Emory looked around to find Baz and the others in the crowd. “Do you know where this party is taking place?” Where were all the Selenic Order members and the Tidelore leaders and Regulators who’d been invited?
“No idea. They’ve been guarding the gates since this afternoon, so if anyone came in, it wasn’t from here.”
Could they have all come in through the Eclipse commons? Where was Atheia?
Baz caught her eye and motioned for her and Penelope to follow the rest of the protesters up to the quad. Emory’s heart raced as she climbed those eight steps, one for each of the moon’s phases. There were a few students out and about, walking across the frozen lawn or through the cloisters, probably on their way from their last classes or heading to the dinner hall. The apparent normalcy of their lives set a fire in Emory.
While Eclipse-born were forced into hiding, when one of their own had been killed while at the Institute, lunar students were going about their day without a care for anything that was happening to their Eclipse counterparts.
Part of her wondered if she would have been one of them had she never become a Tidecaller. Would she be ignoring the suffering of others if that suffering did not affect her? She hoped she wouldn’t. She was glad she’d never have to find out.
Students had noticed their large, masked group by now, some giving them odd, quizzical looks, some stopping completely in their tracks to murmur among themselves, some scattering off, unease written all over their faces. But others immediately joined in, whipping out Shadow masks of their own and growing the number of protesters gathered in the middle of the quad.
At Baz’s nod of encouragement, Emory stepped onto the ledgeof the Fountain of Fate, standing right next to the statue of Bruma. Murmurs spread through the quad like a rising tide, speculating about her identity.
“Is that Emory Ainsleif?” someone gasped.
Emory had a sudden sense of déjà vu.
That’s the girl who came back from the caves.
The student who survived the Beast.
The one the tide did not claim.
Except these murmurs now were twisted into something else, half excitement from the protesters, and half viciousness from the students keeping their distance, who whisperedTidethiefandhereticandrevenantandunhallowed.
Loudly, a student spat, “Get the Regulators! She’s the Shadow reborn!”
At this, Emory drew herself taller. “I’m not the Shadow reborn,” she said, hoping her voice carried and did not tremble. “But I am the girl who brought the Shadow back from the Deep.”
She extended a hand to Sidraeus, and when he took it, it was not only his flesh she felt against her skin, but the cold whisper of his umbra self. As he stood on the ledge of the fountain with her, his shadow detached itself from him like it was a being all its own, and it grew until it was higher than the fountain, until it towered over the entire quad, drawing gasps from the crowd. Before fear could mount, the giant crowned umbra was unmade before their eyes, dissolving into dark swaths full of twinkling stars that unfurled into the crowd like a blanket.
Some students still cowered in the cloisters, but others stepped forward in curiosity, gaping at the hundreds of stars hanging in the darkness that filled the spaces between protesters. Emory infused each star with magic that would make the beholder see fragments of truth in its glow: memories she had taken from Baz and Theodore and other Eclipse-born about the realities ofCollapsing and the bleak horrors experienced at the Institute; the truth of where synths came from, taken from the minds of Virgil, Nisha, Ife, Javier, and Louis; Emory’s own perilous journey from unlocking her Tidecaller abilities to learning to control the darker side of such gifts; Professor Sao’s gruesome, senseless death.
But for every hard truth, she made sure moments of beauty shone through as well, imbuing each star with memories full of joy and companionship and belonging that she’d shared with Baz and the other Eclipse-born. With memories of Sidraeus’s, too.
He had opened his mind to her, letting his memories pass through her so that the truth of who he was became evident to those around them. They left out the details of the role he’d played in the Tidecallers’ demise, sharing only the love he’d had for them, the pain of their loss that had sat with him through his centuries-long imprisonment in the sleepscape. The hope he’d always had of making the world better—not just for his own creations, but for everyone.
Emory hadn’t let herself use this much power since the sea of ash, but with Sidraeus at her side drawing the darkness from her, she felt invincible. There was power in the kind of magic she was wielding. It was like the fall equinox festival when lunar mages of all houses used their abilities to put on a show, only it wasn’t just awe she hoped to inspire here, but a spark of change. She saw it take hold in the faces of all those who looked at the stars, their heads lowered in shame and their eyes shining with horrified acceptance, as if they finally understood the kind of unjust world they lived in and the part they all played in it, consciously or not.
But as Emory and Sidraeus let go of their combined magic, as the darkness abated and all those stars faded, it became clear that some people were still unconvinced.
“Go back to the Deep,” someone yelled, eliciting murmurs of assent.
“You’re the reason our magic is fading!” another student intoned.
“The world is ending because of all you Eclipse-born. That’s what the Tidelore faith says!”
“That’s not true,” Emory yelled over the rising voices. “Yes, magic is dwindling and the world is in shambles, but that’s what we’re trying to fix. The Tidelore cult wants you to believe magic can only be restored by destroying Eclipse-born. Yet we’re the ones fighting to saveeveryonefrom the doom that—”
Something whirred past her ear and shattered against the statue of Bruma behind her. Had someone thrown arockat her? No. It was an arrow, exactly like the ones the Regulators had shot at her and her friends when they’d emerged from Dovermere.
“Shit,” Baz swore, his face drained of color. “We need to get out of here.Now.”
Dozens of armed Regulators had appeared in the cloisters, trying to get through the protesters. Damper cuffs shone at their belts, and power surged from them, clearly the result of some synth or other. They shouted at students to get back, some of them all too happy to comply.
Emory’s blood boiled as magic was flung their way, the Regulators clearly trying to get to the Eclipse-born. But she erected a protective ward over their group, keeping the Regulators from reaching anyone in the quad.
