There was something pulling her toward the bodies, a tug she couldn’t deny. The girls’ manner of dress was strange. They wore trousers, for one thing, and the fabrics and patterns were like none that Aspen had ever seen before. Their hair was unbound. One had long blond tresses all matted together in the mud. The other’s hair was barely shoulder-length, shorter than Aspen had ever seen on a girl around these parts, with pine needles and seed pods and twigs tangled up in her brown curls. The short-haired girl’s head was perched lifelessly on her arm, and her hand was oddly clutched, the skin burned black. The other girl’s hand lay a hairsbreadth away from it, as if she had been reaching for her companion.
On both their wrists was a faint silver scar in the shape of a spiral.
“Mother, quick, come see,” Aspen breathed, heart pounding painfully against her chest.
Her mother was beside her in a moment, hand trembling at her neck, terror-filled eyes glued on that familiar symbol on the girls’ wrists. The same symbol the Sculptress had carved on Aspen’s ribs. The spiral scar tissue that marked her as keeper of the coven, High Matriarch to be.
“They’re here,” Aspen’s mother said in a foreboding tone. “They have come, and so it begins.”
Aspen didn’t understand the dread in her mother’s words.All she felt was an odd sort of excitement, her mind opening up to all the possibilities of what this could mean. Her curiosity getting the better of her again.
The eyes of the blond girl fluttered beneath their lids as she began to stir.
Not dead, then.
They have come, Aspen thought in echo of her mother, and though she did not know whotheywere or what her mother meant by it, her fingers tingled with a sense of purpose she had often felt before, though never quite so strong. There was a rightness in her bones, a momentous melody sweeping through her soul, as if everything were finally aligning into place.
Aspen’s lips parted as the girl opened her eyes and looked directly at her.
And so it begins.
1BAZ
BAZ BRYSDEN WAS MOST AWAREof time when he was running out of it.
The night before a paper was due, for instance, when he realized the days he’d spent procrastinating instead of doing the work meant he now had to forego sleep in order to finish. Or when he was so engrossed in a book and a strong cup of coffee, he realized with only minutes to spare that he was going to be late for class.
Of course, Baz could make the minutes stretch so that he was never truly late for anything as trivial as papers and classes. What was it to him, the Timespinner, to make time run in his favor? He had only to pull on its threads so he could squeeze in a few extra sentences here, that extra bit of research that would earn him full marks there, the basic human tasks that would make him look at least somewhat presentable before leaving the Eclipse commons, like brushing his teeth and throwing on a clean shirt and making sure his hair wasn’t sticking up every which way. He had done all these things just this morning, scrambling to hand in his finalpapers and stop by Professor Selandyn’s office to drop off her solstice gift before leaving for the holidays.
And yet here he still was, hurrying across campus to catch his train.
Had anyone else possessed this power to manipulate time, they would not know such things as scrambling and racing against the clock and worrying about missed trains. But Basil Brysden was a peculiar specimen who preferred to use his power as a last resort—and strictly in the most innocuous ways—which only served to enhance his already anxious nature.
And the pock-faced Regulator that stopped him dead in his tracks made that anxiety spike.
“Mr. Brysden. Heading home for the holidays, I see?”
“Are you following me on campus now?” Baz gritted out in annoyance, adjusting the weight of his travel bag on his shoulder.
“My, my, so defensive.” The smug satisfaction in the Regulator’s beady eyes did not go unnoticed by Baz.
Captain Silas Drutten had been the bane of Baz’s existence for the past two months. Ever since Baz helped break out his father and Kai from the Institute, Drutten had been on him relentlessly, trying to catch him in a lie and pin their escape on him. But Baz had gotten very good at lying—or maybe it was just that Drutten had very little evidence to go on. Either way, it was easy enough for Baz to stick to his story, no matter how many times he had to suffer through one of these pointless interrogations.
Today, it seemed, would be another one of those times.
“This meeting is purely accidental,” Drutten said, adjusting the medals of valor pinned to his Regulator outfit. “I’m here for the donor banquet.”
That explained the full regalia. While the students of Aldryn College were currently getting ready to leave for the weeklongwinter solstice break, faculty members were dressing in their best suits and gowns to host their annual donor banquet. Everyone of note with ties to the college would be in attendance tonight. from high-ranking Regulators to the mayor of Cadence to families whose names were likely carved on the very foundation of the college. It was said to be a grand affair, with a catered seven-course meal and an open bar and people full of their own self-importance—Selandyn’s words, not Baz’s.
“Well, then,” Baz said, glancing pointedly at his watch, “if you’ll excuse me, I have a train to catch.”
“I take it that means youareheading to Threnody, then?”
“Obviously.” There was no point denying it. “You of all people know that’s where my mother lives.”
Drutten himself had made it a point to scour every corner of Anise Brysden’s house for signs of her fugitive husband. Of course, he’d come up empty-handed—and yet he kept hounding her and Baz both, making Baz’s blood boil and his mother feel unsafe in her own home. It sickened him to his core.
Drutten fixed him with a hard stare. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that harboring fugitives is a crime, even during the holidays.”
