Chapter 6 Baz
THE MAGIC OF THAT FIRST solstice night ended with the tide’s ravaging of the shore.
They’d managed to save most of Henry’s things thanks to Baz pausing time, but as the tide pulled back out again the next morning, their party set out in search of missing lobster cages and fishing nets that had washed up farther down the coastline.
In the daylight, with the calmed seas and wintry sun trying to pierce through the heavy mist, Baz couldn’t help but see his surroundings through new eyes.
These smooth gray rocks lapped by frothy waves, the white-dusted pine trees standing like proud sentinels overlooking the sea, the harebell flowers persisting through the snow—they were images of the place Emory had called home.
Baz imagined her keeping an eye on the horizon as a young girl, waiting for her mother to return.
But the woman she knew as Luce Meraude would never come back to Harebell Cove.
In fact, she might no longer even be in this world.
The infamous lost epilogue that Kai had pulled from the sleepscape had passed from hand to hand these past few months as they’d tried to make sense of it.
Baz, Kai, Jae, Selandyn, Alya—it was clear to them all that the person who’d left the epilogue in the sleepscape had to be Luce Meraude, otherwise known as Adriana Kazan.
They’d found proof of Luce’s true identity in the journals Keiran had left lying around the Institute, and her being a Dreamer suggested she was capable of hiding the epilogue in the sleeping realm.
“You’re telling me I have a cousin?” Vera Ingers, the daughter of a third Kazan sister, had mused. “I never had cousins. What’s Emory like? I mean, I know I met her at the equinox festival, but I didn’t know then.”
Baz had told Vera everything he could think of about Emory. All the best qualities. All the things he missed about her. Vera had given him a funny look. “Oh, you have it bad,” she’d teased him.
He often wondered if Emory knew the truth about her mother. Surely Keiran must have told her. Or perhaps Romie, who’d been the one to chase after the epilogue in the first place, had pieced it together.
This landscape was far from the sandy beach and singing tall grasses where he and his sister and Emory had chased after seagulls, but it left him with a pang of longing all the same.
He suddenly wished he’d brought the sketchbook his mother had gifted him for the solstice, but it waited for him back at the lighthouse, blank and begging to be filled.
“You used to love to draw,” Anise had told him earlier this morning with a teary-eyed sort of fondness. “Remember all those drawings you’d give me? Characters from your books. The willow tree behind our house. I kept them all, you know. And now you can make new ones.”
Baz longed to pick up a pencil and ingrain this landscape in his memory.
But for now he picked up a fishing net instead, all tangled up at the base of a rock.
Farther down the beach, Kai carried the remains of a battered lobster cage beneath an arm, dark hair unbound and damp from the sea mist. Kai suddenly stopped in his tracks, dropped the wooden pieces at his feet—and disappeared out of thin air, as if the mist had gobbled him up.
Baz’s stomach dropped. “Kai?” He picked up the pace, heart in his throat as he tried not to slip on the slick rocks. “Kai!”
“In here.”
Relief surged through him at the sound of Kai’s voice.
Baz came upon an opening in an outcropping of rocks.
A cave mouth, slender and dark. He could just barely make out Kai’s outline inside it.
Baz took a careful step in despite the warning bells screaming in his mind.
But this cave was nothing like Dovermere, only a small grotto carved in the rock, and not even fully enclosed; there was an opening above their heads that let a muted streak of light in, right in the middle of the circular space.
Kai ran a hand over the smooth walls slick with lichen.
“Henry told me there were a few caves like this dotted along this side of the island. I found some of them, though most are collapsed due to erosion.” He splayed his fingers out beneath the curtain of sunlight, tufts of mist swirling around his fingers. “Never seen this one before.”
Baz hung back, a sinister feeling rooting him in place. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Kai side-eyed him. “What are you scared of? This isn’t Dovermere.”
“I know that.”
And yet he couldn’t help but think it felt exactly like Dovermere—couldn’t explain the tug he felt on his magic.
Or maybe that was only the fear. Perhaps all dark pockets of the world shared the same sense of mystery, the same strange allure, the same inexplicable eeriness that would forever set him on edge after what they’d lived through in Dovermere.
“We should head back,” Baz pressed, adjusting the weight of the tangled net on his shoulder. “There’s nothing here.”
Kai finally relented, his own morbid curiosity apparently satisfied. Or maybe just to appease Baz’s fear.
They bumped into Jae as they made their way back to the lighthouse. There was a twinkle in their eye as they clapped them both on the back.
“There you two are. Come on, it’s time we get to work on your training.” Jae winked at Baz. “We need to get you ready for the Quadricentennial.”
Baz groaned, wishing he’d stayed back at the cave. This, he wasn’t looking forward to.
“Remind me again what this Quadricentennial entails?” Baz’s mother asked as they all sat around the kitchen table later that evening, a frown of consternation on her face.
The Quadricentennial was to be the biggest event of the century, marking Aldryn College’s four hundredth anniversary.
Every centennial, Aldryn hosted a month-long celebration to which students from other magical colleges around the world were invited.
In the past, deadly, cutthroat games had been held, pitting student against student as they sought glory and knowledge.
But these games hadn’t been held since the school’s Bicentennial; no one knew exactly what happened that year, but it was catastrophic enough that the college not only discontinued the tradition but also canceled their Tricentennial celebrations altogether.
This year, there was a buzz of excitement surrounding the Quadri, because the college had decided to bring the games back, though in a way that focused more on academia than anything else.
The college would be hosting panels and workshops led by the world’s leading magical experts as well as academic challenges that students could enroll in to showcase their magic.
There would be theoretical challenges where students would solve complicated equations revolving around tidal bulges and moon position degrees, and practical challenges where they would form teams with students of other houses and alignments to solve complex puzzles using only the magic at their disposal.
With scouts from the area and abroad watching like hawks, it would be a chance for students all over to prove their worth, to make connections that might land them highly sought-after jobs and internships and scholarships to the most prestigious postgraduate programs.
And Baz had been roped into participating.
While Eclipse-born were allowed to compete in the challenges, not many of them had signed up.
Understandable, given the stigma surrounding their abilities and the very real fear of Collapsing.
Baz had always known his final year at Aldryn would be the school’s Quadricentennial, though he never anticipated entering the games should they ever be reinstated. But all that had changed now.
Now his participation in the Quadri was a crucial part of their grand plan to bring justice to Eclipse-born.
Because despite their case getting thrown out of court and the odds being stacked against them, what with the corruption of the Institute and the power that the Selenic Order wielded over the Regulators, they had no other option but to keep fighting.
It was Jae who’d had the idea for the Quadri.
“If Baz wows everyone with his magic—and I’ve no doubt he will—it might sway the public opinion in our favor.
Academic scouts use the Quadri to assess talent, but most of them won’t expect to find it in an Eclipse-born, especially not one with such a rare gift as our Timespinner.
They’ll marvel at his precision and control, and when we finally reveal that Baz has been Collapsed for years now—without giving away the, ah, unfortunate details of his Collapsing, of course—people will recall that precision and control and realize Baz was never a danger to them.
They’ll see that Collapsings aren’t inherently bad. ”
“Or they’ll twist it around and condemn Basil for putting all these people in danger,” Anise countered.
Jae merely shrugged. “It’s a risk we have to take.”
“And why does Basil have to be the one to take that risk? Why can’t it be someone else?” Anise stopped herself with her eyes on Kai, as if just remembering that Baz was the only Eclipse-born left at Aldryn. Her gaze softened. “Someone from another college, perhaps.”
Theodore patted his wife’s hand. “Basil can handle himself. Isn’t that right, son?”
Baz nodded shyly, feeling the weight of everyone’s attention on him.
“He’ll show all the assholes at that school how it’s done,” Kai said with a sardonic smile, and Baz was grateful to him for breaking the tension.
“And we really do need to put all chances on our side,” Jae said, “especially as more and more Collapsed Eclipse-born seek to join our little revolution.” They cleared their throat, a somber look in their eyes.
“Word of what I’m doing in Threnody is getting around faster than I can take people in, which is wonderful, but also comes at a risk. ”