“It was all me,” Kai interjected. “He didn’t know I was coming. No one did.”
Professor Selandyn clucked her tongue. “Have you no sense, boy? Especially given what happened today.”
Kai frowned. “What happened?”
“You heard about the Reanimator they captured?” Baz asked Selandyn.
“What?” Kai exclaimed.
Professor Selandyn nodded grimly. “That’s what I was comingdown here to tell you. I just spoke to Jae—they’re all right. They got to the location where they were supposed to meet the Reanimator, but she never showed.”
Baz filled them both in on what Virgil had told him. Kai swore, running a hand through his hair. He had the decency to at least look sorry about coming here at the worst-opportune time.
Professor Selandyn looked older than ever as she said, “Things are about to get bad for us, I’m afraid.” She fixed Kai with a hard stare. “So whatever it is you came here for, you’d best have it done quickly and leave before anyone finds you.”
10KAI
THE HOURGLASS WAS EXACTLY ASKai remembered it.
As he and Baz entered the Belly of the Beast, the silence between them yawned open wider than the cavern itself. Kai could feel Baz’s anger and hurt simmering beneath the surface. He wished Baz would justlet it outalready, because anything would be better than this silent treatment.
Kai knew he’d brought it on himself. First by coming to Aldryn behind Baz’s back, then by trying to slip out of the Eclipse commons when he’d thought Baz was asleep—only to find him sitting in his favorite armchair in the dark, staring daggers at him.
“Tides, Brysden,” Kai had exclaimed. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you.” Baz had crossed his arms. “As if you thought I was going to let you go down there alone.”
Kai hadn’t even tried to convince him to stay behind. He might have used Baz’s injury to do so, but Baz had finally relented and used his time magic to reverse the damage Artem had inflicted on him.
If Kai ever got his hands on Artem, he wouldkillhim for what he’d done.
In silence, they’d gone down the hidden stairs carved into the cliffside that led to the cove, and here they now were, not a word spoken since.
“Well, go on, then,” Baz quipped, breaking the quiet at last as he gestured to the Hourglass. “Work your magic.”
Kai bristled at the annoyance in his voice. “Look, I was just trying not to risk anyone else, all right?” he said, echoing Baz’s earlier accusation.
“Thanks for the consideration,” Baz muttered. His gaze flitted from Kai to the Hourglass. “What was the plan if you managed to open the door? You would have just gone through it without even saying goodbye?”
“Come on, Brysden.” The truth was, Kai hadn’t thought that far ahead. He eyed the Hourglass as if it were a formidable foe that kept thwarting him—and it was. “We both know it won’t actually open for me.”
Suddenly it seemed pointless to have come here at all. After he’d found the epilogue in the sleepscape, after he’d readThe Sleepers Among the Starsa million times trying to make sense of it, Kai had thought he and Romie must be the boy of nightmares and the girl of dreams that the text alluded to. That being the forgotten parts of the puzzle meant they must have the ability to open the doors between worlds just as Emory did. That he, too, must be a key.
But as he again went through the motions of opening the door—the slice of a knife across his palm, an offering of blood against the striated rock—it became painfully evident that the Hourglass still would not open for him.
Kai swore and punched the Hourglass. He swore louder as pain lanced through his hand.
“Yeah, like that’s going to work,” Baz breathed.
“Shut up, Brysden.” Kai shook his hand, staring daggers at the Hourglass. “This is pointless. Why won’t it open for me if I’m supposed to be a fucking key?”
“Maybe you’re only half a key.”
It was the same thing Baz had said to him the first time Kai had tried opening the door, and of course he must be right. Clover’s epilogue painted the girl of dreams and the boy of nightmares as going to the sea of ashtogether, so it made sense that the Hourglass wouldn’t open for Kai alone. It likely never would without the other half of the equation. The dreams to his nightmares.
“Then maybe it’s time we find a Dreamer to test your theory out,” Kai spat.
“And what Dreamer is going to want to help a runaway Nightmare Weaver?”
