“All those people she killed…” Anise whispered, eyes wide with horror.
“Supposedlykilled,” Jae specified. “Freyia deserves the benefit of the doubt just as any of us do.”
Baz shifted uncomfortably at that.Hehad killed people too. His Collapsing had brought down his father’s printing press, killing three victims in the blast. He knew it wasn’t the same thing as the kind of murders Freyia was said to have committed, but it still weighed on his conscience. In his mind he saw Keiran dying a slow, agonizing death on the cave floor. The blame in his eyes as Baz told him the truth, that he was the one who had killed Keiran’s parents. It was an image that haunted him often, and Baz told himself it was punishment enough for his crimes. That, and the knowledge that he was to blame for ripping his own family apart—sending his dad to the Institute, his mother into depression, and his sister on a reckless pursuit of mythical doors.
“Maybe it would be best to let the Regulators have her,” Anise pressed. “Instead of putting your own life on the line.”
“No one deserves to suffer at the hands of the Regulators, my darling,” Theodore countered, his face blanching at the memory of the Institute. “No one.”
Though Baz sympathized with his father’s sentiment, the idea of reanimation magic sat uneasily in his stomach. Death, he thought, should not be tampered with. It was final. Just as he didn’t dare use his magic to turn back time and save those who had died because of him, the Reanimator shouldn’t be allowed to use her gift to bring corpses back from the dead. At least not without owning up to the consequences.
“If I can help her control her magic,” Jae said, “we’ll all be better for it.”
Baz hoped Jae’s definition ofcontrolmeant learning not to use magic at all. But that was Jae’s problem now, not his. He had theQuadri to focus on, and only a few days left to enjoy the solstice holiday with the people who mattered most to him before he’d have to play his part.
Before he had to say goodbye again.
They spent the rest of the week training with Jae, who had Baz and Kai pushing the limits of their Collapsed abilities until the holiday didn’t feel like one at all. But in the bits between training and discussing strategy for the Quadri and playing those boring card games every night that were really not boring at all—even Kai seemed to enjoy himself—Baz found solace in his sketchbook.
It was odd how much he’d missed drawing; odder still how his mother had seemed to anticipate this longing inside him when he himself hadn’t seen it. Picking up a pencil felt like the most natural of things, and though Baz fumbled his way through pages of terrible sketches, he slowly found his stride again.
He’d never considered himself an artist with any real sort of talent, but he could admit he wasn’t a bad one either.
Despite the peace that drawing brought him, it did nothing to erase his anxiety as they inched toward the end of the week and the start of the Quadri. But there was something else bothering him that he couldn’t quite put his finger on until the last day of the holiday.
Baz found his father sitting on a stretch of coastline behind the lighthouse, staring out at the sea. His heart ached at how peaceful Theodore looked. Eyes closed, a small smile playing on his lips, face tilted up to the sea breeze. He looked content. Free of worries.
And as guilt surged inside him, Baz understood that this was what had been slowly eating away at him this week. Not his anxiety over the Quadri, but this unending guilt. Despite the bliss of being with his parents again—of seeing them happy—a shadow loomed over them. Nothing was right. This peace was fleeting.A mere illusion. Their family was broken in more ways than one, with a crucial part of it missing behind a mythical door, and Baz was to blame for all of it.
Baz had robbed his father of all those years where he could have been free instead of rotting away at the Institute for a crime he hadn’t committed.
Baz was the reason his mother spent years as a ghost of herself, withering away under the burden of grief as she desperately tried to keep it together for her children.
Baz was to blame for Romie distancing herself from their family, from everything Eclipse-related, because she didn’t want to live with the shame of what their father had supposedly done. WhatBazhad done. He was the reason her fate now remained unknown. And if she died or never came back, what was left of their broken family might never recover, and he would be to blame for that, too.
His father must have sensed his presence. He turned toward him, but Baz headed back inside before he could see him.
With too much nervous energy to do much else, Baz started packing. He didn’t realize he was crying until a voice jolted him out of his spiraling thoughts.
“You okay?”
Baz quickly wiped at his cheeks. Kai stood in the doorframe, his expression unreadable.
“Yeah.” Baz cleared his throat, busying himself with his folded clothes. “Just getting ready for the inevitable return to Aldryn.”
“You’re anxious about the Quadri.”
“Of course I am.” If only it were just that.
“Don’t be.”
Baz snorted. “Easy for you to say.”
Kai came to hover at Baz’s side. He reached for the sketchbook laid open on the bed, but Baz snatched it back, tucking itaway safely into his bag. Kai’s piercing gaze caught his. “I could come with you. You know, for moral support.”
Baz sighed. “This again? You know you can’t.”
Kai rolled his eyes as he plopped down on the bed. “I thought you’d changed, Brysden. Where’s the rule-breaker who got me out of the Institute? I liked him. He was fun.”
