As if Atheia’s passing through here had unlocked it for her, eliminating the need for keys. Because shewasthe keys, and they were her.
For a second, Emory let herself hope that the doors being open might mean the worlds would stop dying, the power from the fountain able to flow freely through worlds again. But the image of the empty fountain flashed in her mind, and the ley lines beneath her feet still felt wrong, rotten. The fountain was dead. It didn’t matter if the doors were unlocked; there was no flow of energy feeding into the ley lines, and so the worlds would keep dying.
There had to be a way to replenish the fountain.
But first: stopping Atheia from destroying the Eclipse-born.
With one last look over her shoulder, Emory left the stormy world behind and stepped into the sleepscape. They walked up and up the spiraling path of stars until they reached the already-open door that led into the Heartland’s Sunforge—the door Emory had blasted open. Here, they said goodbye to Vivyan and Ivayne, who understandably felt the need to go back to their own world to deal with the rot spreading there, too.
“I trust you’ll give him hell if he steps out of line,” Ivayne said as she hugged Emory, clearly meaning Sidraeus. He hung a few steps back, the lines of his body taut while he scanned the sleepscape, as if he couldn’t wait to get out of here.
“I will,” Emory said, certain he could hear them. “Say hi to Gwenhael for us, will you?”
Ivayne squeezed Emory’s arm like a promise before joining her mother at the threshold to their world.
“Be safe, all of you,” Vivyan said with a doleful smile.
And just like that, the two draconics were gone. They hadn’t been with them for very long, but parting ways felt like another gutting loss that Emory couldn’t bear.
The rest of them kept going through the sleepscape. WithSidraeus walking alongside them, they didn’t need to go through each individual world again. He would lead them directly to their own.
And so they bypassed the marble door with the knotted knob that would lead to the Wychwood. Kept going along the path, feeling the darkness pressing in, making breathing harder and harder the farther they went, the longer they stayed in this realm they were not meant to exist in. Only Emory was fine. And Sidraeus, too, who belonged to this realm despite not wanting to be confined to it.
Finally, they came upon the silver door adorned with etchings of waves.
Emory nearly burst into tears upon seeing it, remembering the last time she’d been here, finally reunited with Romie. And now she was returning without her, but with a tiny hope that she might still save her.
Emory pushed against the door, the silver cool against her skin, a feeling of rightness singing in her blood.
They were going home.
15ROMIE
ATHEIA BLEW THROUGH THIS WORLDshe once knew so well, her heart breaking at the storm-wrought destruction. She could feel the ley lines beneath the earth, these rivers of power that the fountain fed into. Except the fountain was dried up, and the power that trickled here was foul, spoiling the magic she had created.
Everything had changed, yet Atheia still knew where to find the way to the previous world. The door that stood there—locked by the gods to seal the way between realms—angered her. She still remembered when the doors had been open, when the ley lines flowed freely between realms, the divine power of the fountain running like healthy bloodstreams. That was no longer the case.
Atheia blasted through the door with a scream that sounded like a howling of wind, calling on all the elements of this world to unlock the door. She was not going to be kept out. She was the keys, after all. And while, before, she would have needed Sidraeus to help her cross through the sleeping realm on an eclipse, shefound she did not need him now. As if being brought back together again had shattered whatever limitations had existed on her before.
Atheia forced herself to go through each world the same way. In the Heartland, she moved through the unnaturally cold lands as embers on a breeze, lamenting the absence of dragons in the sunless skies. In the Wychwood, she ran through the root systems beneath the earth, despairing at the rot that festered there. And finally, she flowed into the world she had always loved best, where the moon and tides had always welcomed her home.
She fell to her knees in the wet sand, a sob slipping from her vessel’s lips as icy waves lapped over her legs, washing the blood from her hands. The blood her vessel had spilled to allow her to come back.
It was strange, being in a body not her own. But the girl—Romie—had been right: the similarities between them coursed through Atheia as she let the girl’s memories, her very essence, wash over her. Dreamers, both. Resentful, both, of those who carried Sidraeus’s magic—though the girl was trying very hard to pretend otherwise.
And most of all, both were grieving the loss of the others who had carried a piece of Atheia. The others she had sung to, calling them to each other, to the sea of ash that was once the godsworld, so that she could return to the realms of the living she so dearly cared for.
Aspen, Tol, Orfeyi,her mind supplied as Romie’s memories of them rose to the surface.
Atheia listened more closely to the faint trace of her vessel’s essence that still remained. At the forefront of her emotions was a great, endless grief for these friends she had made. The sense of loss was harrowing. Romie had felt such a strong sense of kinship to Aspen, Tol, and Orfeyi, and now they were gone. Killed.
If only Emory had listened to me. If only she hadn’t shown up.
A tangled web of emotions sprung up at the thought of her Tidecaller friend. On the one hand, Romie was relieved Emory had not been harmed. On the other, she couldn’t help but place part of the blame for the keys’ deaths on her. Emory hadn’t trusted her, and everything had gone wrong because of it.
The brunt of Romie’s rage, though, was reserved for Clover.Hehad been the one to kill the keys. He was the Tidethief Romie wanted to see destroyed.
Just as Atheia wanted to destroy Sidraeus—to eradicate the stain of his magic.
