Chapter 44 Baz
FOUR STUDENTS WERE DECLARED MISSING when no one could find Wulfrid and his friends the day after the party.
A librarian found blood near the Vault’s entrance, in the same spot the Ilsker girl had nearly bled out.
And because it couldn’t possibly be her blood, since Baz had reversed time so she never bled at all, the worst was presumed by everyone.
The four students must have tried getting past the wards while everyone was at the party—the same party they had vehemently refused to attend, wanting to focus on the games instead.
Dean de Vruyes conducted a search of the Vault, then the campus at large, but there was not a single trace of them except for the blood in the Decrescens library.
Grim gossip swept the college.
“They can’t possibly have vanished into thin air from blood loss.”
“The dean did say the wards were deadly…”
“Are they really going to let the games continue after this?”
The answer to the latter, apparently, was yes.
Which was why Baz found himself in the Decrescens library with Clover, poring over their research as if nothing had happened—except everything felt different now, the stakes much higher.
The library was busier than usual, as if students were irresistibly drawn to the gruesome site.
All Baz could think of was how, if these disappearances weren’t enough to stop the games, this was only the beginning of what would forever alter the college’s centennial celebrations. The thought almost made him want to quit.
Clover caught him staring off toward the Vault’s archway again. “Could you not turn back time to make them reappear?”
Baz scrunched his nose in thought. “I don’t think so. Too many unseen variables. That kind of magic…”
“Right. We wouldn’t want you to Collapse.”
Baz gave him a weak smile. “Right.”
“I guess if that’s out of the question, then so is using your magic to undo the wards entirely?”
Baz blanched. “We’re dealing with sentient, murderous wards. I’d rather not find out what they might do to someone trying to cheat their way past them.”
“Quite right. Best we stick to our research, then.”
It seemed they couldn’t escape the topic of death even in that.
“Listen to this,” Clover said as he pored over The History of Aldryn.
“ ‘It is worth noting the inexplicable deaths that taint the college’s history, especially those that took place in its four libraries. This goes back to the construction of said libraries, during which all four founding members died under mysterious circumstances before the college first opened its doors. Following this, multiple students suffered similar fates over the years. There are those who speculate they were killed over possession of rare, powerful books which were subsequently transferred into the Vault for safekeeping.’ ”
Baz stared at him, horrified. “You think students were killed over knowledge?”
“Perhaps they found books that contained things they weren’t supposed to lay eyes on. Books that should have been locked in the Vault but might have been misplaced.”
Baz thought of the copy of Dark Tides he’d found in Clover’s room. In his time, he’d had to get permission from the dean to check it out of the Vault. But if Clover had a copy of it now, perhaps the book was not yet considered a title worthy of being kept behind wards.
For Clover’s sake, he hoped it wasn’t one such misplaced book that the wards might kill for.
“This is interesting,” Clover added as he kept reading. “ ‘The deaths linked to Aldryn’s libraries have sparked unfounded theories and curious superstitions due to the nature of the holy ground the college was built on.’ ” He frowned. “Holy ground? Do we know what Aldryn was built on?”
“Oh! Yes, wait, I think I saw something here…” Baz rifled through an old history book of Elegy that he’d only skimmed, thinking it irrelevant since it was older than the school itself.
“It says nearly a millennia ago, there was a temple here, built in the name of the Tides and the Shadow. It eventually crumbled to ruins.”
“If they built the college on the ruins of a sacred temple… Maybe whatever holy power remained seeped through the foundations of Aldryn and affected other magics, like the wards.” Clover drummed his fingers on the table. “I’m sure the fact that Aldryn sits on a ley line only adds fuel to the fire.”
“A ley line?” Why did that sound so familiar?
“A source of power that runs beneath the sea. Some scholars theorize the reason why the landmasses and islands that make up our world are laid out to form a great spiral is that they’re built on this vein of pure power.
A spiral-shaped magical thread, if you will, that feeds off our magic, and vice versa. ”
“So we’ve got murderous wards, sacred grounds, magical power lines, and deadly books.” Baz pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling like they were right on the brink of something, but still not close enough to see how it all fit together. “Remind me again why we’re doing this?”
Clover smiled. “Knowledge is power.”
Baz found himself wishing Professor Selandyn were here; she would certainly agree with Clover. The two of them would get along well.
“What we’ve yet to figure out is how the wards were even created in the first place,” Baz said with a defeated stare at their pile of research. “None of these founders were Wardcrafters. Surely the person who put the wards in place had the only magic capable of doing so.”
Cordie suddenly appeared, joining them at their table. “Found anything interesting?”
“Are you asking out of politeness,” Clover asked, “or genuine interest?”
“Politeness, definitely.”
Cordie winked at Baz, making him laugh. “If you two are done for the day, I wondered if I could borrow Baz for the afternoon.”
“Me? Whatever for?”
“I promised you a quiet artist’s afternoon at my studio, did I not?”
She looked well recovered from the other night. When Baz mentioned as much, her smile grew tight, eyes flitting uncomfortably to her brother. “That night was a blur. Must have been the drink. Now come along, we’re losing precious light.”
Clover squinted at her. “You’re not going to see that tailor again, are you?”
“Of course not.” There was a hard edge to her placating smile. “You made your feelings on the matter quite clear. That part of the night I didn’t forget.”
Cordie’s studio was on the upper floor of a tavern Baz had been to before, known in his own time as the Veiled Atlas, though here it was named the Emerald.
He remembered in vivid detail all the portraits of Clover that hung in the room he’d dined in with Vera and Alya.
All the baubles and paintings that looked like they’d been plucked out of Song of the Drowned Gods, which the Veiled Atlas believed to be a true story Clover had lived through.
Evidently, there were no such things here now.
Gauzy curtains framed tessellated windows that let in wintry light, and glossy floorboards speckled carelessly with paint creaked beneath their feet.
A myriad of canvases—both finished and unfinished—leaned against the tapestried walls, and a lone velvet divan that seemed far too expensive and entirely out of place sat in the middle of the studio.
Being here was a welcome distraction from the Bicentennial. In a new sketchbook gifted to him by Cordie—since the one his mother had given him for the solstice had been left in his own time—Baz tried his hand at charcoals while Cordie worked on a large canvas she wouldn’t let him see.
“It’s a strange one,” she said, frowning at her work. “Not sure what it’s supposed to mean yet.”
The way Cordie spoke of her paintings made it sound like she was letting some higher power guide her hand. When Baz said as much, she laughed. “That’s not far from the truth, I suppose. Sometimes inspiration hits me in a way that can only be explained by my Seer magic.”
Baz raised a brow. “Your magic tells you what to paint?”
“In some ways, yes. It’s always a surprise to see what I might work on next.
An impression I got from someone I crossed in the street, or a crystal-clear image of a scene that came to mind with no context or explanation.
I’m not good at deciphering these psychic visions I get, but translating them on canvas helps some.
Mostly I just think they make for pretty paintings that tell intriguing stories. ”
“And the one you’re working on now?”
Cordie bit the top of her dirty paintbrush, squinting at the canvas. “Like I said, I’m not sure yet.”
If the disparate artwork strewn around the studio was any indication, it was a pretty eclectic collection, ranging from ultra-realistic portraits to abstract works of colorful shapes. No two pieces were done in the same style, as if every vision she got also inspired a different artistic approach.
“Do you not sign them?” Baz asked, noticing none of them had a distinct signature.
Cordie shrugged. “I can never quite bring myself to sign the ones that were inspired by visions. They’re not my visions, after all.”
“They’re drawn by your hand, though. You make it yours by giving it life.”
Cordie hummed pensively. “Maybe you’re right. But I like the mystery it adds.”
They worked in comfortable silence after that. Baz found his stride, and his confidence, with every stroke of charcoal. The hours passed like they were nothing, until suddenly the light coming in was low and muted, cutting large shadows across the paint-speckled floorboards.
A knock at the door made them both jump.
Cordie’s face was flushed with excitement as she set down her brush. “I’ll be just a moment.”
She let out a little squeal as she opened the door and leaped into Louka’s arms. So much for promising her brother she wouldn’t see him again.
Their hushed voices drifted through the crack in the door, and Baz busied himself with whatever he could think of to give them privacy.
As he put away the charcoals he’d been using, he caught a glimpse of Cordie’s current painting out of the corner of his eye.
Intrigued, Baz stepped around the easel to look at it.
His jaw fell to the floor. For a second, he thought he’d stepped into one of his nightmares—not the printing press, but another that followed him like a shadow. Keiran, dying in his arms. The haunting image of him in Dovermere, lying in a pool of sea-foam and blood, was painted on the canvas.
Perhaps it could have been any young man that was depicted here.
He was featureless enough done in this particular style that Baz couldn’t pinpoint anything that was distinctly Keiran-looking.
But with his hands folded neatly on his chest, the water and sea-foam and blood pooled around him, the blood that ran down his mouth and the wound in his middle…
it was a perfect replica of Keiran’s death.
And with what Cordie had just admitted to him…
Did she know where this particularly gruesome vision came from? How it was linked to Baz?
“Sorry about that,” Cordie said as she came back into the studio, cheeks flushed and eyes shining. “Please don’t tell Cornelius. Louka was just…” She wavered when she saw him looking at her painting. “What do you think?”
“It’s…”
“Morbid, I know.” Cordie came to stand beside him, folding her arms as she studied her work. “But there’s something strangely… peaceful about it, don’t you think?”
“I suppose.” Baz was too close to the situation to see beauty in it. But he couldn’t deny Cordie’s talent. The dark, muted colors, the loose brushstrokes, the intricate details. It made for a fascinating piece. Haunting, yet undeniably alluring.
“Do you have any idea where you might have picked up on such a vision?” Baz asked, even though he was terrified to know the answer. He tried to keep his tone unaffected, light.
“No clue,” Cordie said as she busied herself with cleaning her brushes. “When I paint things like this, I like to think I take away the pain of such memories from their bearers. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
The words felt a little too pointed, and Baz had to wonder if she knew that he was the bearer of this particular memory.
But Cordie didn’t seem preoccupied with such things.
In fact, her mind seemed elsewhere entirely as she closed the studio up for the day, her countenance withdrawn.
It made Baz wonder if she’d broken things off with Louka after all.
As they walked up the hill to Aldryn, Baz thought maybe Cordie was right. Maybe painting such a gruesome thing in such light would give Kieran’s memory a sense of peace—something he might have been robbed of when Artem brought his corpse back to life.
Maybe, in time, it could do the same to alleviate the shame Baz carried.
He eyed the cliffs below, the crashing waves that the cave mouth swallowed. And suddenly it hit him, why ley lines had sounded so familiar when Clover had brought them up: he’d read about them in Dark Tides.
Ley line. A vein of power that ran beneath the sea. A thread upon which all manner of curious rifts were said to have opened.
Like the door to the Deep that he and Kai had come through. The one that no longer seemed to exist in this time.