A million calculations ran through Baz’s mind. He glanced around them, looked up at the stairs that led to the Eclipse commons. It would be best to do it there, as the walls of Obscura Hall were heavily warded in the eventuality that an Eclipse student Collapsed, so that the blast wouldn’t bring down the entire college. But here on the deserted beach, with nothing but wild grasses and sand and rock for miles around…
Once the brand was lifted from Kai’s skin, his magic would wake. He would once again be able to use it. But the seal served as protection against the full force of his Collapsing, and if Baz got rid of it, then that raw energy would be unleashed, uninterrupted and unrestrained. The blast might not damage the school, or the beach they stood on, but as for Baz…
“Just do it,” Kai urged.
“Are you sure?”
There was a challenge in his eyes. “It’s like you said: if you can survive it, then I sure as hell can.”
And Baz had time on his side. He could shield himself from the blast of Kai’s Collapsing with it, make it so it never reached him. A barrier to hide behind.
“I trust you, Brysden.”
Those words settled between them, an agreement struck. Baz took a few steps back out of precaution. Kai straightened, steeling himself for what was to come.
The sight was an eerie one: the Nightmare Weaver in the pale clinical clothes of the Institute, standing in the middle of a field of tall grass that swayed in the wind. The dark sea at his back. Thunderclouds above his head.
Baz let out a grounding sigh. The threads of time called to him, and instinctively, he reached for them. He turned back the dial on the brand on Kai’s hand, and it was easy to do because it was the same thing he’d done with Emory’s Collapsing, the same he’d done again just now when he’d stopped Kai’s magic from turning to ash. The seal disappeared to a time when it did not yet exist, and just like that, the Nightmare Weaver was free of his restraints.
Silver veins rippled beneath his skin.
Kai smiled, a dangerous thing.
And then he erupted—his Collapsing barreling forward like an overfull dam bursting in heart-stopping fashion.
Silver light leeched all the color from the world. Kai was a star in collapse, a great shaft of lightning burning through the field, and in that brilliant blaze, he came undone and was remade anew. A scream tore from his throat as the force of his Collapsing rippled through him. None of it touched Baz, the space between him and Kai held just outside of time, rippling with Baz’s own magic.
Everything will be all right, Baz thought, his father’s words ringing in his ears. He might have shouted them to Kai—he wasn’t sure, couldn’t hear himself breathe over the force of the blast.
Kai’s screaming honed to a sharp laugh as he fell to his knees, an indistinct shape in the middle of a supernova. And just when Baz thought his Collapsing might have gotten the better of him, all the light extinguished, whooshing back into Kai. Silver veins still danced faintly under his skin, in the whites of his eyes, but when he looked at Baz, he was still alive, still Kai.
He smiled that sharp smile before falling limply to the scorched earth beneath him.
“Kai!”
Baz was at his side in seconds. His hands reached wildly for Kai’s convulsing body, thinking something horribly wrong must have happened as he heard the sound wheezing from Kai’s lips.
But then he realized Kai was smiling—that it was laughter he shook with. And not his usual snide or snark, but such pure, joyous laughter that Baz couldn’t help the hysterical laugh that rippled through him, too.
There were tears in Kai’s eyes when he finally stopped wheezing. He looked up in wonder at the storm clouds over their heads. “I told you, Brysden,” he mused. “There’s no Shadow’s curse. Only this.” His head tilted to face Baz. “I feel… whole. Like this is what being Eclipse-born is supposed to be.”
And here beneath the storm-ridden skies, those words rang true in Baz’s soul.
All their lives, the Eclipse-born lived in constant fear of losing control of their magic, this thing that had no limits but the Collapsing itself. The nature of such power made it undeniable, like the pull of the moon on the tides or the song that called his sister to the Deep. Hard to resist, harder still to control.
Magic sustains us like air, his father had taught him long ago. Go without it and you suffocate. Keep too much in your lungs and you’ll burst. The key is taking carefully measured breaths.
But the truth was they could fill their lungs with it, this power. They could breathe it in and let it consume them, and once they breathed it out again, they’d be whole.
There was no Shadow’s curse. The Collapsing didn’t eclipse them, didn’t eradicate who they were. It wasn’t a limit at all but a threshold—a way to tear down the boundaries they’d created around themselves.
Their blood ran with all the power of the eclipse. Light and dark, fleeting and rare and beautiful.
Baz drew in a shuddering breath, his nose full of the smell of the sea. He pulled himself up and Kai along with him.
“Let’s go to Dovermere.”
They would show Keiran the full might of the Eclipse.
37 EMORY
LIZAVETA FELL LIMPLY TO THE ground, coughing up blood. Her hands fluttered to her throat, where the knife was still lodged. Emory moved toward her, drawing on her healing magic, intending to wrench the blade from her throat—
“Don’t,” Keiran said.
A single word laced with Glamour magic, and all the fight winked out of her.
Emory stared at Keiran, hoping to see something on his face that would make this all okay, that would refute everything he’d said, unmake the last few minutes, hours, until they were back in his room, just two embracing bodies dappled in morning sunlight.
Yet even that thought made her sick.
“How could you do this?” She hated her voice for its brokenness.
“I did this for you, Ains, can’t you see? To be the Tides’ vessel… Think of all that power you’ll have coursing through you. The full might of the Tides in your veins. There’s nothing more sacred.”
Emory flinched away from his reaching hand. Hurt flashed in Keiran’s eyes. He was gilded in the glow of lanterns, ever the embodiment of his tidal alignment, even now. A light in the dark.
Except he was the darkness.
Emory’s fists uncurled at her sides. “Was any of it real?”
“Of course it was.”
And there was such fervor in those words, how could she not believe him?
Yet Lizaveta’s death-still body was at their feet and the others in their unnatural slumber around the Hourglass and there was no overlooking this, no way to spin this in his favor.
“I told you that you have a hold on me, and I meant it, Ains. This pull between us, this attraction… It’s undeniable.”
Emory drew back with a shake of her head. A wretched, rotten feeling twisted in her stomach, festered in her mouth. How easily she’d fallen under his spell. He’d known exactly what she wanted and had used it to his advantage—the same way she’d used Baz’s feelings for her to her own, she realized with a pang of guilt. She’d craved to be seen and desired by someone like Keiran, someone magnetic and gorgeous who made her feel so very important, so much so she’d ignored all the red flags, ignored the suspicions she’d had when she first started this.