The train screeched loudly along the tracks, pulling Baz from the half sleep he’d slipped into. His face smooshed up against the fogging window, he was briefly disoriented at the sight of the busy station they were pulling into, despite having been here more times than he could count. He blinked the sleep from his eyes, urgency making his senses come alive as he recognized the blue, green, and white tiled sign on the brick wall that readTHRENODY CENTRAL.
While people filed into the narrow corridor outside of Baz’s otherwise empty compartment, he remained seated, eyes searching the platform wildly. Panic seized him when he didn’t spot the person he was looking for. And then, just as the worst scenarios began to play out in his mind, the door to his compartment slid open, nearly giving him a heart attack.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Oh, I—” Any excuse Baz might have drawn up died on his lips, replaced by relieved laughter. “Thank the Tides it’s you.”
Jae Ahn smiled down at him, dark eyes full of mischief, and Baz had never been happier to see them. “The timing could not have been more perfect,” Jae said as they shut the compartment door behind them and sat down across from Baz.
“Do you really think it’ll work?”
Jae nodded toward the window. “See for yourself.”
Standing on the platform with everyone else getting off the train was Baz—or rather, a perfect copy of him, dressed in the same clothes and hauling the same luggage that the real Baz had on him. Jae had truly outdone themself with this illusion; even theexpression of this make-believe Baz was the same, a mix of worry and aloofness that had the real Baz feeling a tad self-conscious. Was that really what he looked like?
Jae had planned all of it, this grand illusion that would deceive anyone prying into Baz’s whereabouts. If the Regulators had eyes on Baz on this very train, they would be duped into seeing him get off here, at Threnody Central, while the real him kept going south, cloaked in whatever illusion Jae now cast over their compartment. And if anyone looked in on the Brysden household over the holidays, they would find Anise and Baz holed up in their quiet home, neither of them wanting to venture outside or have company over, what with the shame of Theodore’s escape from the Institute weighing heavy on them.
As the fake Baz disappeared in the crowd, Baz couldn’t help but ask, “And you’re sure the illusion will hold?”
“Of course it will.” Jae kicked their feet up on the cushioned seat, looking pleased with themself. “I’ve been playing around with sustaining illusions long-term, and none of them have failed me yet. Now, if someone stops you in the streets and tries to have aconversationwith you, we might be in trouble.” They smirked. “Though you ignoring them wouldn’t be too far off from the real thing, would it?”
“No, I guess it wouldn’t,” Baz had to admit. The sheer control Jae had over their Collapsed magic never ceased to amaze him.
Jae had been Collapsed for a long time now and had since been keeping tabs on both Baz and Kai, for whom this was all still new. Unlike most Eclipse-born who Collapsed, all three of them had managed to escape the Unhallowed Seal that strove to put their magic to sleep.
The train lurched forward, and as Threnody slowly disappeared behind them, Baz felt like he could breathe again.
“So how’ve you been, Basil?”
“Fine, all things considered. How’s the training been going?”
At this, Jae lit up with pride. “Honestly? Better than I could have anticipated.”
For the past few months, Jae had been living in Threnody under the guise of a research trip, but what they were really doing was training other Collapsed Eclipse-born in secret. Jae had managed to get in contact with others like them who had avoided getting branded with the Unhallowed Seal and offered to help them manage their limitless power. Most of these people were leading normal lives like Jae and Baz, hiding the fact that they had Collapsed from those around them with varying degrees of success. But others were on the run from the Regulators after having very public Collapsings, living in shadows, struggling to survive, praying they never got caught. Jae’s training provided them with much-needed asylum.
The point, as Kai would put it, was to ensure everyone had their shit under control so they could eventually prove to the world at large that Eclipse-born who Collapsed were not a threat to society. That they could overcome this Shadow’s curse that Collapsing was supposed to plunge them into.
“Makes you wonder if this whole curse business is bogus,” Jae said, as if reading Baz’s mind. “A cautionary tale, nothing more.”
“How do you mean?”
“Haveyouever felt this darkness we’re warned of? Has your Collapsed magic changed who you are at your core, turned you into someone who craves power no matter the cost?” Jae shook their head, not letting Baz answer the clearly rhetorical question as they pressed on: “Our ability to control our Collapsed magic seems only to be tied to how powerful our magic already was to begin with. Take me for example. Illusions are a rather benign ability, one that I’d already mastered long before Collapsing. And your Timespinner ability—well, I wouldn’t say it’s mundane, farfrom it, but then again you were always careful with it, so it makes sense for you to have control over it now. But others whose magic is darker in nature, or whose grasp on their ability was already flighty to begin with… Well. It makes sense for them to have a harder time dealing with this heightened magic, don’t you think?”
A certain Nightmare Weaver came to mind at this. Jae seemed to have the same thought. “He’s getting better,” they added in a gentle voice. “Like I said, it’s an adjustment. And Kai’s magic is… There’s much we don’t know about it yet. But we’ll get there.”
Baz looked down at his hands. The Nightmare Weaver he’d known had always been in control of his magic, but now that Kai was Collapsed, it was like the nightmares were controllinghim. Nightmares spilled into his waking hours against his will, making it hard for him to distinguish what was real from what was not. Like the bees he’d once jokingly conjured out of Baz’s dreaming, only no one was laughing now, especially not Kai.
Soon, twilight settled outside. Baz watched the jack pines and spruce trees rushing past, their branches drooping with snow. When the train stopped, Baz and Jae were the only ones to step off. Unsurprising, given the remoteness of their destination. The station wasn’t even that, only a tiny, solitary outbuilding on the side of the tracks, with no one there to greet them.
Baz tightened his coat around him, pulling up the lapels around his neck to fend off the biting wind. He and Jae started painstakingly up the snow-covered road, and though Baz knew Jae had a cloaking illusion around them, he couldn’t stop glancing over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed. Streetlamps were few and far between here, and Baz tensed at every sound, imagining Drutten’s face hiding in the darkness between trees. His mind spun uncontrollably when they got off the road to borrow a narrow trail that wound its way through the wintry forest, hugging a jagged coastline.
The crashing of waves was unsettling in such a wild, forlorn place. Anyone could easily be made to disappear here.
“Almost there,” Jae said up ahead.
By the time Baz glimpsed the lighthouse at the edge of the world, his cheeks were pink with cold and exertion, his breath forming clouds around him. The blue-painted door at the base of the lighthouse opened just as Baz reached for its handle. From inside came warm light and laughter and music and the mouthwatering scents of fresh bread and chowder.
And there stood Henry Ainsleif, reddish-blond hair a tangled mess that fell to his shoulders, a broad smile in the midst of his beard. “Come in, you two. You’re just in time for supper.”
