Again, his words were laced with power, bending her will to his, and Emory couldn’t have lied even if she wanted to. “That is the truth,” she said. “I swear it.”
Artem seemed inflamed by her response. “I don’t care when your powers manifested, Tidethief. I’m bringing you to the Institute.”
He came at her with burning hate. Emory scrambled backward in fear, but Keiran stepped in front of her, hand outstretched to stop Artem.
“Wait.”
“She’s Eclipse-born, Keiran, and no doubt untrained at that.”
“I know.”
“If she Collapses…” Artem swore, angry veins stark on his neck. “I’m not going through that again. I can’t.”
Keiran clasped him on the neck, trying to calm him down. “I know. But we’re safe, Artie. Everyone’s safe. Just hear me out for a minute. That’s all I ask.”
Artem stepped back with a furious grunt. Keiran turned to Emory, taking his mask off. There was a fiercely protective gleam in his eyes. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t know how to answer that, stood frozen with fear as if Artem’s compulsion were keeping her here against her better judgment.
Keiran slowly swept his gaze over the room, commanding everyone’s attention. “We’re in uncharted territory here,” he said loudly. “What we decide next could change the fate of our Order forever.”
He stepped closer to the Tidal Council, spun around to make sure all eyes were on him. “The Selenic Order has long believed magic shouldn’t be quartered off into lunar houses or splintered further into tidal alignments. We believe it should be as it once was, when magic was a thing earned, not born. That’s why we resort to these synthetic half-measures we’ve kept to ourselves for centuries, all to get a modicum of the kind of power the Tides once blessed us with. My parents, whom all of you held in the highest esteem, believed we could go further than that. Wield all the moon’s powers as our own.”
His eyes settled on his great-aunt. “You know I have constantly sought to carry out their legacy, make them proud from the Deep their souls now rest in. Tonight, I meant to appear before you all to say I’ve finally succeeded in doing what they only dreamed of. I’ve found a way to use other lunar magics instead of merely tasting them.”
At a jerk of his chin, six people stepped to the front of the crowd: Lizaveta, Virgil, Nisha, Ife, and Louis, as well as a boy with supple long hair wearing an Aestas mask who had to be Javier. Each of them held a wilted flower in their hand. Keiran pulled one of his own from his jacket pocket. In unison, the seven of them held up the dead flowers and, mirroring what Emory had done in the greenhouse with Baz, breathed life into them once more, so that each of them now held the brilliant, blooming flower of their respective lunar houses.
Awed murmurs rose around them. Leonie leaned forward on her chair. “How?”
Keiran dug a small silver vial from his pocket. “It’s the same substance we’ve always used, a bit of silver and salt water and blood, but more potent.” He nodded to where Artem stood next to his sister, still quietly seething. “Together with Artem, we’ve found a way to develop this new form of synthetic that we ink directly on our skin, right on top of our Selenic Marks. It lets us wield whatever magic the person whose blood we use has. Tonight, we used Nisha’s blood to access her Sower magic. And the results, as you just witnessed, are like nothing we’ve ever done before.”
Keiran turned to Emory. “That’s how I was able to use the magics you saw. Healing the bird, making roses bloom—it was a fabrication, a lie dressed in silver and salt water and blood. This is the Selenic Order’s legacy. We hold the key to all magics in these synthetics. It’s a false key, a shade of what you can do as a Tidecaller, but the closest we have to the real thing. You, on the other hand… Wielding all magics at will? It defies everything,” he said with a breathless sort of awe.
He turned to the Council. “The Tides put her in our path for a reason. She bears our mark, completed our initiation ritual, survived what the eight candidates we’d chosen could not. With what we showed you tonight, the progress we’ve already made to synthetics… What Emory demonstrated she can do… Imagine what more we could accomplish with her at our side.”
“Absolutely not,” Artem spat viciously. “Are you out of your mind? This is not what I signed up for. She’s Eclipse, Keiran. We’ve never allowed them in our ranks, and for good reason.”
Behind him, Lizaveta and some of the other Selenics seemed just as incensed.
Keiran extended a hand between them as if to appease him. “You know better than anyone I don’t take lightly to unchecked Eclipse magic. But you can’t deny the potential here. The Order prides itself on seeking the rarest talents to lay claim to. And here she is, a Tidecaller with magic the likes of which we have only ever dreamed of. A rarity like no other.”
They wanted power to match her own, Emory realized. Not the fabricated version they imbibed or inked themselves with, but magic like hers, free-flowing in her veins. Unease lined her stomach, coated her mouth, as she wondered how, exactly, they planned to attain it. She took an involuntary step back.
“Come now, you’re scaring the girl.” Virgil drawled from where he stood at the front of the crowd, twirling the restored poppy in his hand. “Will someone please tell her we don’t mean to sacrifice her to the Tides and bleed her dry of her power?”
Keiran shot him a dry look, as if to say, Don’t be absurd. “I believe she was meant to be a Selenic. To share with us the secrets of her magic.” His eyes met hers. “If she wishes to.”
Emory read the promise behind his words: If she agreed to it, they would keep her magic a secret. If she didn’t… Artem glared at her in a way that made it clear he would be all too happy to bring her straight to the Institute.
The Tidal Council seemed to consider it, exchanging a few hushed words. At last, Vivianne said, “Should anyone outside the Order ever find out what she is, we won’t be able to protect her without dragging our name through the mud. As leader of the current cohort, do you agree to take full responsibility for Ms. Ainsleif and bear the consequence if anything goes wrong?”
“I do,” Keiran said without hesitation.
Surely, Emory thought, he must have an ulterior motive, a reason to want her so badly to join the Order he would put his neck on the line like this.
“Then it’s settled,” Leonie declared. “You’ll have her take her oath tonight, like any other candidate does when first tapped for initiation, and officially induct her into our ranks. Do you accept this, Ms. Ainsleif?”
It was exactly what she had set out to do, but Emory couldn’t shake the feeling she’d gotten more than she could handle. It hit her fully then that everything she’d so desperately believed about her Tidecaller magic was false. It had nothing to do with the spiral mark, so why then did her blood now run with Eclipse magic?
Eclipse-born, Eclipse-formed.
Whatever her title, she was alone to bear it.
Keiran gave her a near-imperceptible nod, as if to say it’d be all right, that this was the right move to make.