He still wore that suit of emerald velvet, black veins peeking out of the collar, stark against his pale skin. That strange power of shimmering clouds interspersed with all the elements he’d imbibed from the previous set of keys swirled around him, making his veins flash silver and gold every few seconds. His turquoise eyes glinted eagerly as they took in the syrinx in Emory’s hand. A smile lifted his mouth.
“I was waiting for you to find it,” Clover said. “Only a true Tidecaller can take the syrinx off its altar.” He lifted a hand that was burned. “I tried taking it myself, but I’m afraid the divine power that’s in me makes me… no longer quite a Tidecaller.”
He extended that same hand to Emory. On his wrist was a spiral scar like her own, likely from when he’d first opened the door in Dovermere in the past. But while her own mark was silver, his was black, as if whatever corrupt power coursed through his veins had tarnished the mark, too.
“Give me the syrinx,” Clover said, “and I swear I will not harm your friends here with you.”
Emory only clutched the syrinx tighter. “What will you do with it?”
“Complete the ritual to summon and bind Atheia and Sidraeus to me.”
“And kill the keys in the process.”
Clover shrugged as if that was a small matter. “They were always meant to die.”
They were nearly the same words Sidraeus had told her, but Emory refused to accept them as fact.
There was a bloodcurdling scream upstairs—from who, Emory couldn’t tell. It was all it took for her to make her move.
Break the syrinx,part of her mind told her.
Wield it,the other part of her countered.
Emory brought the flute to her lips. She did not know how to play, did not have a single musical bone in her body, and for a moment she feared this magic wouldn’t be hers to wield, just as this world wasn’t hers to be in.
But she was a Tidecaller. Straddling the line between two magics, between two realms. Able to wield the ley lines that ran through all worlds, which coursed beneath her feet, concentrated in a knot of power here in the mountains.
Shecoulddo this.
And so Emory blew on one of the pipes.
The sound it produced was clear and true, drowning out Clover’s voice as he screamed, his mouth forming the wordNo. It was the last thing Emory saw before billowing shadows erupted around her, knocking back Clover and all the ash-umbrae. An oppressive swath of darkness rose around her, spinning like a hurricane, the wind so strong she thought she might rip apart at the seams. She was still blowing on the syrinx, the note dragging endlessly, and she could not stop, could not take the instrument away from her mouth.
All of a sudden, everything came to a halt. The music. The feeling of not being in control of her body. Emory held the syrinx away from her face, careful not to drop it. The cyclone had stilled around her. It looked like she was trapped in the eye of a storm frozen in time, in the center of a great spiral of shadowy clouds. Beyond, she could no longer see the temple—there was only impenetrable darkness with the faintest stars in the distance. It was as if she was back in the dark, empty space of her nightmares where she’d found herself with Sidraeus. Where it had felt like a thousand eyes were on her, ghostly voices whispering on a breeze.
And here they were again, calling her name.
Emory, Emory. Opener of doors, wielder of keys.
The words sounded layered, as if a thousand different voices were speaking in unison.
“Who are you?” Emory asked. Her own voice sounded odd to her ears, strangely muffled, as if she were underwater.
We are the dead. You summoned us, and so we answered.
“I…” Emory glanced at the syrinx in her hand. She supposed it made sense that the instrument was tied to the realm of death, if it was connected to the Soulless One—to Sidraeus.
What would you ask of us, Tidecaller?
There was warmth in that title, a note of familiarity. As if they knew her intimately, like all the ghosts her magic would call on whenever she used too much. And it didn’t scare her one bit. It felt like she belonged with them, and they with her.
“It’s not you I meant to summon,” Emory said after a moment, “but the one who rules over the realm of death. The one who used to ferry souls.”
Sidraeus.
The name was a hiss that slithered in endless echoes, spoken like a curse that grated against Emory’s every sense.
She felt all the blood leech from her face at the clear animosity the souls felt toward him. “I need—I need him.” She hated to admit it, but it was the truth. “He’s trapped in this realm without his body, a body he can only reclaim after another deity has been revived. I thought this instrument would allow me to bring him back before that happens, but… Please, I need his help if I’m to stop Clover. If I’m to save the worlds of the living you all used to call home.”
