The way he dies… “You mean how he Collapses?”
“Taking that Tidecaller synth. Collapsing because of it.”
“But… why?”
“Because I wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Seeing Baz open his mouth to press him further, the boy added, “But that’s not why I wanted to meet with you. You’re trying to change Kai’s fate, right?”
“A fate worse than death, according to the god,” Baz said grimly. “The kind of oblivion that’s entirely irreversible.”
“Yes, well. Oblivion is what awaitsallof us if we don’t save Kai from his fate.”
“What?”
The boy shushed him as a few students looked their way, frowning as they likely couldn’t see the two invisible time travelers talking to each other.
“All I know,” the boy said in a low murmur, “is that Kai ends up in the deepest recesses of the abyss, what we in this world call the Deep—but not as a soul, not as someone who died. And because that’s never happened before… Well, let’s just say his fate isn’t something that’s fixed into the larger design of things. As such, it remains changeable.”
Baz’s mind raced, trying to imagine Kai in what was essentiallyhell.
“But what you’re attempting to do here, in this time, is futile,” the boy continued. “Kaihasto go through the door. You’re never going to be able to change this simple fact.” Before Baz could argue, the boy held up a hand. “Think of it this way: there are crucial points in the tapestry of fate, like sections of pattern that can never be undone. But the threads around those fixed patterns? Some are more fragile than others. Some are still waiting to be woven into the tapestry. Which means those are the threads you need to try and change. Kai going through the door, that’s an undoable pattern. But what comes after…”
“A loose thread,” Baz murmured, and the boy nodded. “But how do I get to Kai if I can’t follow him to where he is now? Does it mean I can’t save him from his fate at all? And what did you mean when you said we’ll all face oblivion if I can’t—”
“One thing at a time,” the boy interrupted with the ghost of a smile. “What you need to focus on is Kai, who youcansave… but not now. Not here in the past.”
He took out a neatly folded paper from his pocket and unfoldedit on the table between them. It looked like a school document that was typed up on a typewriter, but the paper was old and thinning. In between the faded block letters was tiny, handwritten script. And in the middle of the page, someone had drawn a tree. The top part of it was flourishing, while below, the roots twined in a way that could make a second tree, this one bare and dead looking, if the page were flipped.
In the middle of the tree was a spiral with a lock at its innermost point.
“What is this?” Baz asked.
“A ritual that might undo one of those undoable patterns. That might disrupt the entire fabric of fate.”
That might save Kai,was all Baz heard.
He studied the page closer, trying to decipher what the script said. “Wait—this is in another language!” he exclaimed. “Can you read it?”
“No. It’s the language of gods, a language very few know.”
“How is this helpful to me then?” Baz wasn’t daft enough to ask the god of balance to translate a ritual that might undo the very thing he lived for. “If no one can decipher it…” He stopped short as the answer came to him:Selandyn.The Eclipse professor was an Omnilinguist, able to understand all languages.
The boy was looking at him knowingly, as if he’d expected Baz to come to this very conclusion.
“Who are you?” Baz asked, trying to puzzle the boy out. His gut told him he could trust him, but there was something about him, about this whole situation, that set him on edge.
The boy gave him a sad smile. “I’m someone who wants the same thing you do. Which is why you can’t say any of this to the god. He can’t know you’re trying to undermine fate.”
“That ship’s already sailed, I’m afraid.”
“No, not like this. What you’re doing here? This time traveling?The god knows you won’t end up changing anything. Otherwise he wouldn’t have sent you. But this”—he tapped the paper—“this, he can’t find out about. Because this is your one shot atactuallychanging fate. Not just for Kai, but for all of us.”
“If you have this ritual, why haven’t you tried it yourself?”
“It’s hard to explain, but where I am now… rather, where I will be… I have a different part to play. This one’s yours.” He got up, his chair grating loudly on the floorboards. He studied Baz for a second, chewing on the inside of his cheek. There was something wistful in his eyes, something like regret, when he finally said, “I hope we see each other again.”
Baz stared at the drawing of the tree intensely. A question on his lips, he looked up—only to find the boy had disappeared.
Baz did not know how to make himself go back to the god’s workshop besides coming to the end of the time loop, so he sped up time until it was the night before his past self and the others would set out to undo the wards. He wanted a moment to himself to think all this through before he had to return to the god, and so he sat in the Eclipse commons, invisible, and studied the ritual the apprentice had given him well into the night.
