“I don’t think my brother’s coming back,” she said. “And even if he does, I don’t think that story actually belongs to him at all.”
The words were slow to sink into Baz’s mind. But she was right.
Clover was the very evil he had foreseen in the sea of ash.Hewas the Tidecaller who would bring about the end of the worlds, not Emory. That was what Thames had seen in Clover’s nightmare, the truth behind this vision of his. Clover, the force of evil. Emory, the light that would go up against him.
And if Clover was still in the sea of ash two hundred years from now, then surely he must never have made it back here. Must never have gotten the chance to writeSong of the Drowned Gods.
Which meant Kai would never come back here either.
WithoutSong of the Drowned Gods, history itself would be altered. Baz would not be here if it weren’t for Clover’s story. Romie and Kai would never have chased after the epilogue. Emory would not have become a Tidecaller. They might all still be together at Aldryn, safe and ignorant to doors to other worlds.
Luce had the epilogue when she went through the door with Clover—at least, the future version of the epilogue that Baz had brought back here with him and that Kai had given to Luce. But if Clover never wrote it, would it simply come to disintegrate in her hands? Would Luce and Kai disappear from Clover’s side, going back to their own world, their own time, because the epilogue would have never brought them here to the past? Would Baz vanish from this time, too, and reappear back in his own, having forgotten all of this?
And then what? The worlds might still be crumbling, still be in need of saving. And none of them would know.
No. Baz couldn’t take that risk.
He was done being scared. Done coasting along while others did the brunt of the work and put themselves in harm’s way while he didnothing. He’d always seen everyone around him as heroes in a story, while he was nothing more than a side character. But heroes were heroes because they did what others couldn’t or didn’t want to do. They embraced what made them special and faced their problems head-on. It was time for him to step up.
Power had the ability to corrupt everyone, sure enough. But in the same way, everyone had the capacity for bravery.
Baz knew what he had to do.
67EMORY
CORNUS CLOVER GAVE A POLITEsmile, seeming pleased with himself that someone recognized him. “Excellent, we can skip the introductions, then.”
“How is this possible?” Vera asked with wide eyes as she took in her supposed ancestor.
Clover looked no older than his midtwenties. But he’d existedtwo hundred yearsago. He should have been dead, not looking like that, alive in the here and now.
“Good genes,” Clover said with a shrug and a slanted smile, “and a bit of luck. Time in the godsworld doesn’t flow quite the same.”
“The godsworld?” Romie repeated. “All this time, you were in the sea of ash?”
Clover’s eyes fell on Romie, then Aspen, then Tol. “You must be the heroes of the story I’ve been waiting for. Scholar. Witch. Warrior… and the Tidecaller who tore down the door that kept us apart.”
He spoke that last title like a prayer as he looked at Emory. Sheremembered that Clover himself was believed to have been a Tidecaller—that he was, in fact, her own flesh and blood.
Someone like her.
Someone who understood her power.
The same thoughts seemed to be echoed in Clover’s gaze. “You look so very much like someone I knew,” he said, an emotion she couldn’t place in his voice. But he seemed to remember himself and squared his shoulders, smoothing his suit. “Shall we get on with it?” At their blank stares, he motioned to the door. “Saving the worlds. Restoring the balance of things. Is that not what you came here for? What you were called here to help fix?”
“Wait, back up,” Romie said with a confused expression. “How are you even here?”
“You already know the story. The scholar on the shores who travels through worlds and gets himself stuck in the sea of ash at the last, doomed alongside his otherworldly comrades to oversee the damned in the Deep.” Clover motioned to himself with a sad flourish, his mouth twisting in a frown. “I am that scholar. But my comrades from other worlds… they didn’t make it. I’ve been trapped alone in the godsworld for so long, waiting for the next set of keys to be called. And here you are. Together, we can replenish the fountain of the gods and stop this blight on the worlds.”
“He’s lying.”
Sidraeus’s ecliptic eyes, intent on Clover, flared dangerously. Clover turned to him like he hadn’t noticed him before. His expression darkened, the power in his veins rippling black and silver and gold as if in answer to Sidraeus’s own godly power.
“I sense magic in you.” Clover squinted as if he were trying to see who hid beneath Keiran’s mortal face. “Who are you?”
“I am the Shadow you once worshipped. The deity your Tidecaller magic comes from.”
“So we’re all here, then.” Clover sounded delighted. “Thesplintered parts of Atheia and the runaway soul of Sidraeus. I wondered why I couldn’t sense you in the sleeping realm.”
