“Would you rather this had all been for nothing? That Thames died for us to just sit around here watching the worlds rot? That you will never see Baz again because you will die here wallowing in your self-pity?”
Now it was Kai’s turn to send him a look that promised violence. Perhaps Clover knew he was itching for a fight, and he was riling him up for that very reason. Clover held Kai’s gaze with his own impenetrable stare. And finally he sighed, leaning back against the windowsill Kai was sitting on.
“I apologize,” Clover said, looking at his hands with something like defeat. Contrition. He traced the silver spiral on his wrist. “You’re right. This place… with everything that’s going on, I haven’t let myself properly mourn Thames. I fear if I start reminiscing about him, I will think of Delia, and Polina, and all the world we’ve left behind. I fear I will falter and not do what’s needed of me at the end.” His throat bobbed. “The fears are too many. If I open the door to grief, to the memory of Thames, how deeply his death has wrecked me… I won’t survive it.”
Kai kept silent. He understood these fears more than most. Hiding behind armor. Making himself into an impenetrable fortress. Itwas what he’d always done. What he’d started toundothanks to Baz. What he had to do again now to keep himself from crumbling.
Clover’s hand on his made him look up. His turquoise eyes shone with regret. “I know it hasn’t been easy,” Clover said, low and raw. “For my part, I apologize. But we mustn’t turn on each other, or lose hope.” He leaned closer, full of determination. “Wewillmake this work. And in the end, we will be reunited with those we love, I’m sure of it.”
“I wish I had your optimism,” Kai said. He’d meant the words to be brittle, sarcastic. Yet they came out softer, and he realized the admission was true. “But you’re not the one slowly losing your mind.”
“You’re not losing your mind, Kai.” Clover grabbed his face and turned it so their eyes locked again. “And this optimism?” he said. “It can be shared.”
Kai felt warmth pour into him, a feeling of lightness he hadn’t known since going through the door. His eyes fluttered closed as the feeling deepened. He realized that Clover was using magic—Soultender magic, no doubt, to alleviate this dark cloud of emotions that hung over him. And though part of him hated being manipulated in such a way, Kai had to admit it was nice to finally feel like he couldbreathe.
“You see?” Clover whispered, making Kai open his eyes to find him smiling softly. “You don’t have to carry this burden alone, Kai. I’m here for you if you need me.”
The Soultender magic amplified further, making Kai lean in, craving this feeling of elation. Of lightness.
It dawned on him then how close he and Clover were. Clover still had a hand on his, another cupping his cheek, long fingers snaking their way behind his neck, threading into his hair. The candlelight cast flickering shadows on Clover’s face, which softened with a kind of openness Kai had never seen on him before.The pale turquoise of his eyes darkened as they flicked to Kai’s mouth, full of longing. Clover’s thumb swept over Kai’s cheek, his lips parting as he drew nearer, evidently taking the fact that Kai had not yet pulled away as an opening.
But Kai could see right through him. Behind the longing, the lust, there was just a boy looking to replace what he’d lost. A Nightmare Weaver for a Fear Eater. One Eclipse-born for another.
“Is this how you got Thames to worship at your feet?” Kai felt Clover stiffen as he leaned in to whisper, “Because it won’t work on me.”
Kai pulled back to see the hurt in Clover’s eyes, the vicious storm sweeping over his features as he snatched his hands back in indignant defeat, unexpected rejection.
A swell of satisfaction washed over Kai, even as the dark cloud of emotions returned with a vengeance now that Clover was no longer using his Soultender magic on him. Because that was what Clover was: a carefully crafted illusion. A masked manipulator. And here Kai was calling him out on his bullshit, poking holes in his relationship with Thames, wondering if it had ever been real.
I just wanted you to love me!Thames had yelled at Clover at the last.I wanted you to value me, to appreciate how far I was willing to go for your vision—ourvision.
Death. That was how far Thames had been willing to go for Clover. Kai doubted the reverse would have ever been true.
His question to Clover remained unanswered, but the fury in Clover’s eyes was answer enough. They both knew Kai could not be so easily duped—not when he’d seen the truth of Clover from the start.
Kai slid off the windowsill. “Better get some sleep,” he threw over his shoulder. “Sweet dreams, Cornelius.”
He hoped it sounded like the threat he’d intended.
6ROMIE
ROMIE BRYSDEN REMEMBERED THE MOMENTher life fractured like a tree trunk being cleaved in half, splitting into two distinct eras: before her father Collapsed, and after.
The before was full of happiness. It was bright and comfortable and warm. It was baking with her mother, the scent of pastries filling the Brysden household. It was playing outside with Baz, spending all their summers under the old willow tree behind the house. Play-acting scenes fromSong of the Drowned Gods. Lying in the grass and watching the willow leaves dance, rustling curtains parting to reveal clear blue skies. It was the certitude that life was good, that no harm could ever be done to her or her loved ones. That nothing could ever burst this dreamy bubble of existence.
It was naive. It was rosy-hued glasses that eventually shattered, forcing her to see the reality beyond her bubble.
Her father’s Collapsing made Romie notice all the cracks of darkness that had been there from the start. The frailty of hermother, who became rudderless without her husband. The fear that had always shaped her brother, which inevitably made him into a recluse, a ghost. The slippery, dangerous nature of Eclipse magic, this thing that Romie had grown up with, had always viewed as being part of her the way her family was part of her genetic makeup, the way they all shared the same blood. She had never understood why others sneered at and feared and othered Eclipse magic, until the proof of its destructiveness altered everything she’d believed.
Her father, this sweet, gentle man, turned into a killer because of it. Branded for the unstable magic in his veins. Held in the unsettling prison that was the Institute because of an accident, yes, but a crime nonetheless. (Much later, she would learn the truth about this day—that her father was not the one to blame for the rupture in all their lives, but Baz, who had Collapsed unknowingly, only for their father to take the fall.)
Back then, a part of her understood that her naive worldview was forever changed. But Romie hadn’twantedit to change, not when everything was already changing so much around her. Her father, gone and labeled a criminal. Her mother, fallen into a pit of depression so deep nothing seemed able to help her crawl out of it. Her brother, pulling back from Romie and everyone around him to the point where she feared she might lose him, too.
Someone had to be the glue that held them all together. Someone had to try to mend this rip between before and after. Romie wanted things to be like they used to be, joyful and loud and full of love. She wanted to silence this voice inside her that perked up whenever someone showed fear toward Eclipse-born, this dreadful, horrible voice that found itselfagreeingwith them. Because if someone as innocent and careful and steadfast as her father could do such horrible things with his magic, she’d thought, then no one was safe from the Shadow’s curse, this unhallowed destruction.
Romie hadn’t wanted to fear her brother’s magic or let this resentment for her father take root in her heart. So she’d put those rosy-hued glasses back on. Fought to bring that innocent, naive joy of the past back into their lives by remaining bright and buoyant despite all the hardships her family was going through. Because if she didn’t, everything would be plunged into irreparable darkness.
Act the part of the brave dreamer.
