Cordie started up the road with a saunter.
“What are we going to do?” Baz whispered furiously as he and Kai trailed behind her.
“Pretend we’re from the Luaguan school,” Kai said under his breath. “Karunang College. It’s the oldest one in the Constellation Isles.”
Aldryn’s campus looked, for all intents and purposes, the same as it did two hundred years from now. A registration table had been set up in the courtyard near the dean’s office. They gave their names—Kai didn’t seem to mind using his real surname, so neither did Baz—and said they were from Karunang College. When the clerk frowned at the fact that they were evidently not listed among the Luaguan students, Baz thought surely they would be kicked to the curb.
“We were last-minute additions,” Kai said smoothly. “They probably forgot to add us.”
The student did not seem to care for that logic. “You’ll have to clear this up with your dean. I can’t give you a badge until—”
Cordie stepped in. “Honestly, Theopold, where is your sense of hospitality?” She ripped the list from his hands and added both their names at the bottom before plucking two badges from the pile in front of the dumbstruck student. “They can sort this out after the opening ceremony.” She looked at Baz and Kai with the tiniest eye roll before motioning for them to follow. Theopold was red in the face, looking dejected at having been so schooled.
Cordie led them to the Noviluna dorms. She fished an old-fashioned key out of her pocket and ushered them into a dark-paneled room. A large bed took up most of the space, its luxurious bedding—clearly not the typical school-issued kind—perfectly tucked in. The room was neat as a pin, in a way that almost made it seem not lived in. The books on the desk were perfectly aligned in order of their height, and the assortment of dip pens and steel nibs and ink pots was organized neatly next to a straight stack of writing paper. Even the wardrobe that Cordie opened hinted at order, the garments arranged by color and fabric.
“Whose room is this?” Kai asked, no doubt noticing, as Baz did, that all the clothes were menswear: shirts and trousers and cravats in rich fabrics and prints that hinted at luxury, shoes that were so polished they glimmered in the soft light.
Cordie gave a little laugh as she pulled things out of the wardrobe. “My brother’s. Don’t worry, he won’t mind. He has far too many clothes anyway.” She shoved past them to set the garments she’d selected into two neat piles on the bed. “Now, put these on, and we’ll head to the opening celebration. We’ve already missed too much!”
Baz and Kai exchanged a look. “Oh, well, we’d rather just head to the Eclipse commons, if that’s all right?” Baz said. “It’s been quite a journey.”
“Nonsense. You must come and meet everyone. I swear my friends are nothing like that barkeep. Besides, I can’t escort you down to Obscura Hall myself, since it’s warded to allow only Eclipse-born in. But I’ll introduce you to Thames and Polina—they’ll be your Eclipse classmates here at Aldryn.” She motioned for them to hurry. “I’ll be outside if you need anything. Oh, and you can leave your wet clothes here. I’ll see that they’re properly laundered and brought back to you.”
As soon as Cordie shut the door behind her, Baz whispered, “What are we going to do?”
“Let’s just go along with it. Tide’s still high. No point hiding out here like wanted criminals while we wait to get back.”
Baz grumbled at the thought of going to a celebration full of people, especially after just narrowly escaping the celebration that had turned sideways in hisowntime. Everything about this place set him on edge; he was afraid to breathe wrong, to say the wrong thing, to do something that might set his magic disrupting the laws of time more than it already had. But Kai was right; there was nothing else for them to do while they waited for the tide to recede.
They exchanged a weighted glance before turning their backs to each other. The sounds of Kai undressing made Baz’s stomach flip, not unpleasantly. He focused on getting out of his own wet clothes and into these blessedly dry ones. The fashion of this century felt stiff compared to his usual cozy sweater and slacks: dress pants held in place by suspenders, a high-collared shirt with ample sleeves, a patterned waistcoat, and a thicker frock coat to fight off the wintry cold.
Walking over to the standing mirror adorned with a silver frame, Baz gave himself a disgruntled once-over, fumbling withthe patterned cloth that he figured must be a tie. He caught Kai’s reflection in the mirror, looking at him with an odd expression.
“What?” Baz asked.
“You’re tying that ascot all wrong. Here.” Kai stepped in front of him and deftly undid the cloth Baz had tied up askew.
Baz was profoundly aware of how little space there was between them. He could feel Kai’s breath on his skin, feel the heat of his fingers through his shirt as they worked on the ascot.
Kai kept his attention on the task, and only when it was done did he lift his eyes up to Baz. “Suits you,” he said in that low, midnight voice.
Baz grew lightheaded, his stomach aflutter with nerves at the fervor in Kai’s eyes. He was trying very hard not to think how well the fashion suitedhim. “Where did you learn how to do this, anyway?”
“Saw it in a book once. Farran was obsessed with fashion history.”
The admission cut between them like ripped fabric.
“Oh,” Baz said awkwardly. “That’s… useful.”
Kai frowned at whatever he heard in Baz’s voice. A soft knock came at the door, followed by Cordie’s muffled voice asking after them.
Baz cleared his throat. “Be right there.”
Kai seemed happy to pretend the past minute hadn’t happened, concentrated as he was on getting the Karunang badge affixed to the lapel of his coat. Baz fiddled with his own badge. The Karunang emblem was beautiful: an owl unfurling its wings, with the moon phases curved above its head and an eclipsed sun beneath its talons. Baz pinned it to his coat, trying to persuade himself he wore it convincingly enough. That he could pretend his way through this whole night.
The Bicentennial’s opening celebration was held on the banks of the River Helene. The last time Baz was here had been the fallequinox festival. He remembered the magicked everlight lanterns dangling from trees whose leaves had just begun to turn, the students gathered on wool blankets as the air filled with the thrum of magic and the scent of hot cocoa and fried dough.
Now the trees were bare, the earth dusted with snow, and the lanterns that lit up the bank were not everlight but the mundane gas kind that had long preceded the more modern invention. Students dressed in the same stiff formal wear that Baz and Kai had donned milled about, clouds of steam rising from their mouths as they exchanged laughter and bottles of brownish liquid. Near the frozen water’s edge, students were setting off fireworks that burst above them in enchanted designs, illuminating the night with the colors of each lunar sigil—except for the gold of the Eclipse, Baz noticed.
