Even Atheia wasn’t foolish enough to stay put with the beckoning darkness threatening to swallow them all whole. In a flash, she dissolved into a great swirl of shimmering water that dartedout of sight, much like she had done in the godsworld. Leaving Emory and her mother and Kai to scramble against the farthest wall away from the blooming dark.
It stopped spreading, only an inch from them. It had engulfed nearly all of the corridor, leaving only a tight space for them to go through. They needed to get out of here before the way out disappeared. Emory wasted no time. She stepped over to Sidraeus, who had remained unconscious through all of it. She took his face in her hands and tried to wake him, saying his name, but he wouldn’t open his eyes.
I have him trapped in his own mind,Atheia had said.Living in the prison of his own worst memories.
How could Emory get him out without magic? She tried calling on the Tidecaller souls again to no avail. Would she and her mother and Kai be able to carry him out of here?
“We have to go,” Kai said, eyeing the crumbled roof over their heads, the precarious stone that could still rain down on them at any second, the maw of darkness that could resume its spreading and devour them whole.
“I’m not leaving him,” Emory said through gritted teeth.
She braced herself to untie Sidraeus’s bindings, knowing this was going to hurt—that the threads of divine light woven through would burn her as it had before. She screamed as her skin came into contact with the white-hot bindings, fighting against the pain as her fingers worked to untie them. She got through both ankles first, biting back sobs, and when she was through untying one of his wrists, she felt his fingers wrap around her own wrist.
The pain—herpain—must have gotten through to him. His eyes were on her, like blazing suns one minute, a flash of silver the next, black as pitch and all over again. A perpetual eclipse. He gently pushed her aside to untie the last binding himself. It was only when Emory crumbled to her knees, her hands trembling in frontof her a burned, bloodied mess, that she truly registered the pain. It was like when Romie had grabbed a star in her hands when they’d first crossed the sleepscape together. She could feel the shock starting to set in, had never wished for her healing magic more than in this instant.
Sidraeus was suddenly crouched in front of her, holding her face in his hands, speaking words she couldn’t hear. She tried to focus on him, aware that he must be feeling her pain as his own, and yet he was fighting through it to calm her down.
Slowly, almost awkwardly, as if unused to offering such tenderness, Sidraeus pulled her toward him. She let her head fall against his shoulder as he held her there. Her breathing slowed, and she convinced herself the pain was nothing, numbing herself to it. There was only her and him and the weight of these wounds shared between them that felt lighter somehow.
Distantly, she heard Sidraeus saying something to her mother and Kai. Felt them standing on either side of her, resting a hand on each of Sidraeus’s shoulders. Stars began to swirl around them, and she knew Sidraeus was teleporting the four of them out of the Institute. She closed her eyes, nestling closer to Sidraeus. She kept them closed long after everything stilled again, when the brine of the sea enveloped her and a gentle breeze tugged at her hair. Kai left them with the promise of getting help. A healer, perhaps. Emory wasn’t sure, didn’t care, not as she and Sidraeus stayed like that for a while yet, holding each other in this clumsy embrace.
And she felt safe.
55ROMIE
ATHEIA STOOD IN THE RUBBLEof the Institute, mindless of the rain that fell on her through the torn roof.
Night had fallen since the destruction wrought by the prisoner escape. Crews of Regulators—what remained of them—were working tirelessly to extract bodies from the rubble, salvage Tidecaller blood vials and synthetic magics, and erect wards around the pockets of darkness that had appeared all over the decimated buildings.
Every single one of the Eclipse-born prisoners had escaped. And once they were free, the entire Eclipse wing had been swallowed up in one giant black hole. Almost as if the sleepscape had taken vengeance on the Institute in Sidraeus’s name. A sort of divine retribution.
Atheia felt the Tidal Council hovering behind her before any of them spoke, their displeasure sharp as a knife in her back.
“If you have something to say to me,” Atheia intoned flatly, “then say it.”
She turned to face them at their prolonged quiet.
“What happened here?” Leonie Thornby asked, face full of devastation. “There are dozens upon dozens of Regulators dead. The Eclipse-born prisoners have all escaped…”
“It was an ambush,” Atheia seethed. “There was nothing to be done against the gods waging battle here.”
“I hear they came for you,” Vivianne Delaune said with a hint of accusation in her voice. “Asking for Atheia and Sidraeus. The Tides and the Shadow. You’re supposed to protect your people, and yet you chose to stand there and let them kill so many Regulators, so many lunar mages?”
“You have no idea the lengths I am going to in order to save this world and you people,” Atheia said, feeling power rising within her, pent-up anger and desperation andshame.Because they were right: she was failing them all. There was a glint of fear in their eyes, and though it broke something in her, it also made her all the more furious that none of them could understand the righteousness behind what she was doing; the necessity of it all.
That’s what happens when you’re driven by revenge,Romie said.You lose track of yourself. No one here trusts you. You’re the Tides that were supposed to bring magic back to them, and look what you brought them instead: misery and death.
Stop talking,Atheia shot back.
She must have spoken aloud, because the Selenics tensed, watching her like she was a feral animal.
“It’s not just about those who died at the Institute,” Leonie said bravely. “We know what you did to the lunar mages who allied themselves with Emory. Virgil, Nisha, Ife, Javier. You told us you would only lock them up to teach them a lesson, yet you tortured them. Bled them to keep them weak. Regardless of their betrayal in siding with the Eclipse-born, their blood runs with the hallowedmagic of the Tides. They bear the sacred Selenic Mark, and that, to us, means something.”
Atheia barked a disbelieving laugh. “Like you people weren’t doing the same before I came? Imprisoning everyone and anyone who spoke out in favor of Eclipse-born, be they lunar or eclipse mage.”
“That was different,” argued Leonie. “These kids were members of our Order. Word of what was done to them has already spread within our network. Virgil Dade’s parents were especially interested to hear what their son has been subjected to. Powerful people, the Dades. They blame the Tidal Council for letting it happen, are threatening to sail here from the Outerlands as soon as they’re able to hold us all accountable and call for a change of leadership. I can’t say I disagree with them. We’re the ones who put our faith in you, after all. I see now that we were wrong.”
“I am the Tides,” Atheia hissed. “You all bowed to me once, and I had the power to choose who to share my magic with. Only the most worthy. I get to decide that still.”
