Chapter 58 Kai
CLOVER RAN INTO THE POOL to pull Thames out.
Instinctively, Kai went to help him, an unpleasant feeling in his gut.
Thames was a dead weight when they hauled him out of the pool and onto the floor.
His chest motionless. Eyes closed. Kai listened for breathing—there was none—and proceeded to administer compressions on Thames’s chest while Clover stared at his friend, frozen with fear.
“Can’t you heal him?” Cordie asked her brother in a panicked, broken voice.
This seemed to snap Clover out of it. He drew on his magic as Kai kept pressing on Thames’s chest. Suddenly Thames spewed out water, choking on air as he came to.
Kai fell back with a heavy breath.
“Thank the Tides,” Baz said, hands on his knees. He looked like he was going to be sick.
“You fool,” Clover murmured as he gently wiped at Thames’s face. “What did you do?”
“I did it,” Thames rasped. “I survived.”
“How did you even get down here past the wards?” Luce asked.
Her question remained unanswered as Thames went into a coughing fit, but Kai knew the answer. Baz had told him what Clover shared with him: that Thames was practically an Order member, benefiting in secret from all the advantages that came with membership. Like accessing the Vault.
“You were right.” Thames beamed at Clover. “The silver blood, mixing it like that… I used the synth on myself, and I—it worked.”
“What synth?” Baz asked in a strangled voice.
A horrible suspicion slithered along Kai’s spine in the silence. His gaze trailed to the edge of the pool, where an empty glass vial lay forgotten.
Empty—save for a thin film of silvery blood.
Bleak realization hit him. He was on Clover in an instant, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. “What is he talking about?”
Clover met Kai’s menacing glare with unruffled calm. “Let go of me.”
Kai felt Baz pulling on his arm to try to get him off Clover, but he ignored him, grabbing the vial and shoving it in Clover’s face. “This is silver blood. You took this from someone who Collapsed and made a synth with it just like we told you about.”
“I assure you I had no—”
Kai cut Clover off as he pressed harder on his neck, fury pounding in his ears. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to have your magic put to sleep, only for others to take it and use it for their own gain? Because I swear to the Tides—”
“It’s my blood!” Thames cried. “I gave it up willingly—just as I willingly Collapsed for the sake of this experiment.”
The words cut through Kai’s fury, replacing it with confusion.
Clover took advantage of Kai’s lapse to break free of his grasp. He stared at Thames with horror. “Thames… what have you done?”
Thames blinked at Clover. “You said yourself that this was the answer. That for Eclipse-born to unlock our true potential and be as limitless as we once were, we need to become Tidecallers.”
Kai looked between the two of them, suddenly understanding what the vial he still held contained. “You made a Tidecaller synth?”
Clover put his hands up in defense. “I assure you this is not what it sounds like.”
“Then explain why Thames felt the need to Collapse and inject himself with a synth I’m assuming contains your blood.”
Clover tipped his head toward Thames. “Ask him. I had no hand in this.”
Thames seemed upset at their lack of understanding.
His breathing was erratic, his eyes wild and frenzied.
“You told us that Collapsing expanded your limits,” he said to Kai and Baz.
“But I’ve seen the way you both struggle.
How you, Kai, bring nightmares to life against your will.
And you, Baz… how frightened you are to use your power.
You both claim Collapsing makes you limitless, but the Shadow’s curse still has a hold on you. On all Eclipse-born.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Baz said.
Thames looked desperately at Clover. “Tell them what you told me.”
“Cornelius?” Cordie pressed at her brother’s silence, a hint of suspicion in her voice.
Clover’s throat bobbed. “When Baz and Kai mentioned how synthetic magics were made in their time, I thought it might be the key to unlocking Tidecaller magic in others—something I’d been puzzling over for some time.
” His gaze hardened on Thames. “I never meant for you to experiment on yourself like this. You should have told me what you were planning—what if your Collapsing had gone horribly wrong? What if you’d drowned in the pool before any of us got here? ”
“Why were you in the pool in the first place?” Luce asked, brow furrowed.
“Because I had to die, of course,” Thames said matter-of-factly. “Isn’t that how a Tidecaller is made? A brush with death to unlock their latent Tidecaller powers.”
“That’s not exactly how it works,” Baz argued. “I mean, yes, a near-death experience is needed, but not anyone can become a Tidecaller.”
“But see, that’s what Cornelius was trying to disprove. Tell them.”
Clover looked ashamed. “You must understand… what I did, I did for the sake of all Eclipse-born. I wanted to find a way to share the kind of limitless power that I have as a Tidecaller with others—with you specifically, Delia.”
“Me?” Cordie gasped with a nervous laugh. “Cornelius, what is this? You’re scaring me.”
“You can’t survive in this life without power, dear sister.
Remember where we came from? Without power, we would have never gotten ourselves out of that place.
We would have suffered more abuse at the hands of those who were meant to care for us if it weren’t for my power finally getting us out of there.
It was my magic that kept us safe, that lifted us from the hole of poverty and into the comforts of wealth.
My power that gave the name Clover all the prestige it now carries. ”
“And I thank you for that, brother. But whatever you’ve done, whatever you’re trying to achieve… isn’t it enough to just be safe and comfortable?”
“No. Don’t you see? My being a Tidecaller, your lack of magic…
in our society, these are the kinds of secrets that have the power to destroy us.
I wanted us to be untouchable so that no one could hurt us if our secrets came out.
And I wanted you to have the same amount of power that I do, if only to protect yourself should something ever happen to me. ”
“I’ve never wanted such power,” Cordie said.
“I know. It’s why I kept this from you. I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
“Understand what? Please, brother, just tell us before I lose my mind.”
Clover motioned to the pool, the Treasury at large.
“It started with the Selenic Order. Everyone I experimented on was a willing participant, I assure you.
I thought the key to unlocking Tidecaller magic was simply to have a brush with death, nothing more, just like what happened to me when I was a boy.
I convinced my fellow Order members to make a ritual out of it, told them this would bring us closer to divinity—that it was a necessary step in bringing back the Tides.
They thought I was a Healer with a morbid fascination with death and divinity, and they were more than eager to help.
And so, for years, we would come down here, slice our palms open with a ceremonial knife, and bleed into the pool, which is said to be blessed by the Tides.
Thus combining the magic of all four lunar houses. Well, all five, if you count my own.
Clover glanced at the glowing pool as if he could see the scene playing out. “And then we would drown one of our own in the water.”
Cordie’s hand flew to her mouth. Luce looked at Clover like she’d had him figured out all wrong—a sentiment that Kai shared.
“No one died,” Clover added as he caught their horrified looks.
“I never let it get that far, healing them when I felt they were close enough to death. Eventually, though, I realized my method wasn’t working, and I thought maybe it was my own healing magic that was interfering.
No one had saved me as a child. I had to claw my way back from the brink of death on my own.
I suspected it would have to be the same for everyone else.
To become a Tidecaller, they would have to fight for their life.
If they did not survive death, then it must mean they were never fit for Tidecaller magic. ”
“Cornelius…”
“I stopped it then, the whole thing. It didn’t go any further.
” Clover’s gaze drifted to the glowing pool again.
“The only thing that might give everyone that kind of limitless power now is going to the gods themselves. To the Deep, where the Tides and the Shadow reside. That is where true power lies. The source of magic itself, of godhood, kept locked behind a mighty gate, while most people here are left with only faint trickles of magic or none at all. I want to make magic whole again. To bring both the Tides and the Shadow back, and with them, the power that made us limitless. I will plead with the gods myself if I must—anything to elevate us all to what we were always meant to be.”
“But don’t you see? I did it,” Thames said triumphantly. “Your original idea was right: we can make Tidecallers out of anyone. It’s why I came down here to Collapse and try it for myself. I extracted my own silver blood, mixed it with your Tidecaller blood, injected the mixture into my veins—”
“I never asked you to, Thames. What you did was reckless—”
“I just wanted you to love me!” Thames yelled, eyes full of tears. “I wanted you to value me, to appreciate how far I was willing to go for your vision—our vision. Can’t you see?”
Heartbreaking tenderness shone in Clover’s face. “I’ve always loved you, Thames. You never had to prove anything to me.”
Thames shook his head. “I did though. I still do.”
He flexed his hands, eyes flitting around the Treasury as if in search of something. They settled on the glowing pool. He extended a hand, a look of deep concentration on his face.
Clover’s face fell as he realized what Thames was doing. “Don’t—”
Faint light drifted from the pool to Thames’s outstretched fingers.
He was wielding Lightkeeper magic.
“See?” Thames smiled, a tear running down his cheek. “It works.”
All at once, the light extinguished. Thames started coughing violently. Silver blood marred his hand as he took it away from his mouth, frowning at it.
“Thames?” Clover said. “Are you all right?”
“I…”
Silver veins rippled along Thames’s skin, as if he were Collapsing all over again.
“What’s happening to me?” he asked, eyes wild and full of fear. “It burns, it burns—”
Thames tipped his head to the ceiling and let out an earsplitting scream. The silver beneath his skin burned brighter than Kai thought possible. And though he didn’t understand why Thames was Collapsing again if he’d already done so, Kai knew what came next.
He caught Baz’s eye a second before the world erupted in silver, knocking them apart.