Professor Selandyn nodded. “What Drutten said about Emory… If the world believes her to be the Shadow reborn, if they think she is the reason why the tides are acting strange and why we Eclipse-born are rising up, as if Emory has some kind of dark influence over us… then we need to bring Emoryhome. To show them all that she is not what they say she is.”
“So it’s true, then?” Rusli asked in wonder. “This Tidecaller… she’s real?”
“As real as a door to other worlds is real,” Vera said in a singsong voice, earning a look of confusion from Rusli. She ignored him, asking, “So when do we leave?”
Baz looked between all of them. They stared back at him expectantly. He laughed a little hysterically. “We can’t open the door, not without—”
“Oh, for Tides’ sake, Brysden.” Kai threw up his hands in exasperation. “We all know you’re capable of doing it. And before you say anything about risk,fuck the risk. We’re way past the need to tread carefully.”
Baz turned to Professor Selandyn, hoping she would talk some sense into all of them. Instead, she said, “Things will only get worse here. All our fates might rest in Emory’s hands now. In proving that this sickness spreading across the world is not due to her being a Tidecaller but something else. A greater evil that perhaps she alone can stop.”
Selandyn took out Clover’s journal from her pocket.
“Clover believed the disappearance of the Tides and the Shadow is what triggered the doors to close and fade from memory. As a result, this cutting off of worlds created a universal imbalance of sorts. Like organs being severed from one another and not being able to function properly because of it.” She flipped open to a page full of barely legible script. “Here he predicts that a sickness would spread, affecting our magic as it worsens over time. The erratic motions of the tide, the slow decline of eclipses and, consequently, of Eclipse-born.”
Professor Selandyn turned to a passage that wasn’t written in any language Baz knew. She ran a bony finger along the strange script, her expression unsettled. When she spoke the line aloud, the words she formed were guttural and melodious all at once. They made the hair on Baz’s arms stand to attention, slithering up his spine.
“I don’t know what language this is,” Selandyn said, “but it’s old and powerful.”
“What does it mean?”
“A Tidecaller must rise. Open the door. Seek the gods. Restore that which lies at the center of all things.”
Selandyn handed the journal to Baz. She gave him a weighted look, her meaning clear.
She wanted them to fix what was broken, the way Clover had intended.
“Go now,” Selandyn said, motioning to the door that would take them down to Dovermere Cove.
“Professor… what about you? You can’t stay down here forever.”
“Not forever, no. But there are other Eclipse students on campus, foreigners who came here for a month of academic celebration and instead walked into forced interrogations and brutality. They will need solidarity now more than ever. I won’t leave them behind.”
“But the wards… The Regulators are bound to make it pastthem eventually.” Even if they had to force one of those Eclipse-born to bring them down here.
“I’ll stay with her,” Nisha declared. “I can find the other Eclipse-born. Bring them here. Then we’ll slip away through the secret door and try to find someplace safe to hide.”
“The Veiled Atlas,” Vera said. “Aunt Alya will take you in.”
Nisha nodded. “Then it’s settled.”
“My dear, after what you did back there, the Regulators will be after your blood more than mine,” Professor Selandyn countered. “Youallneed to disappear.”
“Come with us, then,” Baz said.
Selandyn laughed at that. She patted his cheek gently. “Oh, Basil. I fear these bones of mine are too old for such an adventure. I’ll be of better use here. Like I said, I’m not leaving Eclipse students behind.”
“Then I’ll stay,” Rusli said. “I have some tricks up my sleeve that can help me pass unnoticed while I round up the rest of the Eclipse students.” His features changed before their very eyes, and suddenly he was not a Luaguan boy at all but a uniform-clad Regulator wearing Drutten’s face. He winked at them, breaking the illusion, and touched his angry-looking wound. “Besides, I still have a bone to pick with the Regulator who did this to me.”
Baz couldn’t deny the plan was sound, but he couldn’t make himself move, didn’t think he had the strength to.
For so long he’d been on the sidelines, watching those around him do the work. But here was his chance to step into the story at last, to carve himself a role in it, however small. Here was his chance to stand up and fight for Eclipse-born, even though it felt like he was runningawayfrom the fight entirely.
He could open the door, at the very least. The rest he could leave to the real heroes of the story. And together they would fix what was broken. They would bring Emory back to this wretched worldand make it into one where she could live without hiding the truth of what she was—whereall of themcould.
He would be reunited with his sister again and mend their fractured family.
Professor Selandyn squeezed his hand, giving him the strength he needed. A wobbly smile stretched across her lips. “Go, Basil.”
