense of belonging he’d been robbed of at Aldryn College.
There seemed to be an unspoken agreement among them all to keep things light and festive tonight. Tomorrow, they would talk business—and business they did have. But tonight existed in a perfect bubble, and none of them wanted to undo this precarious magic.
As the evening started to wind down, with Theodore and Jae reminiscing about the good old days of the printing press, and Henry and Anise busying themselves with the dishes, Kai wordlessly slipped away from the table while Baz wasn’t looking.
Baz felt crestfallen, thinking Kai had gone up to bed without so much as a good night.
But then he spotted him near the back door, slipping on his coat.
Kai caught his eye and motioned for him to join before disappearing into the night.
Without hesitation, Baz grabbed his own coat and went after him.
Snow fell in fat, unhurried flurries against the windless night.
Baz followed the foot tracks on the snow-and-pine-needle-covered ground until he found Kai sitting on a tree stump, head tilted up to the sky.
The moonlight washed his features in muted silver, leeching all trace of warmth from his skin.
“So, how are all our friends back at school?” Kai asked in a mock singsong voice.
Baz snorted. “You never had any friends at school.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“I have Professor Selandyn. We take tea together every day.”
“Tides, what have you become without me?” Kai uncorked his trusty flask and offered it to Baz with a wink. “Here. Bit stronger than tea, though.”
Maybe it was because of how blessedly normal their exchange felt, or the unexpected warmth that Kai’s wink sent through him, but it had Baz reaching for the flask and taking a small sip.
The taste of gin filled his mouth, as unpleasant as he had expected it to be.
He coughed as it burned down his throat, the sound of Kai’s laugh flooding his senses.
How he’d missed it, that laugh.
“So,” Baz said haltingly. He cast a furtive glance at Kai. The flurries caught in his dark hair looked like stars in a night sky. “How’ve you been, really, with… everything?”
Kai snickered. “Amazing.” He took back his flask and leaned casually against the tree stump.
“I really think I’ve found my calling, you know?
Shucking oysters and cleaning out lobster cages with two old men whose idea of fun is playing the same damn card game every night, discussing the same damn boring topics every day, and following this same damn routine of theirs like they’re drowning and it’s their only lifeline.
It’s great.” His eyes slid to Baz. “No offense to your dad.”
Baz shrugged the comment off. “Sounds better than feeling like a lonely ghost with no one to talk to.” At least he had his sister’s cat to keep him company… most of the time. “I swear even Dusk is growing sick of me.”
Kai arched a brow. “Thought you liked the solitude.”
“Things change, I guess.”
It was funny. Baz had always enjoyed solitude, but perhaps it was only because he’d grown so used to missing the people in his life he cared most about.
His father being sent to the Institute, his mother checking out, his sister disappearing, Kai Collapsing…
They had all shaped this lonely existence of his.
But for the briefest of moments, these people-shaped holes in his life had been filled by Emory, and for a time he was reminded how much he craved connection. To exist in a space with people who knew him, share the burdens and joys of life with them, even in the smallest of ways. Like tonight.
“I can’t stay here, Brysden,” Kai said suddenly. His voice had gone serious, and he looked at Baz with a guarded sort of hope. “I need to go back to Aldryn.”
“You know you can’t.” Baz looked away so as not to see that hope dwindle. “We can’t risk someone discovering you.”
“I’ll stay hidden in Obscura Hall,” Kai pressed. “I’ll go out to the caves under the cover of darkness—”
“Kai…”