“I’m sorry.” Emory’s voice broke on the words. “I’m so sorry, Ro.”
Romie’s ghost didn’t hug back, but her voice breathed in Emory’s ear.“Tidethief.”
That word, the cold delivery of it, made Emory go still. Was she in a nightmare? None of her ghosts had ever spoken to her outside of nightmares. And yet, none of them had ever felt so solid—and warm.
Emory pulled back with a jerk, holding Romie at arm’s length. This was Romiein the flesh.For a wild, hopeful second, Emory thought this meant maybe the keysweren’tdead. That maybe Atheia hadn’t come back.
She might have believed it longer if it weren’t for Romie’s eyes—no longer brown, but a rainbow of dancing colors, like a diamond in the light. A kaleidoscope.
“Romie?” Emory breathed.
She knew for certain it wasn’t Romie by the cruel twist of her mouth. Romie’s fingers dug into Emory’s arms, those unnatural eyes shifting like quicksilver, glinting like a blade about to come down in a killing blow. But Romie was yanked back suddenly as Clover tugged on a chain he held. Romie wore a collar like the one Clover had sought to fasten around Sidraeus’s neck, though hers was made of gold. Just like the lyre had been.
This was Atheia, Emory realized. And she was possessing Romie just as Sidraeus had possessed Keiran.
A leashed deity whose power was now in Clover’s hands.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter whose body you came back in, in theend,” Clover mused, watching Atheia tug helplessly at her collar. “Your power will still be mine.”
Atheia doubled over in pain as energy crackled at Clover’s fingertips. He was calling power away from her, Emory realized, as if the collar around her neck were a conduit between deity and monster. Clover tipped his head back, breathing in deeply as magic seeped from her and swirled around him in great clouds. Magic he meant to imbibe.
But something was wrong. Clover’s face scrunched up in furious concentration as he fought to draw more and more magic inside him. His breathing was coming in quick, short bursts, as if this power was too much for him to hold, even though Atheia’s power was only half of what he needed to make himself into a god.
Through the pain, Atheia managed a taunting laugh. “You fool,” she wheezed. “You can’t possibly think you, a mere mortal, can take on all my power.”
Clover’s gaze cut to Emory. “Call Sidraeus here.”
“What? I-I don’t—”
“He is bound to your will, is he not? You used the syrinx.So summon him.”
There was Glamour magic laced in the command, so even though Emory didn’t understand the specifics of the bargain she’d made—even though part of her wanted to fight back, to spare Sidraeus from falling into Clover’s hands—she did as commanded. She spoke Sidraeus’s name aloud, let it echo through her soul.
It’s a trap,she thought in warning.
Please come,she thought in desperation. Because even if all seemed hopeless, even if Clover couldn’t be stopped, she couldn’t possibly face him alone.
She did not notice, at first, the crowned shadow that loomed behind Clover, poised to strike. Without a sound, Sidraeus’s true form seemed to detach itself from this umbra-shaped shadow,stepping into the light. He had donned a jacket like the ones that the Songless wore, the navy and silver garment open to show his bare torso. The fabric was bloodstained, making Emory wonder how he’d gotten it, her mind wandering to the friends she’d left behind at the temple.
Atheia’s eyes widened as she spotted Sidraeus. She growled a fuming, murderous“You”that tipped Clover off to Sidraeus’s presence, but it was already too late. Sidraeus unleashed his magic on Clover, shadowy claws digging into skin as they wrapped around his neck and squeezed.
For a wild second, Emory dared to hope. But in that same breathless, heart-stopping second, ash-umbrae materialized all around Sidraeus, tearing him off Clover with an ease that should not have been possible. Clover whirled on him, turquoise eyes flashing hungrily as he reached for Sidraeus’s power. There was no collar to act as conduit between them, but the power he was taking from Atheia still crackled at his fingertips, and maybe that was what allowed him to draw from Sidraeus, too, bringing the deity to his knees.
If the fountain was limitless power, then Sidraeus and Atheia’s combined magic would be the same. And it was coursing through Clover… but it was burning him out. Just like the first Tidecallers who’d tried to siphon power from the fountain to give to Sidraeus.
If four of them couldn’t do it, then surely a single Tidecaller could not. But Clover wasn’t a Tidecaller anymore. Not entirely. Notonly. He had the power of the previous keys—of the fountain itself—running through him. And yet here he was, burning out. Perhaps the power had festered inside him, becoming useless. Perhaps the infinite, combined power of Sidraeus and Atheia was too great for him to contain.
But Clover was nothing if not relentless, and whatever was afflicting him seemed worse for Sidraeus and Atheia. Atheia—withRomie’s features—gritted her teeth and gripped the edge of the fountain. Sidraeus grunted in pain as he knelt in the ash, held down by twisted versions of his umbrae.
And that sight was the final straw for Emory. Seeing her best friend suffering in a body that was no longer hers to control. Seeing Sidraeus, therealSidraeus, hurt by an echo of his own creations.
It all came back to Clover. Emory would be damned if she let him hurt anyone else.
And here, perhaps, was her chance. Because in this moment, as he was burning out, Clover was vulnerable and not paying a single ounce of attention to her.
In him, Emory could feel the pieces of Atheia that he’d imbibed long ago. Tarnished beyond recognition, twisted into something that were no longer keys but still belonged to Atheia.
Something Emory could call on.
