Equilibris gave him a pitiful look. “You broke that fate, Timespinner. Your Tidecaller will never have the kind of power Clover imbibed. She will never be strong enough to stop him. It’s only a matter of time before she dies, and by then, you’ll be begging me to reset the worlds. Only it will be too late, because my power will be spent, and the universe as we all knew it will end forever.”
Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless.
The words resounded in the silence that followed. Kai didn’t want to believe the god; he wanted to rage at this exhausting outcome. At his side, Baz was shaking his head in denial, tears welling in his eyes.
“If you don’t believe me,” the god said, “why don’t you see for yourself what Clover has done.”
He gave a snap of his fingers, and suddenly Kai and Baz were seized by those damn threads again, pulled into darkness and stars, their hands clasped tightly together, neither of them daring to let go.
41EMORY
CLOVER AND THE SOULS WEREgone. Baz and Kai, too—taken away by the god of balance to Tides knew where. There was Emory and Sidraeus and her mother, left on this path that was nearly gone too.
Sidraeus found her in the chaos, holding her steady. “We need to go through the door, quick.”
“I can’t leave without Baz and Kai.”
“Then I’ll stay. I can find them, bring them back.”
Emory saw the lie on his gaunt face. He was as drained of power as she was. Silver still danced faintly beneath her skin. She didn’t trust herself to use another drop of magic. Her eyes caught on her mother, trying to hold herself steady against the altar as the path came crumbling around them. If they didn’t get out now, all of them, they would die here.
So Emory made a decision. She grasped Sidraeus’s wrists tight. “I’m not leaving you, either.”
He looked almost relieved. And it broke her heart to realize thathe’d been willing to stay behind for her even knowing he might never come back out. This might be his domain, but it was crumbling before their eyes. There was no knowing if he’d survive it.
She pulled him toward the portal, let him go only to take hold of her mother’s hand instead. The three of them ran through the gust of glass and dust and wind and stepped through the doorway, unimpeded, as if hell no longer had a hold on any of them, as if this place that was falling apart was glad to see them go.
Emory fell on the floor of the Reaper room, wrists smarting as she hit the ground. Her mother lay on one side of her, Sidraeus on the other. She sat up and spun back to the tree, where the doorway was still open, the chaos within threatening to spill out. But then, all at once, the portal shut. As if, without anyone left on the path, it knew the ritual to be complete.
Emory helped her mother to her feet. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Luce panted. She eyed the muted silver veins on Emory’s wrists. “It’s you I’m worried about.”
“I’ll be all right.”
Luce reached a hesitant hand to Emory’s cheek, a soft smile gracing her features.
“Where are the others?” Sidraeus asked, breaking the moment.
Only then did Emory realize her friends weren’t here to guard the portal like they were meant to. Virgil, Nisha, Ife, Javier… where had they gone?
Sidraeus suddenly doubled over, his runes flaring bright silver. Whatever pain he was feeling brought him to his knees. Emory fell with him, hating that she couldn’t help him, that she was the reason he felt this pain to begin with.
“Emory!”
A man in a charcoal uniform was suddenly behind her, pulling her roughly off Sidraeus. There was the cold sting of metal at her wrists. She looked down in bewilderment to see damper cuffsthere. Her mother screamed her name again as she fought against another man’s hold.
The Regulators had found them. There were at least a dozen of them, dragging along Virgil, Nisha, Ife, and Javier, who were clearly Glamoured to stay silent and docile.
“Let my daughter go,” Luce growled, fighting with everything she had.
“Daughter? Well, isn’t this a lovely reunion,” cooed a familiar voice.
Appearing in the Regulators’ midst was Romie, eyes shifting like all the colors of the universe, like diamonds refracting light. She was dressed in sparkling white, a beaded gown that made her look like moonlight on water, like the moon itself, shining at its fullest. At her feet, writhing in pain, was an Eclipse-born Emory recognized from the safe house. Tortured by Atheia to bring Sidraeus to his knees.
The smile Atheia wore was victorious and full of malice. There was no hint of Romie in sight.
Four people wearing porcelain masks, one for each of the Tides, filed into the room after her. They were all dressed to the nines, and though their faces were covered, Emory recognized Leonie Thornby among them—Keiran’s great-aunt—and knew this was the Tidal Council.
