Chapter 28 Baz #2
“We students are the voice of our generation. We owe it to ourselves to use that voice to its full might. Hopefully it will carry to the rest of Elegy and beyond. Helps that some of us have quite the pull with authorities,” Clover added with a wink.
The solidarity between everyone here was evident.
Thames and Polina mingled with the other students, and barring what happened with Wulfrid, there was none of the animosity they’d encountered in the tavern when they first arrived.
This level of acceptance and camaraderie felt…
it felt, in some ways, beyond even their own time.
“It’s amazing,” Baz gushed. “Truly, I’ve never heard of anything like this.”
Cordie gave him a funny look. “Hasn’t it always been like this in the Constellation Isles?”
Baz fumbled at his blunder. “Er, yes, well, I—”
“He’s a recent transplant to Luagua.” Kai stepped on Baz’s foot in a way that said, Shut up before you ruin this. “Hasn’t been there long enough to understand we’re much more accepting of Eclipse-born.”
“Where are you originally from?” Clover asked.
“Here, actually,” Baz said, deciding to opt for the truth rather than a blatant lie. “Well, Threnody, that is.”
“Must have been quite the shock to move to Luagua.”
“It was, yes. In the best way, of course.”
“Can I ask what prompted you to become invested in all of this?” Kai asked Clover, pointedly eyeing the New Moon sigil inked on his hand. “You’re not Eclipse-born yourself. So why go to all these lengths?”
There was no brusqueness in his tone, just genuine curiosity. But Baz heard the insinuation behind his question, inviting the possibility of this simple fact—that Clover was New Moon—being false.
Clover seemed genuinely taken aback. “Does one need a reason to be invested in the well-being of their friends, their peers, their fellow humans? If someone is struggling in front of you, do you not reach out a hand to help them?”
“I find that most people will only help their own,” Kai answered, “and won’t bother with those they consider other. Unless there’s something in it for them.”
Clover made a contemplative sound. “What a cynical outlook to have. But then, I am a Healer; perhaps I can’t help the naive sort of compassion that comes with the territory.”
Healer. Surely if Clover had used Glamour magic earlier as Baz suspected, he had to know this was a lie.
The research they’d found in Keiran’s ledgers pointed to Clover being born on the same rare ecliptic event as Emory, meaning he would indeed have been born a Healer, but might have unlocked the true nature of his magic—his Tidecaller abilities—after having a near-death experience.
The sound of the clocktower suddenly droned in their ears. Students started leaving, waving goodbye to Clover and his group of friends.
“Good luck at the opening challenge this evening!” one of the students called out to Clover.
“You’re participating in the Bicentennial?” Baz asked, reminded of the fact that he would have been competing in the Quadri challenges in his own time had he not magically found himself two hundred years in the past. That is, if Drutten and the Regulators hadn’t ruined everything.
“I am,” Clover said with pride. “This evening is just an introduction of sorts to the real games that will follow.”
“My brother,” Cordie sighed. “Any chance to show off.”
Clover gave her an indulgent smile before eyeing Baz and Kai. “Will you be partaking in the games?”
Baz laughed nervously. “I don’t think that’d be wise.”
Not when the Bicentennial was supposed to have been the deadliest event in Aldryn’s history, the reason why the whole premise of the centennials had changed afterward.
“I’m afraid my particular ability wouldn’t translate so well to these games,” Kai said.
“And what ability might that be?”
“I’m a Nightmare Weaver.” Kai jerked his chin at Thames, who’d just appeared at Clover’s side. “I’d say I’m the one and only, but it looks like I’m not quite so original here.”
Thames gave a sheepish smile at that. Clover clasped him on the back of the neck. “If you’re anything like our Fear Eater, I’ve no doubt we’ll get on marvelously.”
The words were clearly directed at Kai, but Clover didn’t take his eyes off Thames as he spoke. Thames beamed at him, his whole demeanor changing. It was like Clover was the sun and Thames was a plant coming alive in the light.
The intimacy in Clover’s lingering touch on Thames’s neck had Baz darting a look at Kai.
It made him think of that charged proximity between them as Kai fixed his tie, and the unwarranted twinge of jealousy he’d felt upon discovering Thames’s last name was Caine.
All those memories it must have brought up in Kai…
“What about you, Baz?” Cordie asked. “What’s your ability?”
“Oh, uh—I’m a Timespinner? I can manipulate time.”
Clover’s expression turned eager at that. He let go of Thames. “With such talent, you must participate in the Bicentennial.”
“I couldn’t, really.”
“Stop pestering him,” Cordie said to her brother. To Baz, she added, “I’m not one for all this academic fanfare myself, but I’m told the best part comes after the challenges.”
“And what is that?”
“Yes, what is that, dear brother?”
Clover’s mouth tilted up, his pale turquoise eyes glinting with mischief.
“A group of us will be throwing an… exclusive party after the first real challenge later this week. You’ll have to come and see what it’s like for yourselves.
” He leaned closer to them and whispered, “Be sure to dress your best.”
Cordie laughed at Baz’s deer-in-the-headlights look. “I forgot your belongings are at the bottom of the sea! Not to worry, I can give you the name of the best tailor in town.”
“It’s just that, uh, we don’t—”
“All of our money’s at the bottom of the sea too,” Kai offered smoothly.
“Then it’ll be on us,” Clover said. At Baz’s protest, he added, “Please, I insist. Every man should own a good suit.” He gave a pointed glance at the clothes on their backs—his clothes. “And more than a single outfit.”
It felt odd to accept all these handouts, even though the Clover siblings offered them so casually as to make it clear that money wasn’t an issue.
“I was headed into town now, if you care to join me?” Cordie suggested.
Her brother frowned. “Don’t you have class?”
“Only later this afternoon. Thought I’d head to my studio in the meantime.”
Clover’s jaw tightened in disapproval. He said nothing more on it, though, only smiled at Baz and Kai. “Well, I’ll leave you in my sister’s capable hands. I have classes all day and a study session before the event. See you tonight?” To Cordie, he added, “Give the tailor my best.”
Cordie seemed taken aback by something in his voice. A faint blush crept up her cheeks, but she blinked and it vanished. “Come along, gents.”
Baz was loath to part with Clover in case this all turned out to be a fever dream and he never got to see his literary idol again. But he and Kai followed Cordie into town, with the promise that they’d see Clover later at the opening challenge.
Cordie, they learned, was an artist. She had a studio in town, no doubt paid for with her family’s deep pockets, where she came to get away from “rigid curriculums and pompous students,” as she put it.
“I plan on going to art school after this,” she told them, a dreamy look in her eyes. “Somewhere in Trevel, perhaps.”
Baz was a tad envious of that dream. A normal life away from magic.
After getting suits that fit them perfectly at the tailor’s, they parted ways as Cordie went to her studio.
Baz and Kai returned to Obscura Hall, unsure what students from visiting colleges were supposed to do while at Aldryn.
If they kept to the warded walls of the Eclipse commons as much as they could, perhaps no one from Karunang or otherwise would ask questions about them.
They found a quiet corner of the illusioned gardens to sit in, making sure neither Polina nor Thames was around before they finally spoke.
“We just met Cornus Clover,” Baz said. “The scholar on the shores himself.”
“Do you think he’s started writing it yet?” Kai asked, equally awed.
“I don’t know.” He’d been wondering the same thing. Clover was meant to have written Song of the Drowned Gods during his time at Aldryn College, so surely he must have started if he was in his last year of undergrad.
Baz took out Clover’s journal, completely ruined and illegible after Dovermere spat him in the Aldersea with it in his pocket.
The epilogue tucked into its pages was equally spoiled.
Baz knew he could save both journal and epilogue, turn back time to before they were waterlogged, but he hadn’t dared use his magic yet.
“Just try it,” Kai said, as if reading his mind. “If we’re pulled through time again, at least we can say we met Cornus Tides-damned Clover in the flesh.”
“I don’t know…”
But Baz had to admit his earlier trepidation felt unwarranted. If they were stuck here, he’d likely have to rely on his magic at some point. And there was no safer place to test it out than Obscura Hall.
He pulled on the threads of time, bracing for the worst. But time was as it always was here, nothing like the complicated tapestry he’d encountered in the sleepscape. In a blink, the pages in his hand became legible again.
Still, the journal’s cryptic pages sparked no answers about the situation they were in. Not a clue on how to get back to their time nor how to access other worlds.
But if what Alya and Vera believed was true—that Clover had actually lived through the events of his own book, the scholar in the story—then perhaps Clover could lead them to a door, since the one they knew of did not yet exist. Maybe his being a Tidecaller meant he would somehow create the door they so very much needed to get home.
Maybe the door didn’t exist before he first opened it—and if that was the case, they needed to be there when he did.
Baz’s plan to find out more information about Timespinner magic seemed somewhat pointless now.
What they needed was to find out more about Clover.
It felt too serendipitous a thing for them to have traveled to this time specifically, as if fate wanted them to come face-to-face with the man who started it all.
Clover was the answer.