But Clover seemed undeterred. “You may be limited,” he said, “but I am not.”
He turned his attention back to Thames and closed his eyes in concentration, taking a deep breath in.
“What are you doing?” Cordie asked. “Cornelius—stop!”
Something prickled against Baz’s magic, a sort of recognitionhe couldn’t make sense of. Before his eyes, Thames’s deteriorated body started to change, blackened veins slowly fading back to silver. Abruptly, they turned black again, and Clover swore in frustration as Thames’s corpse remained that: a corpse.
It dawned on Baz what Clover was doing: he was trying to call onhisTimespinner magic. To use the kind of power Baz would not allow himself to use.
Baz remembered the time Emory had tried calling on Eclipse magics, finding it more difficult to do than lunar magics. A warning was on his lips—because if a Tidecaller had limits, surely this was it—but just then the Treasury trembled with enough strength to send Baz lurching into Kai.
Debris started to fall around them as the cracks from Thames’s Collapsing lengthened and expanded. Baz heard Cordie crying out as rubble fell around her. He used his magic to stop the rocks from harming any of them.
“We need to leave!” Luce yelled as she helped Cordie to her feet.
Baz gazed at the stairs up to the Vault, then at the glowing pool he suspected led to the door, that echo of Dovermere’s power pulsing ever so much stronger from it. If they wanted to get to the Hourglass, this might very well be their only chance.
Clover locked eyes with him, as if the same thought had occurred to him. His gaze shifted to Cordie, something pained in his expression. “Delia,” Clover said. “You need to return to the Vault.”
“Me? What about all of you?”
“We’re going to find this door.”
“Then I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not. You’re in no condition to take such risks. I need you to be safe, Delia.”
Something private passed between them that Baz didn’t understand.
“You know?” Cordie said in a small voice.
Clover gave her a watery smile. “I suspected.” He gave Cordie a kiss on the cheek and whispered something in her ear that had her lip wobbling and tears forming in her eyes. “Go back up to safety. And please, get someone to come down here for Thames’s body. He should not have to stay down here.”
Cordie grabbed his wrist. Her eyes were wide and pleading. “Be careful.”
Cordie gave each of them a quick hug, tears running down her cheeks. Baz couldn’t bear to say goodbye. She’d become his friend. And if he never saw her again… He bit back all his emotions and focused on keeping a hold on his magic as Cordie went back up the stairs.
Only once she disappeared from view did they all turn to the pool. Clover was the first to step into it. He edged toward the cascade in its middle.
“There’s something here, at the bottom,” he said with a frown. “Something that wasn’t there before when the wards were still intact.”
Before they could ask what it was, Clover dove below the water and did not reemerge.
With a sad look back to Thames’s body and whispered words that sounded likeSleep well, my friend, Luce dove in after Clover. Then it was just Baz and Kai, staring wide-eyed at each other.
“We can still back out,” Kai said haltingly.
“Do you want to back out?”
“No. You?”
Baz shook his head. They’d gotten this far—if anything, he had to see for himself where this led.
Kai grabbed his hand, and together they dove in after the others.
Whatever made the pool glow turquoise seemed to emanate from the bottom, where a hazy light shone. But as Baz and Kaikicked toward it, there seemed to be no bottom at all. Suddenly, light particles danced around them, forming into a great spiral that spun quicker and quicker as it pulled them farther down.
Just when Baz was certain he’d run out of breath, an odd sensation overtook him, and the light drowned the world in white.
