And the only way to do that was from within.
“If that’s what the Selenic Order believes, then I want in.” At Keiran’s cocked brow, she pressed, “I survived whatever fucked-up initiation Dovermere was. I did the ritual just like the others and have the mark to prove it. Haven’t I earned my way in by now?”
She thought he would deny everything, tell her she’d gotten it all wrong, spin some lie or other to keep the secrecy going. But he seemed to genuinely be thinking her question over. At last, he said, “You being marked is a moot point because the Order didn’t invite you. You weren’t an official candidate, weren’t supposed to be in the caves that night, so it doesn’t count.”
“Seriously? They’d deny me on some technicality? I was there and I survived, that should be enough.”
“Not to the Order. Its leaders are old and set in their ways. Rules are sacred to them.”
“Then how else do I prove myself worthy of their oh so sacred ranks? Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said darkly. “What you’d be getting yourself into.”
“I don’t care. I’m sure I’ve survived much worse already.” She looked at him pleadingly. “You said you know what it’s like to lose someone to Dovermere? Try looking for answers and coming up short at every turn. It’s killing me, being kept in the dark. I need to know what they died for. Please. It’s the only thing that will make this grief bearable.”
Understanding rippled between them again. Finally, Keiran leaned back with a resigned sigh. “You heard of the meteor shower happening tomorrow night? The Order’s hosting an exclusive soiree for the occasion. They’ll let you in if you show your mark, and I can introduce you to those you need to convince, but… the rest will be up to you.”
He dropped his gaze to her marked wrist. His fingers alighted on the spiral scar, making her breath hitch. “If you want answers, if you really want in on this… you’ll need to earn your place. Make them see what you can offer.”
She would have to convince them with magic, she realized. Show them the kind of power the mark had given her.
Keiran leaned closer. “Just be sure you want to do this, Ainsleif. Once they let you in, there’s no turning back.”
A shiver ran up her spine at the underlying danger in his words. It hit her fully then, that people had died to join this Order—and here she was, contemplating diving headfirst anyway.
She swallowed past the dryness in her mouth and asked, more confidently than she felt, “Where’s this soiree, then?”
Something sparked in his hazel eyes. “The old lighthouse.”
10 BAZ
BASIL BRYSDEN’S LIFE WAS SPLIT into two distinct categories: everything that came before his father’s Collapsing, and all that came after. In the library of his mind, they were catalogued under sections aptly labeled The Peace Years and The Aftermath. The former held a collection of colorful books stacked haphazardly among happy memorabilia both material and not: his favorite Song of the Drowned Gods figurines and artwork; the preciously bottled scent of his mother’s baking; an old pocket watch he and Romie had spent hours tinkering with when they were younger; the sound of machinery in his father’s printing press; the smell of ink; the warmth of sunlight and the sway of wild grasses in the breeze and the fervent cries of gulls joining the melody of a young girl’s laugh.
The Peace Years were gold-hued and joyful. Void of fear and hurt.
The Aftermath was a more austere section, every scar archived in neatly displayed tomes that each looked drabber than the last. His father receiving the Unhallowed Seal. His mother’s subsequent depression. Baz’s own isolation from the world as he realized what it truly meant to be Eclipse-born. Romie’s drowning and Kai’s Collapsing.
Moments of joy were few and far between here, and most of them could be attributed to a single book. Indeed, there was a copy of Song of the Drowned Gods wedged on every shelf, in between every other dreadful volume of his life after the incident. It was Baz’s only constant, this book. The one bit of solace that carried him through both peace and aftermath.
His father’s old business partner had been the one to introduce him to Cornus Clover’s book. Baz remembered very clearly sitting in the Brysden & Ahn printing press when it was still a budding enterprise, his father a frazzled mess with ink stains on his hands and his shirtsleeves bunched up around his elbows, while Jae Ahn sat unperturbed as ever, feet kicked up on a bit of machinery, absentmindedly humming to themself as they looked over the quality of the printers’ work.
Young Baz had been enraptured by Jae. They always had a story for him, about the voyages they’d made or of the home in the Outerlands they’d left long ago or of the beasts and dragons and heroes they’d read about in all the fantastical tales they consumed. Jae had been the most fascinating person to Baz, who was already so in love with stories that he couldn’t help but delight in Jae’s knack for telling them. Jae was also the first adult to not treat him like a child. They fostered his interests, showed him how everything at the printing press worked, thus getting him to appreciate the labor that went into the making of every single book.
When Baz first saw Jae with a copy of Song of the Drowned Gods—a beautifully illustrated special edition—he’d been mesmerized by an illustration of the scholar meeting the witch in the woods. And though Baz had been too shy to ask, Jae had noticed his interest and handed him his own brand-new copy the very next day.
“This here is the best book you’ll ever read,” they’d said. “Do you know why?”
Baz had shaken his head, overwhelmed with wonder.
“Because this book is magic. It’s like a portal, you see. It lets you step into other worlds and exist there for a time.”
“What kind of worlds?”
Jae had winked at him. “Open it and see.”
Baz had done just that and fallen irrevocably in love. The rest was history.
Jae was easy to spot now in the shabby tearoom Baz entered; in fact, they were the only person there, other than the plump woman behind the glass display full of whimsical sweets, and Baz himself, whose presence was announced by the chime over the door.
It was a strange little shop, an oddity in the middle of Cadence. Baz knew of it only because Professor Selandyn had once sent him to purchase not tea, as one might think, but a rare sample of rainwater the shop was known to collect and sell for bloodletting practices. Faint sunlight filtered in through the slender windows, falling on the back shelves burdened with multiple vials and recipients of water—an impressive collection, Baz had to admit.
Once, magical adepts who wished to use their abilities when it was not their ruling moon phase bled into a particular body of water, like the sea or a lake or a stream, where they would wash their blood as an offering to the Tides. Nowadays, most people simply kept a small collection of water samples on hand. Bloodletting only worked when one’s blood came into contact with water, after all, and different water sources were believed to yield different magical results. Professor Selandyn was a tad obsessed with the study of water properties and bloodletting, if only to debunk baseless myths—like the shop’s rainwater, rumored to make one’s power never wane, which turned out to be nonsense, as she’d suspected.