Tides. He was losing his mind.
The words she’d said to him were a battle drum in his ears.
You’re good at this, Baz.
I wouldn’t have made it this far without you.
The sheer belief and confidence in those words… It made him feel like he could tackle anything. He’d never been so vulnerable in sharing his quiet goals before, but doing so hadn’t been as terrifying as he’d imagined. Something about her made him want to shed his fears, throw all caution to the wind, and though the thought scared him to death, it also excited him.
He felt awake. Alive.
He felt, for the first time in a long while, like the island he’d made himself into didn’t stand so far apart from the rest of the world. From her. She made him feel like that invincible boy who saw the world so innocently and brightly before his father’s Collapsing, the boy who thought magic was beautiful, not a thing to constantly fear and keep bottled up. He wanted to let himself sink into this feeling, keep chasing it like an elusive sunset until he might bask in it forever.
And yet.
She had pulled away, and all his fears came rushing back to the surface, the sunset fading behind the horizon with her leaving. Who was he kidding? He must be imagining things, making up stories in his head. Besides, there was the Keiran Dunhall Thornby of it all. He hadn’t seen them together since the equinox festival, but he knew she was still hanging around him and his friends. And who was he compared to Aldryn’s golden boy?
No. Whatever it was he felt between them was the result of working so closely together and nothing more.
But then: her fingers curling around his ear, that look in her eyes, the breath they’d both held.
He’d never been so confused in his life.
“You’re here early,” he said, wishing the coffee were ready so it could banish these thoughts from his mind.
“I’m going back to Dovermere.”
Baz’s hands stilled. Slowly, he turned to Emory.
Her face was smooth, expressionless. Her voice steady as she said, “I think the reason I can’t feel Romie in the sleepscape has something to do with Dovermere, with the wards set up around it. If I can get past them, if I’m near enough to the Hourglass, I think I can reach her.” She stood a little straighter. “Today’s a new moon. Which means if our theory is right, my presence at Dovermere won’t be a risk to Jordyn or Romie. It’s the only thing I can think of to make this work. The one thing we haven’t tried.”
Everything always came back around to her and Dovermere, Baz thought grimly. The caves were like a darkness at the edge of his vision that kept growing and growing until there was nothing left. Much like the deadly tide that would fill them.
It was madness, and she knew it.
Those damn storm-cloud eyes had him transfixed. They were a rain-battered sea that conjured the moment they’d shared last night, the smell of something fresh and faintly citrusy that had made him want to draw her closer, twine his fingers around her hair.
He saw the flicker in her gaze, like she, too, was remembering that moment. It had been so small a thing, yet it felt to Baz like it had changed everything. Like a door had been eased open between them, and now they stood on either side of it, waiting to see who might cross it first.
Or maybe he was being delusional.
But then…
But then she drew nearer, the sunrise catching in her eyes like on the water’s surface. She ducked her head before he could make sense of the conflicted shadow in those blue depths. Her hand rested on the counter a hair’s breadth from his own, and nothing else mattered except this, how close they stood, the way his heart stopped and then started again.
He wanted to freeze time, make it stretch so he could live here forever.
“I know what you’ll say,” Emory said softly. “It’s dangerous, and I know that. But it won’t stop me from going. This is what I have to do.”
Baz realized she was waiting for him to say something, tensing as if for a fight. She knew this was a suicide mission. To reach Romie, she would need to go into the sleepscape, and for that, she needed to sleep. What if the tide came rushing in while she was still under?
She needed time on her side.
Understanding rippled between them.
“You need me to come with you. To pause time.”
Emory’s chin dipped, and it was answer enough.
“You don’t have to,” she said weakly. “I’ll manage on my own if I need to.” She squared her shoulders then, but even he could tell her bravado was false, fabricated. “I have to try. If the roles were reversed, Romie would do the same for either of us in a heartbeat.”
For Tides’ sake.
Baz gripped the edges of the counter to keep himself together, because this was madness and he was unraveling and Emory was holding all the strings and he was absolutely, foolishly, maddeningly fine with it.
She was going to get him killed, and he was too far gone for her by now to even care.
“All right,” he bit out. “I’ll go with you.”
Outside, Dovermere seemed to sigh, contented by this dark bargain struck, the cogs of fate clanging into place with an unsettling note of finality.
* * *
“There’s something powerful about the two of us going in there together, don’t you think?”
Emory’s words made the hair on Baz’s skin rise. The bright midday sun painted her gold as they came upon the jagged cave mouth at the base of the cliff, unveiled by the receding tide. He’d gone back and forth on his decision to come with her a dozen times since she came to see him this morning, and though his pulse was beating erratically and his hands were moist and a voice at the back of his mind kept nagging at him that this was wrong, this was so, so wrong and they should turn back now before it was too late, there was something oddly comforting about Emory’s presence at his side. A feeling that they were indeed meant to face Dovermere together.
“Let’s get this over with.” He threw a wary glance over his shoulder; he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching them.
They forged into the cave, defiantly holding up their lanterns to light the darkness within. Neither of them spoke. The only sound was the dripping of water, the scuffle of their feet against rock, the splash of their steps through shallow pools lining the way.
Baz kept glancing at his watch, careful not to slip on the algae-slick rock. He walked behind Emory, the walls around them too narrow to allow them to be side by side. She looked over her shoulder, arching a brow at the half-folded map in his hand.
“Where’d you find that, anyway?”
“An old cartographer’s journal. Thought it wouldn’t hurt to bring a map of this place.”
He knew a map wouldn’t be the thing to save them here; only time and magic and a bit of Tides-damned luck might do the trick. But still, having the map comforted him.
“Any luck with the missing epilogue?”
Baz grumbled in answer. He’d been searching every avenue he could think of, had asked Jae and Alya and Vera to get him in contact with anyone who might have more information, but he’d still come up empty. Adriana Kazan was a ghost, and the epilogue was indeed lost.
He looked at his map again and stumbled. Emory reached a hand to steady him. His fingers wrapped around her wrist, and in the pause that followed, the space became charged with memories of the last time they’d been this close, the last time their skin touched. Baz swallowed audibly as he released her arm.