Emory’s throat closed up. “I couldn’t stop the keys from being sacrificed.” She struggled to get the words past her lips. “And Romie became Atheia’s vessel.”
Nisha’s shoulders dragged low, a strangled sob torn from her lips. There was no real surprise in her reaction, as if she’d already pieced as much together but had not wanted to believe it.
There was a weighted silence, heavy with grief, as the horror of it all settled over them. Emory pushed to her feet, Virgil and Vera helping her up.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Virgil asked.
His face was drawn tight as he eyed Emory’s bloodied middle. Emory couldn’t help but notice the trembling of his hands, the gauntness of his expression.
“Areyou?” she asked, glancing between him and Vera. They both looked utterly spent, just as the others did. “What happened at the temple? How did you all get here?”
“Not withhishelp, that’s for certain.” Ivayne spat, eyes narrowed on Sidraeus, who glared right back at her. She and her mother still held their blades to his throat. “The Night Bringer left us there to fend for ourselves against an army of Songless, not even deigning to tell us what had happened to you.”
The Night Bringer. So they knew who he was, despite him wearing a different face.
Emory could picture the scene that must have played out at the temple after Clover had whisked her away: Sidraeus climbing up to the cave where her friends had been facing the Songless; the Songless attacking him, perhaps not recognizing his power as that of the true Soulless One; Sidraeus unleashing himself on them, reminding them exactly where their magic had once come from; and then vanishing from thin air as Emory summoned him to her side.
“There were so many of them,” Vera said, face pale. “The Songless would have killed us if it weren’t for Ivayne and Vivyan and—well, let’s just say we almost didn’t make it.”
Emory didn’t miss Vera’s furtive glance at Virgil, nor the way his eyes remained downcast. Blood dripped from a wound in the palm of his hand, a telltale sign that he’d bloodlet. Bleak understanding dawned on her: he must have used his Reaper magic.Had likely taken a life in order to save his own, and their friends’.
“What about him—should I cut him down where he kneels or are you able to control him now that he’s bound to your will?” Vivyan asked, propping the tip of her blade under Sidraeus’s chin.
His attention had been on the Godsgate, as if he were planning to disappear as Atheia had and follow her to the end of all worlds if he must. Now he looked at the draconics with cold calculation, the lines of his body tensing like he was about to disarm them. But then, as if feeling Emory’s eyes on him, his gaze caught on the bloody dagger still in her hand. She gripped it tighter in warning.
“I can’t exactly control him,” Emory said without letting her focus waver from Sidraeus, “but he’s not a threat, and he can still be of help.”
Yet the draconics didn’t put their swords down as Sidraeus rose to his feet with a scowl, and neither did Emory’s grip loosen from her dagger.
“How did Atheia do it?” she asked Sidraeus. “Vanish like that?”
It looked like it took everything out of him to give her a response. “A power of hers, to take the shape of the elements of whatever world she’s in. I expect she’s heading to the previous world’s door. She won’t stop until she reaches your world.”
To wash away the stain of what you created…
Understanding hit Emory. That was what Atheia meant when she said she’d start where it all began.
“She means to eradicate Eclipse magic.” Emory breathed the words out in disbelief. It was the only explanation for Atheia’s threat, except… “I thought Atheia couldn’t travel between worlds without you to guide her through the sleepscape.”
Sidraeus gave her a hard stare. “I suppose she’s unbound from the previous conditions that tethered her to the living realms, just as I seem to be untethered from mine.”
Emory hadn’t even thought of it. Before, when Sidraeus was stillroaming these worlds with Atheia, he’d never once done so in his true form. Atheia had found a way to bring him into the living realms, yes, but only as his shadow self—as an umbra. He’d wanted to experience the realms of the living as his true self. And now he could, thanks to the bargain Emory had made through the syrinx.
She didn’t expect him to see it that way. The hatred in his glare, the hint of betrayal behind it, burned through her core.
The world shook again, sending everyone tumbling.
“We need to get out of here,” Vivyan said. “Get somewhere safe.”
“Where?” Ivayne huffed. “Nowhere feels safe now.”
“With Inga and her people?” Vera suggested. “Just to regroup. Figure out our next move.”
“Hold on,” Virgil said, turning to Emory, “what did you mean about AtheiaeradicatingEclipse magic? What would that mean for you, Em? And Baz, and Kai? If Atheia gets rid of Eclipse magic somehow, do you all just… die?”
Emory looked at Sidraeus for an answer, but he evaded her gaze. “I don’t know,” she said. “But she’ll stop at nothing, not even the end of the worlds, to see it done.”
“Then we need to go home,” Nisha said. She’d been quiet until now, the mix of devastation and grief and determination on her face an echo of how Emory felt. “We need to stop her.”
