“That’s not her doing,” Kai said grimly. “At least, notreally.”
Jae blanched. “Kai, what did you do?”
Kai bit back on the shame Jae’s expression called up inside him—and anger at himself for not having brought it up earlier in the commons, but what was he supposed to have said?Hey, sorry to throw yet another wrench in our plans, but I brought back reanimated corpses from Freyia’s nightmare and, though I did manage to get rid of most of them, some got away from me and are now terrorizing the streets of Cadence?
He’d thought at the very least the nightmares would have disintegrated into dust by now; it had been long enough. As he stepped closer to one of them, he did see it was slowly starting to fade.Sleep, he thought as he touched the thing of nightmare. It vanished before his eyes.
He turned to the other one and froze, recognizing the red hair, the scornful expression.
Bleak realization hit him. Because if Lizaveta Orlov’s corpse had been in the Reanimator’s nightmare—clearly more memory than dream alone—then maybe Artem really was at the center of all this.
“We need to find Brysden.Now.”
16BAZ
BAZ TRIED TO CATCH HISbearings as pieces of floorboards and other debris flew in every direction.
Roots had impossibly torn through the floor and were now darting toward the assembly hall’s heavy door to blast it open. Students scrambled out of the hall in terrified confusion, screams filling the dusty air. Baz pushed unsteadily to his feet. One of the Regulators who’d been after him mirrored the motion. The Regulator lunged for him, but before he could reach him, vines encircled the man’s ankles and jerked him backward.
Baz looked around wide-eyed and bewildered, searching for who or what was doing this.
Nisha nearly barreled into him, yelling at him unintelligibly over the commotion.
“Did you do this?” Baz asked with stupefied awe.
“Yes, nowrun!”
Baz didn’t need to be told twice. Together they followed thefrenetic students spilling out into the courtyard. A dozen Regulators were running toward the assembly hall, no doubt alerted by its uprooting. Baz whirled around to see Drutten making a beeline for him, eyes full of hatred. He knew he was done for.
But Nisha tugged on his arm, and before Drutten or the Regulators could close in on them, they managed to slip away into the crowd. It occurred to Baz that he did not know where they were runningto, if there was even a safe place to hide at all, until Nisha veered toward Obscura Hall.
A place only Eclipse-born could access. Theonlysafe place for him on campus.
“Where do you think you’re going, Eclipse scum?”
They were stopped beneath the cloisters by a group of three students who looked at Baz the same way Drutten had. Inflamed by fear of a Tidecaller and what that meant.
“Over here!” one of the boys shouted, calling on a nearby Regulator. “We found—”
The ivy growing thickly around the cloisters wrapped around the boy’s mouth, cutting his words off. Before the other two could react, Nisha was pulling Baz toward Obscura Hall. They nearly collided with another student as they reached the dark door that would lead to safety. Hands shot out to grab Baz. He struggled to break free of the student’s hold, and just as Baz finally had the good sense to reach for the threads of time, desperate to make it to safety, a familiar voice cut through his fear.
“Brysden—it’s me.”
Baz stopped struggling. Kai washere, holding him steady, dark eyes boring into his with all the fear and anger and disbelief that Baz himself felt.
“What in the Deep are you doing here?” Baz breathed.
“No time for this—let’s go!” another familiar voice snapped.Professor Selandyn held the door to Obscura Hall open and was ushering them inside. Vera Ingers was there, too, helping a limping boy Baz didn’t know.
Baz set aside his questions as they all hurried into the elevator. Just as the gate began to close, a Regulator burst through the door at the other end of the corridor. Baz sped up time around them so that the gate closed before the Regulator had even taken a step toward them. And then the elevator was shooting downward, accelerated by Baz’s magic.
Once they were past the wards, the Regulator wouldn’t be able to reach them. No one could come into Obscura Hall unless they were Eclipse-born—or unless they wereaccompaniedby one.
Baz caught Kai’s eye. Both of them were breathing quickly. The unfamiliar boy that Vera had dragged in here was being fussed over by Professor Selandyn, who was trying to stop the bleeding from a gash above the boy’s eye.
“Who is he?” Baz asked brusquely.
“Hehas a name,” the boy replied, wincing in pain. He brought a tattooed hand up to his wound, making Baz relax slightly at the sight of his Eclipse sigil.
