The comment was like a knife wedging itself in an open wound. “That was never me.”
Was that what Kai thought of him? That he was interesting only when he acted the part of the rebellious hero, when he wasn’t being his careful, disciplined self?
Fighting back tears, Baz pulled on a sweater lodged beneath Kai. “Do you mind? This boring rule-follower needs to pack.”
For a moment, Kai didn’t budge. He searched Baz’s gaze, the slightest frown creasing his brow. Baz thought he would press him, but at last he got up and snapped a sarcastic, “Sorry to keep you,” before heading out the door.
Baz’s soured mood could not be remedied. Henry and Anise prepared a feast for their last night together, but despite the laughter and chatter and comforting food, all Baz could think was how he didn’t deserve any of this. He could feel Kai trying to catch his eye, had no doubt that the Nightmare Weaver saw right through his forced smile. Baz couldn’t bring himself to look at him for fear of breaking.
“Come get some air with me, Basil,” Theodore said after they’d finished eating and everyone was busy clearing the table.
Baz donned his coat and followed his father outside, if only to escape Kai’s insistent glances.
They stood in silence at the water’s edge for a time before Theodore said, “I’m proud of you, son. Everything you’ve done, everything you’re doing… I know we’re asking a lot of you.”
Baz swallowed past the lump in his throat. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Of course you can.”
“You taught me that magic was like breathing. That the key was using it in short, measured breaths. And all my life, that’s what I did. But now that I’m Collapsed, suddenly I’m told I can use it in big, heaving bursts, and I’m—I’m scared, Dad. I don’t know what I’m capable of. What if I take it too far?” He stared off into the distance, surprised at this outpouring of honesty. But he couldn’t stop. “I have all this power at my fingertips, and I don’t know how to use it. I don’t know that I… that I deserve it. Not after what I did.”
Theodore clasped Baz on the shoulder, forcing him to look into his eyes. “Listen to me. What happened is not on you.”
“How can you say that when I have blood on my hands? When I stole years off your life?”
“Oh, Basil.” His father’s eyes were bright with tears. “Don’t ever think that. Ichosemy path, and I don’t regret it for a second. This strength you have, it’s precisely why I did what I did all those years ago. So you could thrive, and fight to free yourself and others in the process.”
Baz wasn’t able to fight back the tears that fell on his cheeks. It was everything he didn’t know he needed to hear. His father drew him in for a hug, and Baz broke down against him, letting all the years of resentment and fear and this newer guilt pour out of him.
“I love you, Dad,” he whispered. Resolve replaced what had been crumbling inside him. He wanted nothing more now than to make things right—to succeed and be worthy of his father’s sacrifice and belief in him. For the first time, he believed himself capable.
They watched the rhythmic waves lap to and from the shores for a time, until cold seeped through their bones and the warmth of the lighthouse called them back inside. Kai wasn’t there, andBaz was suddenly desperate to seek him out. Apologize for snapping at him earlier.
He found Kai upstairs, but not in his own room. The Nightmare Weaver stood by Baz’s bed, his back to him, hands hovering over his bag.
“What are you doing in here?” Baz asked quietly.
Kai turned at his voice. His mouth was tight. “Thought I should apologize for being a jerk earlier.”
“Funny, I was looking for you to do the same thing.”
Kai’s expression didn’t change. He looked slightly on edge. It was then that Baz noticed his sketchbook had been pulled out of his bag and now lay open on top of his folded clothes.
Baz’s stomach dropped. “You went through my things?” He grabbed the sketchbook. The page it was open to was full of quick sketches of Emory, scenes he’d pulled from his memory. Her laughing. Her standing before the Hourglass. The moment before they’d kissed—her tearstained face, his hand cupping her cheek, her lips parted.
“These are good,” Kai said, dodging the question. “I didn’t know you were such an artist.”
“I can’t believe you went through my things.” Baz shoved the sketchbook into his bag, a flush creeping up his cheeks. He was acutely aware of Kai watching him. Of the fact that Kai had been looking at his most intimate recollections of Emory. He didn’t know why he felt a surge of guilt when it was Kai who’d been caught red-handed.
“What was she to you?” Kai asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Everything, Baz wanted to say, just as a more doubtful part of him thought,Nothing at all.
An elusive sunset, a ship in the night, a comet he was less certainhe’d seen with each day that came and went without her in it. That was Emory to him. She was a door he’d once thought shut creaked open again, for the briefest moment in time. A fissure through which he’d glimpsed all the golden-hued might-haves and could-bes, before they slipped from his hands like water as the door sealed shut again.
She felt more and more like a dream as concrete memories escaped him in a flight of fancy, leaving him to wonder what was real and what was but a romanticized version of reality. Was Baz misremembering things? All the hours they’d shared in the library, heads bent over textbooks. The day he’d drawn blood from her, the sound of her laugh as she asked him to distract her. The night they’d found Lia on the beach. All the times they’d saved each other, the broken ache he’d feel whenever he watched her slip into dreaming.
That kiss…
