Surely, he had to know just how much she cared that Romie was gone. She felt like all these plants around them, left to wither away in Romie’s absence. And though the rot had started to set in the moment they’d arrived at Aldryn, with Romie pulling away from her so inexplicably, Emory had still felt like there’d been something salvageable between them then. Now it was too late.
She couldn’t save what had been lost, but she could find the reason behind it, at least.
“I would do anything to not have to miss her like this,” she breathed.
Baz stared quietly at his feet. “Thank you,” he said after a beat, taking his hands from his pockets. “For the truth.”
Emory swallowed past the guilt. “It’s the least I can do.”
Her shoulders dropped as he took a step back toward the rickety door, thinking that was the end of it, that she hadn’t been able to sway him. But then he stopped, heaving a sigh. “If you agree to take this seriously and do the work, then I’ll do it. I’ll help you.”
She blinked at him. “You’re serious?”
“No using your magic until we figure this out. And if I decide it’s too dangerous—if your magic becomes too much of a threat to you and me and everyone around us—you go to the dean.”
“All right.”
“I mean it, Emory. If I say we stop, we stop.”
“We stop.”
He studied her face. The dwindling light was reflected in his glasses in a way that she couldn’t quite make out the look in his eyes. Finally, he said, “We start tomorrow. Decrescens library, seven a.m. sharp.”
“I swear I won’t be late this time,” Emory said, trying to lighten the mood.
Baz pushed the door open with his shoulder. “Please don’t make me regret this.”
Alone in the greenhouse, Emory looked at the decay around her and thought perhaps it wasn’t too late to mend things after all.
SONG OF THE DROWNED GODS
PART II:
THE WITCH IN THE WOODS
There is a world not far from our own where things grow wild and plenty.
The soil is rich from decaying flesh and bones and another sort of magic entirely. Trees have roots planted firmly in the underworld and hands that graze the heavens. Everything is tinged in greens and browns and smells of earth and moss as the skies rain down their blessings and marvel at how the world below awakens, stretching its limbs to bask in its own luxuriance.
At the center of this world lies the Wychwood, a forest older and wilder than any other. It is the source of all growth and greenery. Veins run from it, pump magic and other nutrients into the land, and at its helm is the singular witch tasked with protecting it. She is the rib cage that wraps around the heart of the world, her very skin and bones made to keep the Wychwood safe. To ensure each cog in the wheel of life works as intended.
This is not her story, at least not entirely. She is a part of a whole, for where there are flesh and bones surely there must also be a beating heart and flowing blood and a soul to fill the spaces between. The witch knows this, and so she waits for one of these crucial parts to find her, alone in her fortress of roots and rot.
Patience, the trees whisper. Take heart.
The first to find her is the scholar from our shores, with the stories he inhales and the words he exhales, as much sustenance to him as air. （Perhaps it would have been a more fitting metaphor to call him the lungs, but in truth he is much more like a bloodstream, for magic runs in his veins as he runs through worlds like rivers to the sea and blood through arteries.） He knows now that to return to his sea of ash, he must first sail to other shores, other worlds, seek the stories there that might carry him farther than any sailor has gone before.
And here is the first.
Have you come to seek the drowned gods? the witch in the woods asks him, for she, too, has heard their call.
The moon and sun and stars collectively sigh.
They know the story has only just begun.
8 BAZ
“FIRST LESSON IS: TRY NOT to kill anyone.”
Emory glared at him from across the table, clearly not amused by his lame attempt at a very bad joke. Baz could almost hear Kai snickering at him over his shoulder. Smooth, Brysden.
They sat in an alcove between the Dreamer and Memorist sections of the Decrescens library, a wide variety of books strewn open between them on the table. Rain pattered against the small stained-glass window above, creating an illusion of dew on the deep purple poppies it portrayed.
Emory toyed with her disposable coffee cup, picking apart the rim piece by flimsy piece. “You know, in the papers they’re saying Travers’s death was from natural causes. Mysterious drowning incident at Dovermere, they called it.”
Baz snorted. He’d read the newspapers. An inquiry had been made into Travers’s death, and expert Shadowguides, Healers, Reapers, and Unravelers alike had deemed it mysterious, sure enough, but natural all the same, ruling out any kind of foul play. “As if there’s anything natural about Dovermere.”
Emory remained quiet at that. She took a sip of coffee, giving a pointed look at the untouched cup she’d brought him. An offering, even if a tasteless one. “Are you going to drink that?”
“Oh. I, uh, don’t drink coffee, actually.” At least not that sorry excuse for it the campus coffee carts sold.
“There’s a stain of it on your shirt,” Emory pointed out.
Baz eyed the telltale brown patch on his favorite cream-colored sweater and palmed the back of his neck. “I just… prefer to brew my own.”
Tides, did that really sound as pretentious as it felt saying it?
Emory’s mouth thinned. She glanced around the empty library, still picking away at her poor cup.
“So why here and not Obscura Hall?” she asked.
“People might ask questions if they saw you coming and going in Obscura Hall all the time.” His face heated as Emory lifted a brow. “That’s not—I meant they might suspect you’re Eclipse-born, not that…” Why was he so nervous around her? “Never mind.”
The ghost of a smile touched her lips. She drew her legs beneath her, looking at ease in her slacks and fine-knit sweater. “I always liked it here.”
Me too, Baz thought. Decrescens Hall was his favorite of Aldryn’s four libraries, with its old creaking wood and mazelike aisles, the mismatched tables and chairs strewn about under a ceiling of stars. Golden trinkets and elaborate clocks that told everything but time hid in every corner like plundered treasures, their uses long forgotten. It was a place where dreams slumbered, full of the same dark whimsy that permeated everything House Waning Moon touched.
Mostly he loved it because it was said to be the library Cornus Clover frequented the most when he was a student at Aldryn, possibly even where he wrote his book.
And it was usually quiet enough that Baz could remain unnoticed and unperturbed. Perhaps not as secretive a place as the Eclipse commons themselves, but it would have to do for their purposes; he’d be damned if he let Emory into his one sacred space. It felt odd enough as it was to be in such close quarters with her, breathe the same air, refamiliarize himself with all her mannerisms. It didn’t feel real, somehow, and yet it also felt right. Like all those years of not really talking to each other melted away and they were just two teens, bonding over magic the way they had before his father Collapsed.