“If we do this,” Baz countered, “we’ll be able to go through the door. None of it will matter once we bring back the Tides and the Shadow.”
Movement caught their eye as a group of students from different colleges—Karunang, Awansi, Ilsker, and Fröns—grew excited at a nearby table, appearing to have found something in the large tome the four of them bent over. The Karunang student noticed Baz and Clover staring and pointedly shushed her teammates.
The games weren’t done. If Baz and Clover could figure out the solution, so might anyone else.
Clover seemed to realize the same thing. “Then let’s be quick about it before someone else beats us to it.”
“I knew I’d find you here.”
Cordie stood with her hands on her hips, staring daggers at her brother.
“Delia.” Clover raised a brow. “Why do I have a feeling I’m about to be scolded?”
“Are you really going to pretend like you don’t know?” At Clover’s impatient gesture, Cordie spat, “Louka is gone.”
Students cast furious glances their way at Cordie’s raised voice. She caught herself, wiping furiously at her cheeks before continuing in a lower voice. “I went to his apartment, his shop. All his things are gone. Everyone I spoke to told me he left for Trevel.” She glared at Clover. “What did you say to him?”
“Nothing—”
“You never liked him. And Louka would never have left me. Not at a time like this.”
“A time like what?”
Cordie ignored her brother’s question, her gaze going unfocused as some sort of realization dawned on her. Her eyes welled with tears.
“Delia, I assure you, I said nothing to him.” Clover gently grabbed hold of her, forcing her to look at him. “Whatever’s happened, I’m sure it can be fixed. We’ll find him, all right?”
Cordie nodded, lip trembling slightly. She composed herself,blinking at their research. “Does this mean you’ve figured out the wards?”
Baz realized with a sudden pang that Cordie didn’t know the truth of what they were planning—that if they succeeded in getting past the wards, succeeded at going through the door…
She might never see her brother again.
The thought was unbearable as his mind filled with Romie, with how things might have been if they’d had the chance to say goodbye. Which is why, when he caught up with Cordie outside the library, he found himself saying, “I need to tell you something.”
55ROMIE
ROMIE COULDN’T HELP BUT MARVELat the Wastes they traveled through.
“Wastes.” Ivayne scoffed at the name. She’d been listening intently as Romie and Nisha spoke of this world’s fictional depiction inSong of the Drowned Gods, drawing similarities to this real version they found themselves in. “These lands may be harsh and barren and strange,” the draconic continued, “but they are notwastes.”
Virgil snorted at that. “What else do you call a never-ending desert? We’ve been traveling for days now, and it’s all the Tides-damned same. Nothing upon nothing. It’s unsettling.”
Ivayne looked like she might shove her sword through him for insulting her homeland. Thankfully, Tol jumped in with a more tactful approach.
“It’s not unsettling if you care to see past the apparent nothingness,” he said. “Look at how vibrantly the colors shine beneath the sun, even dim as it is. Look how the dew on these cacti catches inthe morning sun, like glittering gems that dissolve before our eyes and return to us in the night. This is no wasteland. It’s delicate and ethereal in its beauty.”
Virgil huffed. “Well, when you put it like that…”
Romie caught the wistful look in Aspen’s eye as the witch hung on Tol’s every word. She’d been like this ever since they’d freed Tol, always listening to him wax poetic about the land and the beasts they encountered, hovering in his orbit, stealing glances his way when he wasn’t looking, but never actuallyspeakingto him. The one time Romie asked her about it, Aspen had looked miserable. “It’s complicated. This connection I had to him, all these intimate details I know about him… How does one bring that up? He might hate me for it.”
Romie doubted that. The witch might not have noticed the way Tol’s gaze lingered onher, but Romie sure had. So had Nisha. It had become a bit of a running joke between the two of them, to count all the times Aspen and Tol secretly made eyes at each other.
Nisha caught her gaze now, a knowing smile playing on her lips. If Romie were the blushing type, she would have combusted right then and there at the thought of the heated kisses they’d shared that morning while everyone else still slept.
“What should we call your world, then?” Vera asked.
“I’m not sure it has a name,” Tol said with a frown.
