“Wait, what happened on the ley line?” Nisha asked.
Romie pursed her lips, waiting for a reply from Emory that never came. “You have nothing to say to that? No apology for the power you took from me and Aspen and Tol, or the fact that the Shadow saved your ass—and ours in the process by severing your connection to the ley line?”
“What in the Deep are you talking about?” Virgil snapped.
“She’s aTidethief,” Romie gritted out. “Every time she’s been on a ley line, I’ve felt her sucking out all the magic from my veins, turning my blood to ash. Only this time she did it to Aspen and Tol too.”
“Is that what I felt?” Tol’s brow furrowed. “I thought my heart was going to stop.”
Aspen looked at Emory with disbelief. “My bones breaking—that was you?”
This at last had Emory meeting their gaze, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to stop. I don’t even know how I did it in the first place. It’s like the ley line opens this conduit between us that I can’t avoid and don’t know how to close.”
Romie crossed her arms. “I guess it makes sense that the Shadow would be able to stop it for you, since you owe him your Tidethief magic.”
“Will you stop calling her that?” Virgil snarled. “She neverstoleanyone’s magic back at Aldryn.”
“What about Travers and Lia? They died when Emory called them back through the door after suffering some odd reversal of their magic, didn’t they?”
“Romie, come on,” Nisha said. “That wasn’t Emory’s doing.”
Romie blinked at Nisha, hurt that she wasn’t siding with her on this. Romie didn’twantto believe Emory would do any of this either, but the facts were all there, and the memory of her magicbeing drained was too close to the surface of her mind for her to ignore it.
“It’s only the keys, I think,” Emory chimed in at last. “And only when we’re on a ley line. Which we’re not at the moment, don’t worry.”
“Still. Probably best you don’t use any magic from here on out.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Emory snapped. “I don’t want this to ever happen again. That’s why I went after the Shadow. He knows things about my magic that might help me control it.”
Romie raised a dubious brow. “And how do you suppose you’re going to get his help? He wants to kill us, Em. You can’t trust him. He might wear Keiran’s face, but he’s theShadow. The reason the Tides disappeared. And not just the Tides but the Sculptress and the Forger too. He’s the evil at the source of all this. You should have let the monster die.”
Emory flinched at that. “I never pegged you for someone who bought into the whole ‘Eclipse magic is evil’ thing.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Isn’t it? You’ve been afraid of my Tidecaller magic ever since you found out about it.”
“Can you blame me?” Romie yelled with a laugh bordering on tears. “My whole life has been shaped by Eclipse magic going wrong. My dad, Baz, now you. I just—I can’t do it anymore.”
They’re here.
All of them turned to where Gwenhael perched. The dragon had lifted its head, alert to something only it could see in the inky night that had fallen.
There was movement in the dark, and before they knew it, Tol had his sword pointed at two women armed to the teeth. They wore gilded chain mail beneath rust-colored surcoats that bore a crest similar to the Fellowship of the Light’s—an ouroboros, though this one featured both a gold dragon and a black wingedbeast that called to mind thecorvus serpentes, all twisted up together. Leather baldrics were slung across their chests, leaden with a brutal assortment of knives.
And from their backs sprouted wings exactly like Tol’s.
“You’re a long way from Heartstone, draconic,” the younger said with a voice rough like stone. She had umber skin and long tresses that fell to the middle of her waist, and she looked to be around the same age as Romie. Her eyes cut to Gwenhael with thinly veiled suspicion. “We have not seen a dragon traveling freely with the likes of your order for a long time.”
The draconic and his friends freed me from the Fellowship of the Light, Gwenhael said as it moved to stand behind Tol, the gesture at once threatening and protective.
“Deserters?” the other warrior exclaimed with a raised brow. She had the same rich tone as the younger one, short-cropped hair, and must have been in her forties. She narrowed her eyes at Tol. “What made you break your oath to the Light?”
“Gwenhael.” Tol motioned to the dragon. “I found the alchemists torturing it for its flame. I didn’t know this was the alchemists’ method, capturing dragons and taking their flames against their will. They sentenced me to die because I opposed them. We escaped with Gwenhael.”
“Impressive,” the younger warrior said, though her eyes were hard and untrusting, and she did not lower her sword. “Or maybe that’s what you want us to believe in the hopes that we lead you to more dragons you can imprison?”
“That’s not—” Tol started.
