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Chapter 1: Baz
BAZ BRYSDEN WAS MOST AWARE of time when he was running out of it.
The night before a paper was due, for instance, when he realized the days he’d spent procrastinating instead of doing the work meant he now had to forego sleep in order to finish. Or when he was so engrossed in a book and a strong cup of coffee, he realized with only minutes to spare that he was going to be late for class.
Of course, Baz could make the minutes stretch so that he was never truly late for anything as trivial as papers and classes. What was it to him, the Timespinner, to make time run in his favor? He had only to pull on its threads so he could squeeze in a few extra sentences here, that extra bit of research that would earn him full marks there, the basic human tasks that would make him look at least somewhat presentable before leaving the Eclipse commons, like brushing his teeth and throwing on a clean shirt and making sure his hair wasn’t sticking up every which way. He had done all these things just this morning, scrambling to hand in his final papers and stop by Professor Selandyn’s office to drop off her solstice gift before leaving for the holidays.
And yet here he still was, hurrying across campus to catch his train.
Had anyone else possessed this power to manipulate time, they would not know such things as scrambling and racing against the clock and worrying about missed trains. But Basil Brysden was a peculiar specimen who preferred to use his power as a last resort—and strictly in the most innocuous ways—which only served to enhance his already anxious nature.
And the pock-faced Regulator that stopped him dead in his tracks made that anxiety spike.
“Mr. Brysden. Heading home for the holidays, I see?”
“Are you following me on campus now?” Baz gritted out in annoyance, adjusting the weight of his travel bag on his shoulder.
“My, my, so defensive.” The smug satisfaction in the Regulator’s beady eyes did not go unnoticed by Baz.
Captain Silas Drutten had been the bane of Baz’s existence for the past two months. Ever since Baz helped break out his father and Kai from the Institute, Drutten had been on him relentlessly, trying to catch him in a lie and pin their escape on him. But Baz had gotten very good at lying—or maybe it was just that Drutten had very little evidence to go on. Either way, it was easy enough for Baz to stick to his story, no matter how many times he had to suffer through one of these pointless interrogations.
Today, it seemed, would be another one of those times.
“This meeting is purely accidental,” Drutten said, adjusting the medals of valor pinned to his Regulator outfit. “I’m here for the donor banquet.”
That explained the full regalia. While the students of Aldryn College were currently getting ready to leave for the weeklong winter solstice break, faculty members were dressing in their best suits and gowns to host their annual donor banquet. Everyone of note with ties to the college would be in attendance tonight. from high-ranking Regulators to the mayor of Cadence to families whose names were likely carved on the very foundation of the college. It was said to be a grand affair, with a catered seven-course meal and an open bar and people full of their own self-importance—Selandyn’s words, not Baz’s.
“Well, then,” Baz said, glancing pointedly at his watch, “if you’ll excuse me, I have a train to catch.”
“I take it that means you
are heading to Threnody, then?”
“Obviously.” There was no point denying it. “You of all people know that’s where my mother lives.”
Drutten himself had made it a point to scour every corner of Anise Brysden’s house for signs of her fugitive husband. Of course, he’d come up empty-handed—and yet he kept hounding her and Baz both, making Baz’s blood boil and his mother feel unsafe in her own home. It sickened him to his core.
Drutten fixed him with a hard stare. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that harboring fugitives is a crime, even during the holidays.”
“I’m quite aware.”
“But if you
were to talk, give up the whereabouts of said fugitives, I might find it in my heart to be lenient. My solstice gift to you.”
Baz wanted to laugh at that. As if he would ever trust the Regulators to show any semblance of leniency toward him in this matter.
“We can keep doing this little dance of ours, Drutten, but my answer hasn’t changed from all the other times you interrogated me.” Baz held up three fingers, taking one down for each statement he made: “Yes, I was the last person to have seen my father at the Institute. No, I did not help him or Kai escape, and no, I haven’t seen or spoken to either of them since. So unless you have solid proof to dispute all of this—which I know you don’t—I’ll be going now. Enjoy your banquet.”
Baz walked past Drutten without a second glance, surprised at his own brazenness. This blatant disregard for authority was still unfamiliar to him, despite everything he’d gone through these past few months. He felt a bit like a child about to be scolded by his mother for reaching for the cookie jar before supper, though the stakes were much higher.
But Drutten did not reprimand him. He only called after him with a falsely cheery “Give your parents my best.”
Baz only dared to throw a look over his shoulder when he was about to round a bend farther down the corridor. Drutten’s attention was no longer on him; the Regulator was shaking hands with Dean Fulton, who wore her usual tweed suit, evidently not yet ready for this evening’s banquet. She had a friendly smile for Drutten, but it wavered when two more people joined them.
Baz’s stomach dropped as he recognized Artem Orlov, dressed in an expensive fur-trimmed coat, red hair blazing like a torch. At his side was Virgil Dade, another member of the Selenic Order, who had been close to Artem’s sister, Lizaveta, before she died. Virgil was also dressed to impress, which reminded Baz that a select few students were always invited to the donor banquet. It was the school’s attempt to show off its best and brightest.
Virgil, it seemed, had all but replaced Keiran as Aldryn’s golden boy—as well as Artem’s lapdog.
Before either of them could spot Baz, he disappeared down the hall. Another look at his watch told him he would just barely make it to the station on time. Though trains to Threnody left every hour, he needed to be on
this one specifically.
Magic thrummed at his fingertips, eager to be used.
Not yet, Baz thought as he picked up the pace. He would reach for it only as a last resort.
Give your parents my best. His blood boiled at Drutten’s lingering threat, his hollow offer of leniency. Once, Baz might have been naive enough to believe Drutten had his best intentions at heart. But Drutten was like every other Regulator, upholding a legal system that made it a point to spit on justice when it came to the Eclipse-born. Something Baz had been forced to come to terms with after he and Jae had taken their case to a trusted attorney, who’d presented their accusations against Keiran Dunhall Thornby, Artem Orlov, the Selenic Order, and the Institute at large to the courts of Elegy.
The only hard evidence Baz and Jae had had was what little they’d managed to take from Artem Orlov’s office the day they helped Kai and Theodore escape from the Institute: ledgers that detailed how both Artem and Keiran had used the former’s status as a Regulator to harness silver blood from Eclipse-born who’d Collapsed—blood they then used to create synthetic magic wielded by the corrupt secret society known as the Selenic Order, of which they were both members.
But as incriminating as their evidence was, the Institute’s corruption—and the Order’s power—ran deeper than they could have imagined. All that proof was written off as inadmissible. The case got thrown out before it could even go to trial.
All that planning, all that hope that they would finally get justice for the Eclipse-born, and it had amounted to nothing. Artem walked away with his head held high and his job as a Regulator intact. Keiran’s name remained unsullied, and his and Lizaveta Orlov’s deaths were ruled as tragic drownings—the same way Emory’s disappearance was declared a casualty of Dovermere. Three more souls lost to the Belly of the Beast, nothing more. As if one had not disappeared through a mythical door to other worlds after the other two had all but tried to kill her for her Tidecaller blood.
Baz nearly collided with a group of students gathered in the cloisters. They were exchanging last-minute gifts and farewell hugs before leaving for the holidays. A feeling of yearning smacked him like a tidal wave. Once, Baz would have given anything to be as alone as he felt now, with the Eclipse commons all to himself and no one to disturb his peace. A ghost meandering about, flittering unseen between the shelves of Aldryn’s many libraries. But things had changed. The Eclipse commons were like a crypt without Kai, unsettlingly quiet. The Decrescens library felt like it was missing a vital piece of its soul whenever he looked up at the empty spot Emory would have sat in. Even Romie’s greenhouse had lost all its appeal after a Sower professor cleaned it out and repurposed it for her first-year students.
For the first time, Baz was well and truly alone. And so very starved for connection.
He pushed past the students, mumbling apologies as he went. The skies above were a threatening gray, the air crisp with the coming of snow. Baz hoped the storm would hold off until he got to his destination. The weather had been unpredictable of late, something that experts blamed on a disturbance with the tides. Massive flooding of coastal towns, beached ships that affected commerce, a record number of drownings due to flash swells—and this was all over the world, too, not just Elegy. A phenomenon that had started soon after the door in Dovermere was opened.
An eerie coincidence, perhaps.
Baz reached the bustling station just as his train started to pull away. He cursed Drutten’s name—if it hadn’t been for his interruption, Baz would have made it on time. Now he had no choice but to give in to his magic.
Huffing a swear, he grudgingly reached for the threads of time. The world around him came to a halting stop. The sea of students stilled; the whistling of engines quieted. Baz wove through the platform trying not to think of how
easy this was. He hopped on the train, brushing past the frozen porter who hadn’t fully closed the door yet, and with a breath, Baz let go of the threads of time.
The world resumed its motions, oblivious to the fact it had ever stopped at all.
Baz plopped down in his seat and flexed his hands, trying to shake off the unsettling ease of what he’d done. He hadn’t gotten used to his Collapsed magic yet, despite having lived most of his life with it.
The Collapsing was what awaited Eclipse-born who used too much power, an implosion of the self that there was supposedly no coming back from. But Baz had discovered that to Collapse did not mean inevitably succumbing to the dark curse that was said to await them. Instead, it was meant to broaden the scope of their power, making it feel almost limitless.
Though the knowledge of his condition opened many doors—too many he didn’t want to consider, the idea of such power at his fingertips making him nervous—he didn’t feel different in the slightest. Perhaps it was because he’d kept this limitless power in check all these years without even knowing, for fear of reaching a limit he had unwittingly already reached.
Then again, he wasn’t exactly pushing himself to see how deep his Collapsed power went, either. Still the same scared boy, never reaching further than he thought he should. Cautious to a fault.
As the train pulled out of the station, Baz thought of Drutten’s threat again and smiled to himself. At least his ruse was working. He’d known full well the Regulator would expect him to head to Threnody. Where else would he be going for the solstice holidays if not home?
But
home had lost all meaning to him. His childhood house hadn’t felt like one in years, and though the Eclipse commons had been a refuge to him in the past, they were too empty now to soothe him the way a true home should.
There was no going home for Baz. So he was going somewhere no one would expect him to be.
The train screeched loudly along the tracks, pulling Baz from the half sleep he’d slipped into. His face smooshed up against the fogging window, he was briefly disoriented at the sight of the busy station they were pulling into, despite having been here more times than he could count. He blinked the sleep from his eyes, urgency making his senses come alive as he recognized the blue, green, and white tiled sign on the brick wall that read
THRENODY CENTRAL.
While people filed into the narrow corridor outside of Baz’s otherwise empty compartment, he remained seated, eyes searching the platform wildly. Panic seized him when he didn’t spot the person he was looking for. And then, just as the worst scenarios began to play out in his mind, the door to his compartment slid open, nearly giving him a heart attack.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Oh, I—” Any excuse Baz might have drawn up died on his lips, replaced by relieved laughter. “Thank the Tides it’s you.”
Jae Ahn smiled down at him, dark eyes full of mischief, and Baz had never been happier to see them. “The timing could not have been more perfect,” Jae said as they shut the compartment door behind them and sat down across from Baz.
“Do you really think it’ll work?”
Jae nodded toward the window. “See for yourself.”
Standing on the platform with everyone else getting off the train was Baz—or rather, a perfect copy of him, dressed in the same clothes and hauling the same luggage that the real Baz had on him. Jae had truly outdone themself with this illusion; even the expression of this make-believe Baz was the same, a mix of worry and aloofness that had the real Baz feeling a tad self-conscious. Was that really what he looked like?
Jae had planned all of it, this grand illusion that would deceive anyone prying into Baz’s whereabouts. If the Regulators had eyes on Baz on this very train, they would be duped into seeing him get off here, at Threnody Central, while the real him kept going south, cloaked in whatever illusion Jae now cast over their compartment. And if anyone looked in on the Brysden household over the holidays, they would find Anise and Baz holed up in their quiet home, neither of them wanting to venture outside or have company over, what with the shame of Theodore’s escape from the Institute weighing heavy on them.
As the fake Baz disappeared in the crowd, Baz couldn’t help but ask, “And you’re sure the illusion will hold?”
“Of course it will.” Jae kicked their feet up on the cushioned seat, looking pleased with themself. “I’ve been playing around with sustaining illusions long-term, and none of them have failed me yet. Now, if someone stops you in the streets and tries to have a
conversation with you, we might be in trouble.” They smirked. “Though you ignoring them wouldn’t be too far off from the real thing, would it?”
“No, I guess it wouldn’t,” Baz had to admit. The sheer control Jae had over their Collapsed magic never ceased to amaze him.
Jae had been Collapsed for a long time now and had since been keeping tabs on both Baz and Kai, for whom this was all still new. Unlike most Eclipse-born who Collapsed, all three of them had managed to escape the Unhallowed Seal that strove to put their magic to sleep.
The train lurched forward, and as Threnody slowly disappeared behind them, Baz felt like he could breathe again.
“So how’ve you been, Basil?”
“Fine, all things considered. How’s the training been going?”
At this, Jae lit up with pride. “Honestly? Better than I could have anticipated.”
For the past few months, Jae had been living in Threnody under the guise of a research trip, but what they were really doing was training other Collapsed Eclipse-born in secret. Jae had managed to get in contact with others like them who had avoided getting branded with the Unhallowed Seal and offered to help them manage their limitless power. Most of these people were leading normal lives like Jae and Baz, hiding the fact that they had Collapsed from those around them with varying degrees of success. But others were on the run from the Regulators after having very public Collapsings, living in shadows, struggling to survive, praying they never got caught. Jae’s training provided them with much-needed asylum.
The point, as Kai would put it, was to ensure everyone had their shit under control so they could eventually prove to the world at large that Eclipse-born who Collapsed were not a threat to society. That they could overcome this Shadow’s curse that Collapsing was supposed to plunge them into.
“Makes you wonder if this whole curse business is bogus,” Jae said, as if reading Baz’s mind. “A cautionary tale, nothing more.”
“How do you mean?”
“Have
you ever felt this darkness we’re warned of? Has your Collapsed magic changed who you are at your core, turned you into someone who craves power no matter the cost?” Jae shook their head, not letting Baz answer the clearly rhetorical question as they pressed on: “Our ability to control our Collapsed magic seems only to be tied to how powerful our magic already was to begin with. Take me for example. Illusions are a rather benign ability, one that I’d already mastered long before Collapsing. And your Timespinner ability—well, I wouldn’t say it’s mundane, far from it, but then again you were always careful with it, so it makes sense for you to have control over it now. But others whose magic is darker in nature, or whose grasp on their ability was already flighty to begin with... Well. It makes sense for them to have a harder time dealing with this heightened magic, don’t you think?”
A certain Nightmare Weaver came to mind at this. Jae seemed to have the same thought. “He’s getting better,” they added in a gentle voice. “Like I said, it’s an adjustment. And Kai’s magic is... There’s much we don’t know about it yet. But we’ll get there.”
Baz looked down at his hands. The Nightmare Weaver he’d known had always been in control of his magic, but now that Kai was Collapsed, it was like the nightmares were controlling
him. Nightmares spilled into his waking hours against his will, making it hard for him to distinguish what was real from what was not. Like the bees he’d once jokingly conjured out of Baz’s dreaming, only no one was laughing now, especially not Kai.
Soon, twilight settled outside. Baz watched the jack pines and spruce trees rushing past, their branches drooping with snow. When the train stopped, Baz and Jae were the only ones to step off. Unsurprising, given the remoteness of their destination. The station wasn’t even that, only a tiny, solitary outbuilding on the side of the tracks, with no one there to greet them.
Baz tightened his coat around him, pulling up the lapels around his neck to fend off the biting wind. He and Jae started painstakingly up the snow-covered road, and though Baz knew Jae had a cloaking illusion around them, he couldn’t stop glancing over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed. Streetlamps were few and far between here, and Baz tensed at every sound, imagining Drutten’s face hiding in the darkness between trees. His mind spun uncontrollably when they got off the road to borrow a narrow trail that wound its way through the wintry forest, hugging a jagged coastline.
The crashing of waves was unsettling in such a wild, forlorn place. Anyone could easily be made to disappear here.
“Almost there,” Jae said up ahead.
By the time Baz glimpsed the lighthouse at the edge of the world, his cheeks were pink with cold and exertion, his breath forming clouds around him. The blue-painted door at the base of the lighthouse opened just as Baz reached for its handle. From inside came warm light and laughter and music and the mouthwatering scents of fresh bread and chowder.
And there stood Henry Ainsleif, reddish-blond hair a tangled mess that fell to his shoulders, a broad smile in the midst of his beard. “Come in, you two. You’re just in time for supper.”
Henry opened the door wider, and as Baz stepped in from the cold, his eyes fell on Theodore and Anise Brysden. His parents both paused in setting the small kitchen table. There was a happy yelp, a clang of silverware, and then Baz was being smothered in a big hug and a familiar scent.
“Hi, Mom,” he breathed into Anise’s hair, his heart soaring to see her so full of life.
“Oh, I’m so glad you made it,” she said, squeezing him tight before holding him at arm’s length, her big eyes—so much like Romie’s—taking him in. “Was there any trouble? Are you well?”
“I’m fine, Mom.” He smiled to see Theodore and Jae clasping each other affectionately on the shoulder. “All thanks to Jae.”
Jae made a nonchalant motion before Anise smothered them with a kiss on the cheek, thanking them profusely. Baz’s father took the opportunity to wrap his son in a hug that rivaled Anise’s, and Baz closed his eyes, savoring the moment, still in disbelief that his father was here. A wanted man, but free of the hellhole that was the Institute, at least.
Baz looked into his father’s smiling face and noticed all the ways it had changed since he last saw him, after the horrors of years spent at the Institute had all but hollowed him out. Life had returned to Theodore’s eyes, and he no longer looked frail and broken, but healthy and whole. The Unhallowed Seal on his hand had been taken off, thanks to Baz’s magic, because even though Theodore had never actually Collapsed, he’d still had his magic put to sleep by the Regulators. All because of Baz, whom Theodore had wanted to protect.
Baz, who’d been the one to Collapse that day in his father’s printing press, the blast of his unbridled power killing three people in the process.
A familiar guilt reared its ugly head up inside him. And though there was no blame in Theodore’s eyes, Baz felt an aching pressure to apologize, a desperate need to make things right between them. To make up for all those years Theodore had suffered in his place. He opened his mouth, willing the words to come. They wouldn’t.
A voice like midnight, one he would recognize anywhere, came to his rescue.
“Bout time you showed up.”
Kai hovered on the last step of a steep, narrow staircase, dark eyes fixed on Baz. His mouth was turned up as if they were sharing a private joke, and the whole world seemed to disappear around them, taking all of Baz’s worries with it.
“Hi,” Baz breathed, feeling silly for not having a better reply. He was distantly aware of the others busying themselves in the kitchen, but his focus remained on Kai—on the casual way he flitted toward him, hair still damp from the shower he had clearly just taken. On the faint smell of pine that followed him, and the way his eyes sparked with unguarded joy, a slip of that sharp stoicism he usually wore like armor.
For a split second, Baz didn’t know how to react. Were they supposed to shake hands? Hug? Kai saved him the mortification of having to decide: he gave Baz a playful nudge on the shoulder, like it was the most normal thing in the world, completely oblivious to the strange fluttering in Baz’s stomach that this small touch elicited.
“Welcome home, Brysden.”
And Baz realized he
was home, in all the ways that mattered.
