What are you thinking?
Emory’s heart somersaulted as she caught Sidraeus’s eye. The telepathic connection between them had reopened with the return of her magic, and hearing him in her mind felt suddenly much more intimate than before. She tried not to think of his lips on hers, the memory begging for as much attention as the keys, as she told him of her idea.
Do you think we can trust him?she asked, meaning Farran.
Your mother and the Nightmare Weaver seem to think so.
Emory recalled the words Kai had said at her bedside—that Farran had been manipulated by gods all his life, and they couldn’t keep blaming him for it.
Deciding to take the leap, Emory finally spoke, interrupting whatever conversation the others had been having. “I have an idea how we can get to Clover.” Her gaze swept the room and landed on Farran. “But it involves something you might not like.”
Emory, Baz, and Kai stood in the tall grass overlooking the beach below. Emory’s magic rendered them invisible in case the wards they stood behind didn’t suffice. On the outside of the wards, walking toward the water’s edge, was Farran—dragging a bound Sidraeus.
They heard Farran shouting at the skies. “Gods of the living! I’ve got what you want—so come and claim him. Use me as your emissary again, I implore you.”
The skies thundered ominously above. For a while, nothing more happened as Farran kept shouting his invocation of the gods. And then something rippled on the wind, and Farran gasped, his head tilting up, his mouth open, the muscles of his neck tensing. He stretched his neck in an odd, languorous motion, and when he opened his eyes again, they were the ever-shifting colors of the gods.
“Let’s go,” Emory whispered to the others.
Baz and Kai stepped out of the wards in tandem with her just as Farran—the gods—grabbed Sidraeus by the throat, a wicked, hungry smile on their face. Seeking their chance to grab the one half of the equation they needed to sacrifice to the fountain.
With Baz’s magic speeding up time, they were on them in a second, Emory lifting the invisibility around them just to see the shock register in the gods’ eyes. The tattoos on Kai erupted in bright silver as he shoved Farran back from Sidraeus. The gods snarled at him, at the three of them standing as a protective barrier in front of Sidraeus.
“You’re not going to lay a hand on him,” Emory said. “But you are going to help us lure Clover. And then I’m going to defeat him.”
They scoffed dubiously at her. “The keys won’t be enough for you to defeat Clover, especially now that he and Atheia are working together.” They sneered at the shock on Emory’s face. “So you see? Sacrificing Sidraeus and Atheia to the fountain sowecan take our power back is the only option there is.”
“No. You’re going to do this our way.”
“Why would we do that?”
“Because you’ll never be able to get to Atheia now,” Sidraeussaid, “not when you don’t have your full power and she has allied herself with Clover.”
“And because I’m not the only one with the language of gods on me,” Kai added, “and we’re more powerful than you give us credit for.”
Out of the wards stepped Rusli and other Luaguan Eclipse-born, their own tattoos illuminated silver. Tala’s safeguard against gods, activated while in their vicinity. A threat to the gods, a way to show them they had power in numbers.
Emory grabbed hold of Sidraeus’s hand, feeling the souls of the Tidecallers all around her, alive as they had been when they’d ejected the gods from her at the Institute. “This is how we defeat Clover and put the worlds—your worlds—right again.”
59ROMIE
WORD OF WHAT HAD TRANSPIREDat the Institute traveled fast. When Atheia returned to Aldryn College a few days later, the reception she received was cold. There was another protest in motion calling for justice for Eclipse-born after those who’d escaped from the Institute shared their stories loud and wide. On top of that, whispered rumors ran rampant of the carnage that had taken place at the Institute, of the Tidal Council turned to stone by Atheia’s own hand.
No one trusted her anymore, not even the people who’d previously been so loud about their views against Eclipse magic. She was here to put an end to that.
When the gods had called on her earlier that day and asked to meet here, Atheia had agreed, pretending she had seen reason and was willing to give herself up. But she had other plans in mind for them.
The gods stood in the center of the quad next to the Fountain of Fate, surrounded by people from all over who were calling forInstitutes to be shut down and Regulators and Tidelore leaders to be held accountable. Demanding answers from the Tides of Fate themselves—not only answers, but the magic she had promised them and failed to deliver on. No one seemed to bat an eye at the vessel of gods standing in their midst. They had reclaimed their emissary, who’d made a miraculous recovery.
In their possession was Sidraeus, bound at the wrists.
Atheia hadn’t anticipated this. “Did you get yourself captured again so soon, Sidraeus?”
“I’m here of my own volition.”
His unexpected answer gave her pause. “Why the binds, then?”
“It’s to ensure he doesn’t go back on his word,” the gods answered. “But it is true: Sidraeus here has valiantly offered himself to us in sacrifice. The question is, daughter: Will you?”
