“Are you hearing yourself? Look what using my magic just did!” He pointed to the beaming lighthouse above them. “I brought usback in time. Who’s to say going through the door now will bring us back to our friends? To thepresent?”
Kai’s jaw tightened. “We have to try.”
“No. I don’t trust my power right now, not for a second. What if using time magic here only makes things worse? I don’t know the rules—I didn’t know time travel was evenpossible.I just—I can’t—”
His heart was beating erratically, painfully pounding against his chest. Breathing became a foreign concept as he gasped for air and felt his vision begin to blur.
“Brysden. Hey, breathe.” Kai grasped his face between his hands, forcing Baz to look at him. His face was inches from his own, his fingers digging softly into Baz’s skin, threading themselves behind his neck. “Just breathe.”
Baz focused on the stars in Kai’s eyes, the dark depths of them drawing him to a calmer place where he could breathe again. In. Out. Ebb and flow.
The sea barreled into them, making Baz lurch forward into Kai. He gripped a fistful of Kai’s sopping-wet shirt to hold himself steady, feeling Kai’s fingers digging into the back of his neck as he tried to do the same. Wordlessly, they pulled each other back onto the slender strip of shoreline yet to be devoured by the tide, where they fell back panting in the wet sand. Teeth clattering at the wintry cold seeping through them, they exchanged a weighted glance.
Kai’s throat bobbed. He was the first to look away. “Let’s start by getting out of these wet clothes. We’ll come back when the tide is low and figure things out.”
“Okay.”
Kai’s composure soothed Baz’s frayed nerves. They would find their bearings while they waited for low tide, try to figure outwhenexactly they were—and why they were here to begin with—before attempting to open the door again.
They drew themselves up and started toward the secret stairs to the Eclipse commons before glimpsing movement behind the window.
Right. This wasn’t their time. They couldn’t exactly barge into the Eclipse commons.
They locked eyes again, the weight of the situation almost but not quite laughable. “Best we head to town, then,” Kai said.
There was no denying they were in the past once they got to Cadence. The cobblestoned streets were illuminated by gas lanterns—not everlight—and lined with horse-drawn carriages instead of cars. A few people ambled in the night, each of them dressed in fashions that were at least a century behind the times. Three-piece suits and suspenders and floppy hats, crinoline skirts and tailored coats. They threw Baz and Kai odd looks, and Baz hoped it was because of their sopping-wet clothes rather than the fact that those clothes were much more modern than anyone else’s. Entirely out of place.
They ducked into a busy tavern, hoping to fly under the radar and get something warm in them to fight off the cold seeping into their bones.
They didn’t make it very far. A man barred their way in, saying a gruff, “Hands.”
“E-Excuse me?” Baz stammered.
“Your hands. We inspect sigils here.” The barkeep pointed to a sign behind him that readNo Unchaperoned Eclipse-Borne.The backs of his hands were bare. No magic to declare.
Bile rose in Baz’s throat as he understood what this meant. He felt Kai stiffen at his side. They didn’t know what year this was, but if establishments like this one were asking their would-be patrons to show their sigils and putting up such signs, it was undoubtedly a dangerous time to be Eclipse-born.
Baz lifted his left hand even as every instinct in him screamed this would not end well. Kai did the same, holding his middle finger slightly higher than the rest as he did so, an angry storm brewing beneath his features.
The barkeep’s eyes narrowed on their Eclipse sigils. He motioned to the sign again. “You’re not meant to be here alone, lads. Off you go on up to the College.”
“Sir,” Baz protested, “if we could just—”
“I’ll not have you here unchaperoned, and without damper cuffs at that. Has no one told you you’re supposed to stay behind Aldryn walls during the Bicentennial? Come back with an escort and cuffs.”
The Bicentennial.
They had gone backtwo hundred yearsin time.
Kai swore under his breath.
Some patrons were glancing their way. A rowdy, red-faced man bellowed, “Send the Shadow-stained away!”
Baz’s stomach locked up as this earned murmurs of consent from those around him. This was not good. If they’d thought things back in their time were bad for Eclipse-born, this was so much worse.
“What seems to be the problem, Hayworth?” a voice intoned.
A young woman appeared at the barkeep’s side. She seemed to be their age—and quite well-off compared to most folks here.Her strawberry-blond hair was swept up in a chignon, a small hat with a feather pinned atop her head. She wore a long woolly skirt and a coat cinched at the waist, matching pieces the color of a deep emerald sea. The cream-colored shirt she wore underneath was lacy and high necked, and a small emerald pendant rested on her chest.
