His journey was a lonely one—had to be, for only those who were Godstouched were allowed up the perilous mountain range where the gate stood—but Orfeyi did not mind. He filled his days with song, plucking at the strings of the golden lyre his people had gifted him before he left. It was a beautiful instrument, one that had survived all these years of silence since the Celestials’ fall, and playing it felt more natural than breathing.
The skies above still stormed, but the Soulless One did not come to steal Orfeyi’s song. In fact, the more music he played, the more his connection to the Celestials grew. They shared with him visions of what had been and what could be, of people he had never seen but whose souls echoed his own. They showed him what would be needed to defeat the Soulless One and lent him strength as he weathered storm and snow and cold.
When Orfeyi reached the Godsgate, his body was weary but his faith remained unshaken. He was elated to find the others like him already there—the pieces of the whole they would rebuild together—and the one who could bridge the gap between them all. The Tidecaller. The opener of doors. The bridge between worlds.
But darkness walked alongside this Tidecaller, and Orfeyi knew it would be their unmaking.
45BAZ
AT THIS POINT, BAZ SHOULDhave been unfazed by all the minor rule-breaking he’d been coaxed into, but there was something particularly upsetting about sneaking past the nighttime librarian in charge of enforcing the newly imposed curfew that shut down access to the libraries after dark.
Baz understood the need for such a curfew—it was the college’s way of preventing other students participating in the games from ending up like the Vanished Four, as they’d been dubbed—but this warred with his deep-seated belief that libraries should be accessible at all hours of the day. What was he supposed to do with all his burning questions?Ignorethem until the morning? Not a chance.
Sneaking into the Decrescens library might make him feel like a common criminal, but this couldn’t wait.
Thankfully, the librarian on duty seemed otherwise preoccupied. In fact, there was no one at the front desk at all, though Baz and Kai did hear footsteps echoing in the aisles—the librarian making their rounds, no doubt.
They hunkered down in the Unraveler section, where works on arcane magic were usually kept. Surely ley lines would be mentioned in one of these books, and Baz had a hunch the information would help them make sense of everything.
“The authors ofDark Tidesthought doors to the Deep were dotted along a spiral ley line, right?” Baz whispered. “And Dovermere has always been believed to be sitting on the innermost part of the spiral. The mostpowerfulspot. What if we did something to disturb the ley line while we were in Dovermere? A rift opened up, pulling us through time. If we can map out the ley line, find another time rift…”
“We could go back to our time,” Kai finished, understanding lighting his eyes.
A sound made them both snap their heads up. Baz was distinctly aware of how close he and Kai were. They held their breath as the librarian appeared farther down the aisle. She walked past them without glancing their way.
Shoulders slumping in relief, Baz resumed his perusal of the shelves.
“What are we looking for exactly?” Kai asked.
“Anything that has to do with arcane magical sources, tidal influences, geographical anomalies….”
Kai reached around Baz, breathing into his space as he pulled a book off the shelf. “Something like this?”
Baz found it hard to concentrate on the title with Kai standing so close. He finally managed to make sense of the letters, which readThe Sacred Spiral of Rebirth: Influences in Art, History, and Magical Theory.
Baz clutched the book to his chest, beaming at Kai. “Exactlylike this.”
There was a charged moment before Kai stepped back, craning his neck to see if the librarian was nearby. He motioned that the coast was clear. They tiptoed their way through the library, andstopped as they came upon the archway that led into the Vault.
The door was open. Someone was coming up the narrow staircase beyond. The laurel-leaf-crowned marble busts on either side of the door let the person through like it was nothing.
Cornus Clover stopped dead in his tracks as his gaze locked on Baz and Kai.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” he said.
“Really?” Baz exclaimed, mind blank with incredulity. “So youhaven’tfound a way around the very wards we’re trying to break through?”
“Not exactly,” Clover hedged. He glanced nervously around the library. “We should speak somewhere else—”
“You’re going to tell us what you’re up to right here, right now,” Kai said with a dangerous edge to his voice.
Clover sighed, readjusting his vest and sleeves. Baz had never seen him so out of balance. “The truth is,” he said, “that I am part of a select group of students who have express permission to go into the Vault. The wards don’t prevent me from going in and out of it as I please.”
Kai laughed in disbelief. “Then why the hell are you even participating in the games?”
Baz’s thoughts exactly. All the research he’d done with Clover… Why would he have bothered?
“Because,” Clover said, “while the wards may not keepmeout, they are keeping something hiddenfromme. There is something in the Vault that no one has access to—not any student or professor or even the dean, I suspect. I believe the wards’ main purpose is to keep this thing hidden from everyone.”
