They watched as Clover stopped in front of the statue of Anima, the Waxing Moon Tide. A spiral was carved in the palm of her outstretched hand. At Clover’s touch, the statue began to slowly spin on itself, stone grumbling beneath it as it unveiled an openingat its base. And there beneath their feet was a spiral staircase that wound on and on in the dark. A faint turquoise light was the only indication of there being something at the bottom.
Clover met their gaze. “Let’s hope this worked.”
They descended the steps and came into a large circular chamber carved from stone.Thiswas exactly as Virgil and Nisha had described: sixteen throne-like chairs carved into the stone walls, one for each tidal alignment. In the middle of the grotto was a basin into which the water from the fountain high above them spilled, the sides of the pool adorned with carvings of the moon’s phases. The turquoise light they’d seen came from the bottom of the pool, refracting prettily on the walls around them.
There was no door that Baz could see, nothing that resembled the Hourglass or a way to get to it. But hefeltit—the magic of Dovermere close at hand, pulsing rhythmically like the beating of a heart. It was faint, as if it had just awoken from a long slumber, hidden as it had been behind the wards. The thrum of magic seemed to come from the glowing pool.
Baz froze when he spotted the body. It floated in the pool, face down and eerily still.
He knew who it was even without seeing his face, recognition shocking through him as he took in the curly hair, the half-moon glasses left at the side of the pool.
They’d found Thames after all.
58KAI
CLOVER RAN INTO THE POOLto 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 issilverblood. 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’smyblood!” 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.”
