And here stood the Hourglass once more, the same as it had always been.
And here were the whispers of Dovermere’s magic, chittering in Baz’s ears, thanking him for bringing it back, for healing it.
Your magic is ours and our magic is yours and we are the same because time runs through our veins.
They were the same, he and Dovermere. He and time. He and the Hourglass. It was all the same, connected in a way Baz still did not entirely understand, but it was there, a faint glimmering thread that bound them together, that breathed in sync, as if his lungs were what powered the threads of time that lived here, or they were what gave breath to his lungs.
Baz had thought, for a second, that his magic would leave him entirely to do this one great feat. But it was still there, as much a part of him as time was a part of life. It could not be severed from him.
But he was weakened, and the rushing tide still battered against the magic he was using to keep it from engulfing the Belly of the Beast. It wouldn’t hold forever.
Clover wasted no time as he slashed a blade across his palm and pressed it against the Hourglass. The door didn’t open for him until Luce did the same. Silver particles danced around them, seared a spiral onto their wrists, and then the door opened wide onto a dark expanse of stars. Both Tidecaller and Dreamer were full of wonder as they gaped at the dark, starlit expanse that appeared before them.
“That song,” Luce breathed. “Can you all hear it?”
Baz looked at Kai, whose arms kept him steady. He knew thesong must be calling Kai’s name. But Kai only watchedhimwith a quiet sort of wonder, as if Baz were the only song he would ever follow.
Clover turned his back to the door to peer at the three of them. The light from the stars formed a sort of halo around his pale blond head, and his eyes shone like the turquoise pool they’d emerged from.
“We can do this,” he said. “We’ve come this far, and I am certain now that together we can bring back the Tides and the Shadow. We can save the world.”
A Tidecaller, a Dreamer, a Nightmare Weaver, standing before a door to other worlds, steps from sailing toward the sea of ash and their possible salvation. Perhaps this was the way it had always been intended.
Clover went through without a single look back, the darkness swallowing him up like it had always been waiting for him. Luce followed as if in a trance, the stars reflected in her eyes. Kai tugged at Baz’s elbow, but Baz stopped him.
“Go,” he said, straining against the force of the tide. “I’ll hold it, just go.”
The wonder in Kai’s eyes gave way to a sadness so profound it sliced through Baz’s heart. Then anger. “Don’t be ridiculous, Brysden. We can make it through the door together.”
But the door seemed so far away, the effort of walking too daunting. His grasp on his magic would fail him before he got there.
And maybe a part of Baz didn’t think he deserved to go through the door. To become one of the heroes of this story, to step into a role beyond the guardian of the door he’d made himself out to be. He wasn’t brave like the rest of them were.
Luce was willing to travel through time and worlds and all the unknowns in between to save her daughter. Emory and Romie were doing just that somewhere in the future to save the fate ofthe universe. Clover was willing to sacrifice himself in Emory’s place to save all of them. And Kai… Kai was a fighter through and through, willing to face the dark, ugly truths of the world so others need not have to.
Baz wanted to be as brave as them. But maybe this was enough.
“Go,” he said again, heart breaking at the tears that glistened like stars in Kai’s eyes. He willed himself not to shatter at the thought that, for the second time in his life, Baz would watch a person he loved disappear through the door to a place where he could not follow.
Before he knew what was happening, Kai reached for him, hands snaking behind his head to pull him in for a kiss. There was nothing sweet about it. Kai’s lips crushed Baz’s, full of desperation. He pulled away too quickly.
“I’m not letting you be a self-sacrificing prick,” Kai said angrily. He laced his fingers through Baz’s and tugged him toward the door. “We go together or not at all.”
They ran into the awaiting darkness of the sleepscape, the tide nipping at their heels as Baz’s grasp on time slipped and the sea rushed in unencumbered. Kai turned to him with a wicked smile, because they had made it, and here they were with their literary idol, about to go with him through the very worlds they had read of, together and unafraid.
Baz’s hand slipped from Kai’s grasp as somethingshovedhim back, as if the darkness itself were a solid thing barring him access.
Your work is not yet done, Timespinner, the magic of Dovermere whispered in his head.
The last thing Baz saw was Kai’s wide eyes as he tried to reach for him, Baz’s name tearing from his throat.
The door shut between them.
And then Baz was drowning in the Belly of the Beast.
PART IVTHE SCHOLAR
CORNELIUS HAD ALWAYS FANCIED HIMSELFa saint.
