Nisha’s face went bloodless, her hand covering her mouth.
“What happened?” Ife asked in a horrified whisper.
“She knew we were spies,” Louis said grimly, wiping the tears from his face. “She looked into our minds to find out where thesafe house was and brought us here with her magic. She’s already gone,” he added quickly as everyone tensed, glancing nervously around them. “Said she only wanted to deliver a message. To the Shadow.”
As if conjured by the name alone, Sidraeus appeared behind Emory, clearly no longer affected by the pain he’d felt now that the woman was dead. His face was tight with some unreadable expression as he looked at the body.
And that’s when Baz realized why he’d thought the woman’s skin looked wrong: spirals had been carved all over her, the lines raw and caked with dried blood. As if to make a mockery of the silver spirals on Sidraeus.
Sidraeus’s ecliptic eyes swirled angrily at what Atheia had done—at what Romie had been forced to do with her own hands, the Tides acting through her.
A heavy silence settled over the beach. The wind howled around them, the waves crashing silently in the distance. And then Baz noticed the shadows gathering around Sidraeus. He seemed to be trembling with fury. He took a step away from the body and began to disappear, but Emory yelled a desperate “Don’t!” before launching herself at Sidraeus.
And the two of them vanished.
30EMORY
EMORY CLUNG TO SIDRAEUS’S ARMfor dear life as stars rushed past them at dizzying speed. The moment she’d seen the rage on his face, she’d known he would go after Atheia, his desire for revenge rekindled with a passion. But he must not have expected her to grab on to him. She heard him swear as her grip loosened around him and she nearly let go. Then his hands were around her wrists, a viselike grip to keep her from being swallowed by the soaring emptiness around them.
Emory’s ears popped as the darkness abated and bright light made her squint. There were cobblestones beneath her feet, a familiar street bordered with quaint stone cottages and shops. In the distance, she could just make out the outline of Aldryn College sitting atop its hill.
They were in Cadence.
Sidraeus shoved away from her. “Why did you do that?”
Emory gaped at him. “Why didyougo off like that?”
The streets seemed completely empty—no doubt Cadence hadbeen evacuated, given the intensity of the tides and its proximity to the shoreline. Still, at the sudden shriek of gulls nearby, both Emory and Sidraeus tensed, expecting their raised voices to have sounded some alarm. Sidraeus invaded her space and all but dragged her into the dark alley behind them. He towered over her as he cornered her against the wall, shadows swirling around him.
“What Atheia did crossed a line,” he said in a low voice that was more terrifying than the shouting. “And she needs to pay.”
“You promised me you wouldn’t go after her. That you wouldn’t hurt Romie while she’s her vessel.”
“I made no such promise.”
“Going after Atheia will only spark more hatred against us Eclipse-born, you said so yourself. We have a plan—”
Sidraeus huffed a bitter laugh. “If you can even call it that.”
“Please. We need to do this right.”
The sound of approaching footsteps had Sidraeus pressing in close, hands resting on the wall on either side of Emory’s head to trap her there. A thick swath of shadows enveloped them both just as a Regulator appeared at the mouth of the alley. He stopped and glanced their way with a frown. But he couldn’t see them—not as they blended with the shadows and were rendered further undetectable by the Wardcrafter magic Emory called on.
When the Regulator finally moved on, Emory kept her ward up even as the shadows around her and Sidraeus dissipated. Her mouth went dry as she realized just how close they stood, with her still pinned between him and the wall.
Her gaze dropped involuntarily to his mouth, farther down still to the spirals on his neck as his throat bobbed. The image of the Luaguan professor, those horrible scars like a mockery of Sidraeus’s, flashed in her mind. The way Sidraeus had doubled over in pain before they’d found her…
“How badly did it hurt?” Emory asked in a small voice, all tooconscious that this was her doing—that she had allowed this bond between him and other Eclipse-born to exist.
The same thought seemed to flash in his eyes. For a second, fear spiked inside her. His hands on either side of her, so close to her neck… she was putting her life in the hands of a deity who could easily kill her. But Sidraeus shoved off her, his back hitting the opposite wall. It still didn’t leave much space between them in this cramped alley, but Emory found herself releasing a breath all the same, especially as Sidraeus slid down into a crouch.
“The pain, I can handle,” he said gruffly as he rested his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. “I’vebeenhandling it these past few days.”
That must be why he’d kept to himself, Emory thought. Suffering in silence at all the pain, however small, that Eclipse-born from all over were experiencing.
“Distance makes the pain bearable, like a constant scratching that’s easily tuned out,” Sidraeus continued. “But this… mutilating that poor woman to mirror my own scars… Atheia knew exactly what she was doing. Reminding me just how much my people have suffered because of me.” He opened his eyes to look up at Emory, full of anguish. “I failed them back then, and these runes won’t let me forget it.”
The admission, as well as the position they found themselves in, made Emory remember how vulnerable he’d looked when he’d first appeared in his true form. She wanted to reach out to him like she had then, lay a hand on him to provide comfort.
