Chapter 48 Baz
BAZ STARED BLANKLY AT THE dying embers in the Eclipse commons, wondering what in the Tides’ name he’d gotten himself into.
He wasn’t sure what was more upsetting: Clover and Luce having visions of Emory bringing about the end of the world, or the four missing students they’d found dead—drowned, from the looks of them. And drained of blood.
These games felt suddenly ludicrous to him. No wonder the Tricentennial had been canceled—and their own Quadri hadn’t fully reinstated the games.
“Say Clover actually brings the Tides and the Shadow back,” Kai mused on the sofa beside him. “What would that mean for us? History would be completely rewritten. The world we knew might no longer be the same.”
Baz ran a hand over the nape of his neck as he pondered all the rules of time travel they did not yet know.
So much could go wrong. He didn’t want to believe Emory could do what Clover and Luce had seen.
But if they were right—and if there really was a way for them to prevent all of it—Baz couldn’t leave Emory’s fate up to chance.
“I guess it’s just a risk we have to take,” he said at last.
Kai didn’t look so convinced.
“Do you not trust Clover?” Baz asked.
“I have a hard time trusting anyone.”
“We have him to thank for keeping our Karunang cover intact.”
“Which he clearly did to fit his own agenda. But I guess he does make some compelling arguments.” Kai met his gaze. “I know you’re deeply invested in Emory’s fate, but—”
“This isn’t just about Emory,” Baz countered. “If Clover succeeds, it might fix everything. It would make the world we know a better place for Eclipse-born.”
Baz’s family might still be intact, his father never having gone to the Institute if the world were a safer, fairer place for Eclipse-born. Baz himself might never have Collapsed.
He would never have killed.
He thought about Cordie’s painting. All that guilt he carried, all the darkness that had followed him since that day at the printing press… If Clover changed the future, they would no longer be his to carry.
When he looked at the embers dying in the hearth, he imagined his guilt burning to ash with them.
If only it were that simple.
News of the students’ deaths swept the college like a grim tide. Over the next few days, Cordie tried to get Clover and Baz to abandon the games as other students had. But they remained undeterred.
“Delia doesn’t know about any of this,” Clover had told Baz and Kai, asking them not to breathe a word to his sister about doors and prophecies and this quest of his to change the future. Baz felt bad about lying to her, but he understood. Clover simply wanted to protect her.
The same way Luce had wanted to protect Emory.
As he and Clover sat in the Decrescens library late one afternoon, he watched Luce and Kai disappear into the secret room to try and map out the sleepscape together.
It still hadn’t hit him fully that this was Emory’s mother.
There had been a moment, upon first meeting Luce, where Baz had hated her at the thought of her leaving an infant Emory behind. But now he understood why.
He was pulled from his thoughts as a couple of Awansi students in bright kaftans passed their table, whispering about the deadly Vault and its victims. Baz glanced at the warded archway and blanched, the image of those four bodies still imprinted on his mind.
“You know, the strangeness of their deaths had me looking into the founders again,” Clover said, noticing his stare.
“Oh?”
“The founders didn’t just mysteriously die right before the college opened its doors. They died within the same month, in the exact order of their moon phases—on a day corresponding to their respective lunar phases.”
“There’s no way that’s coincidental.” Baz thought of Travers and Lia and Jordyn, called back through the door—to their deaths—on their respective moon phases. New moon, then waxing, then full. Romie might have been next on the waning moon. There was a connection to be made here.
“There’s something else I wanted to show you,” Clover said.
“Now that you’re aware of the Selenic Order, I can tell you the founders were part of it.
And not only that—their names appear on a signed agreement by the first eight members of the Order as we know it today, dated the very year Aldryn College was built. ”
Clover produced a familiar journal that sent a jolt of excitement through Baz. He flipped it open to pages that were blank again… until they weren’t. Ink appeared out of thin air, the pages full of Clover’s tight handwriting.
Clover gave him a crooked smile. “A bit of Wardcrafter magic I built into the pages. To keep unwanted eyes from… sensitive information.”
So Clover had started writing in his journal—and from the looks of it, it appeared nearly as complete as the one Baz had with him.
Clover pointed to a list of names he’d scrawled in the margins. “See here, the founding members of the Selenic Order: Dunhall, Delaune, de Vruyes, Belesa—the four library founders themselves—plus Dade, Esedenya, Caine, Orlov.”
A chill ran down Baz’s spine at the familiar names. “Do you know if one of them was a Wardcrafter?” If they found the person who’d erected the wards, maybe they could understand how to get past them.
Clover tapped the last name on the list. “Elisava Orlov. Appointed as the first dean of Aldryn. This further proves the Selenic Order is behind the wards, as I suspected.”
Baz frowned. “But how does it explain the deaths of the library founders?”
“That I don’t know yet.”
Baz stared at the journal, a thought crossing his mind. “What exactly has Luce told you about… well, you? The legacy you leave behind.”
Clover leaned back in his chair with a knowing smile.
“You mean the famous writer I am to become?” He chuckled.
“She didn’t tell me more than that. We both agreed it would be best she keep such information from me.
Seeing the future is burden enough as it is without knowing every detail of what my life is to be—or what death has reserved for me.
I’d like to retain some agency. Besides, if we are to change the future, perhaps my story is meant to be rewritten. ”
Clover ran a fond hand over his journal. “Though I must say writing stories has always been a passion of mine.” He smiled at Baz. “Maybe one day.”
“I hope so,” Baz said. “Your stories… they mean a great deal to a lot of people.”
He didn’t know if he could bear a world in which Song of the Drowned Gods might never have existed.
“Have you seen Luce and Kai?” Thames appeared at their table as they immersed themselves back in their research. “We’re supposed to meet.”
Clover jerked his chin toward the secret room, barely lifting his head from his book. “They seem to have started without you.”
Baz caught the jealous glint that flashed in Thames’s eyes—the way he hovered as if hoping Clover would say more, or look at him, or acknowledge him in any way at all—before he shuffled his way to the secret room.
Baz leaned in toward Clover. “Wait, Thameson Caine—his family is part of the Selenic Order?”
Clover nodded. “He would have been, too, were he not Eclipse-born.” He stared after Thames with affection.
“I couldn’t bear the thought of being in the Order without him, so I pulled some strings with the Tidal Council—that’s the heads of our Order.
Thames may not be an official member, but he is given all the privileges of one.
As he rightfully deserves.” He eyed Baz.
“I’m guessing the Order’s rules against Eclipse-born members have not changed in your time? ”
Baz shook his head. He was in the middle of telling Clover about the spiral marks that the Selenic Order members obtained during their initiation ritual when the library shook with such force, books toppled off their shelves.
The trembling came and went in the blink of an eye, leaving students utterly confused.
Baz looked toward the Vault’s entrance, bracing for the worst. But there was nothing there, its marble sentinels unmoved. The disturbance came from farther down, in the alcove that led into the secret room, where shadows emerged from a now cracked painting.
The kind of shadows that only came from nightmares.