“You have your permission slip?” the girl asked.
He set his pile of books down on the counter and pulled the prized piece of paper from his bag, excitement tingling at his fingertips.
The clerk’s gaze caught on his outstretched hand, and any warmth that had been in her eyes vanished as she made sense of the sigil inked on his skin.
Baz had always thought the Eclipse insignia was the most striking of the house sigils: a dark moon eclipsing a golden sunflower, the petals of which were rendered in the finest of details. Yet it was deceiving, that delicate beauty, for nothing about House Eclipse was delicate, nor particularly beautiful. Especially not in the eyes of other students.
The girl’s smile faltered. Recognition dawned, as it tended to do.
Baz fought to keep his own smile from slipping. “Dean Fulton signed off on it this morning,” he said, still holding the slip aloft between them.
Every second the girl didn’t grab for it left a dent in the armor around his heart. He was used to it by now, the unease that spread like wildfire whenever people realized who he was. What he was. It never stung any less, though, and after his encounter with Emory in the quad, the way she’d brushed him off as if scared to be in his presence for longer than was necessary, the sting went deeper than ever.
He still remembered a time when Emory had been enthralled by all things Eclipse. When she hadn’t looked at him the way everyone else did, as if he were a ticking time bomb ready to go off. Back then, she’d made him feel like there was more to him than his magic. Tides, she’d gone so far as to make him like his magic, a sentiment that felt as foreign to him now as the budding friendship they’d once had, long since withered to dust.
At last, the clerk reached for his slip. She read it over carefully, scribbling things in the ledger in front of her. Silence roared around them. Were he any less careful, Baz might have turned back time, wound the minutes back to before he showed his hand and that Shadow-cursed sigil that always made people treat him differently. But time ticked painfully on until, finally, the girl rummaged through a drawer and handed him a delicate silver cuff.
“Special protocol for Eclipse students,” she explained, sounding almost apologetic. “In case you…” She made a vague motion with her hand. “You know.”
Her meaning was clear: in case his magic slipped, becoming so uncontrollable that it brought about his Collapsing, a gruesome imploding of the self that awaited Eclipse-born who couldn’t keep their magic in check.
“Right.” Baz grabbed the magic damper, trying to fight the flush creeping up his neck.
The damper was more symbolic than anything, a mere show of good faith, given he could easily take it off himself. He didn’t mind wearing it—he was a stickler for rules, after all—but on the rare occasions he was required to do so, all he could think of was how dampers were made of Eclipse magic, silver imbued with the power of Nullifiers, which was one of the more common gifts among Eclipse-born. Add to this the fact that this same magic was used on those who Collapsed—branded onto their skin to permanently seal off their magic—and the irony alone was enough to make him sick.
“Sorry,” the girl mumbled. “Necessary precaution.”
Baz wished he could disappear forever.
A part of him understood, though. Eclipse magic was erratic, unpredictable. Nothing like the structured, limited thing the other lunar houses practiced. And if he were to suffer his Collapsing while in the presence of such invaluable books…
A necessary precaution, indeed.
Baz dutifully snapped the damper around his wrist as the clerk mumbled another apology. “It’s fine,” he assured her.
Fine, Emory had said in the quad, even though she’d appeared anything but. It had been written all over her pallid face, how haunted and hollow she was. Baz couldn’t reconcile that girl with the one who lived in his memory—blue eyes crinkled in laughter, hair whipping behind her like strands of gold as she ran ahead of him in the fields of their youth, trying to catch up to his sister. It was as if the most vibrant piece of her had drowned last spring, lain to rest with Romie in the depths of Dovermere.
The way she’d brushed off her absence at Romie’s funeral as if she’d missed something as trivial as a study session or a coffee date… Baz tried not to let it irk him. He could only imagine the sort of trauma she must be dealing with. If he’d been in her shoes, he likely wouldn’t have had much strength for the funeral either. He’d already been holding on by a thread as it was, trying to organize everything on his own while his mother wallowed in her grief.
But it would have been nice to have Emory there. To not have to bear the burden of grief alone.
The clerk cleared her throat, tapping her pen against the ledger. “The rules are as follows: You’re granted thirty minutes inside the Vault. In this allotted time, you’re welcome to peruse the Vault’s collection, but you may not take any other title than the one you’ve been approved for.” She glanced at the permission slip and quirked a brow at the title inked at the top. “The Tides of Fate and the Shadow of Ruin: A Theological Study into the History of Lunar Magics by Hoyaken et al.”
Baz mumbled something about it being for research, suddenly aware of how dull it must sound. The mythology surrounding the Tides and the Shadow was prevalent in their modern world, but it had long since stopped being something people truly believed in, as it once had been. Nowadays it was a fable they were told as children, an origin story for their magic—and the source of much of the deep-rooted contempt that House Eclipse was held in.
“You’ll find your book in aisle H. There’s another clerk inside if you need help finding your way. Lastly, magic is strictly prohibited while you’re in the Vault.” The girl gave him a sidelong glance. “Though I guess that won’t be a problem.”
The cuff seemed to burn against his skin.
“Any questions?”
Baz eyed the copy of Song of the Drowned Gods she’d set on the counter. Though it might be Professor Selandyn’s research that got him into the Vault, the only title Baz longed to find was his favorite book’s original manuscript. To touch the very pages that Cornus Clover himself had written upon. For fans like Baz, it was already privilege enough to walk the halls of Aldryn knowing Clover had been a student here long ago, to sit in the same classrooms and haunt the same libraries late at night. Very few ever got the chance to set eyes on his actual manuscript.
Baz had hoped to be one of them, but the clerk’s unease pressed against him, and all he could do was shake his head no.
He’d find his own way to the manuscript, if time permitted.
The girl proceeded to unlock the silver door behind her with an odd-looking key. The door pushed outward before sliding left, hissing across the stone floor as muted light spilled from within. She turned to Baz, blocking the way inside.
“You’re Romie’s brother, aren’t you? The Timespinner?”
Baz blinked at the familiar way she said his sister’s name, trying not to flinch at the sound of that Tides-damned title. Timespinner.
Spoken with a terrible sort of awe.
He nodded past the lump in his throat.
“She was quite the Dreamer,” the girl said, and though her eyes were shaded so that Baz couldn’t see the fondness in them, he heard it well enough in the soft lilt of her voice.