For a moment, Baz didn’t understand—until he remembered the nightmare they’d shared the last time he’d gone back in time.
Whatever happens, promise me you’ll remember that… that I love you.
His last, desperate attempt to try to change fate. In some small way, it had worked—Kai had actually remembered what Baz had said to him in dreaming.
This couldn’t be the end of their story. Not after everything they’d gone through to get back to each other.
The hourglass called to Baz again. Purpose sang in his veins as in his mind he saw again how Kai’s and Luce’s fates were tied to Clover’s through whatever bond they shared. A triad of power, two points of a triangle condemned to hell, while the other was confined to the godsworld.
Above, below, side to side. A mirror, an hourglass, a scale onto which balance must be kept. A breath in, a breath out. Divine symmetry.
Baz sprang toward the hourglass with sudden clarity. This was the price of taking Kai and Luce out of the abyss: there needed to be someone to take their place, to balance the scales. A Tidecaller in the godsworld in exchange for a Nightmare Weaver and Dreamer in the abyss.
A reversal of fates.
If Clover were the one bound to the abyss, it would rid them of him for good, trapping his corrupt soul where it belonged. Maybe it would prevent the future Baz had seen, the bleak fate that awaited the worlds.
And if Kai and Luce were bound to the godsworld, Baz was willing to bet they could walk right through this portal—that the rules of heaven weren’t as cruel as those of hell, and it would letthem return to the realms of the living without resistance. Even if they couldn’t, they would still be better off ending up in the sea of ash rather than the abyss. From there, they could make their way through the doors back to their own world—back to Baz and Emory and everyone who wished to see them safely returned.
Baz’s hand touched the hourglass. A sense of rightness spread through him as he held those three fates quite literally in his hands, Kai’s and Luce’s connected to one side of the hourglass, Clover’s to the other. All the other threads within the crisscrossing pattern disappeared, retracting into the glass bulbs, until there were only these three shimmering lines unspooling from the hourglass. All Baz had to do was toturn it, and their positions would be reversed.
A turn of the glass, a reversal of fate, until Kai and Luce were above, and Clover deep down below where he had always belonged.
“Brysden,” Kai called out weakly. His legs were entirely turned to stone, and only his face was visible now beneath the roots.
“If this doesn’t work,” Baz breathed, “I’ll find you in godsworld.”
The ground beneath him tilted as he flipped the hourglass over.
38EMORY
THERE WAS NO ESCAPING THEwave of hungry souls that swept over the dark temple. They had made it past the ring of fire and raged so furiously against the protective dome of shadows Sidraeus had erected that it was barely holding, a flimsy defense around him. From the strain on his face, he wouldn’t last much longer.
Emory lowered herself down the ladder and fell with a thud at his side. She unleashed her own magic, weaving light through his shadows to reinforce the ward around them. She could only hope they’d buy enough time for Kai and her mother to find Baz and make it out of the portal.
Her mother.She still couldn’t believe it. There had been such recognition on Luce’s face, a mirror image of the hallucination Emory had been subjected to on the path, but there was no denying she was real here. It was odd to see her in the flesh, this person who had existed only in Emory’s imagination. Luce was younger than expected, given the time travel; she couldn’t be much older thanEmory herself, in her mid-twenties at most. But her eyes—her eyes held years and years of anguish, aging her into someone who’d been through too much in too short a lifetime.
Seeing her so close, Emory had realized shehadseen her before, when Kai had found her in the sleepscape once. And now she was here again, not in dream form, not a hellish vision, but real. So many hopes had risen inside her, hopes for a future in which she might get to know her mother, process all her tumultuous feelings with her.
But only if they got out of hell first—something these ghosts did not seem to want, their assault taking everything out of Emory.
She spoke to Sidraeus in her mind.What do we do? What is it that they’re after?
Magic,came his answer.Life itself. They must sense that a portal’s been opened, like the gods we felt rushing past us on the path. If they escape into the living worlds… I’ve never seen souls so restless, so hungry for chaos. We can’t let them escape.
The souls trying to claw their way through their magic were like wisps of stardust or ash, mostly immaterial, though translucent faces flashed in their midst. So many faces, young and old and unfamiliar to her, their mouths open wide in bone-chilling screams.
Tidecaller,some seemed to whisper.Use our power as your own, then set us free.
Emory realized what the souls of the dead wanted. They were a source of power, much like those that used to fuel the fountain and run through worlds to power the ley lines. To feed magic itself.
And if a Tidecaller were to call on them, they might harness the souls’ power. Just like Emory could harness the power of the ley lines.
With that kind of strength, she might be able to defeat Clover. Perhaps even to restore the broken worlds. The divine fountain itself.
Yes yes yes yes yes,the souls whispered, hungrier now, fighting more desperately to get to her. They were looking to escape this place through her.Use us, then free us.Another bargain with ghosts.
But their taunting whispers and inhuman howls had Emory wanting to claw her ears off and scurry as far away from them as possible. She didn’twanttheir power; it felt rotten to the core, twisted with a desperate anger she knew would twist her own soul, corrupt her beyond recognition. Like Clover.
