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.
Baz just came here for the tea.
Thin, narrow eyes swept over him as he approached Jae Ahn’s table at the back of the room. “By the Shadow,” they swore as they jumped from their seat, “you look more like him with each passing year.”
Baz smiled shyly as they drew him in for a bone-crushing hug, then held him at arm’s length, peering at him over tiny half-moon glasses to assess all the ways in which he resembled Theodore Brysden. Jae hadn’t changed one bit: they were on the small and slender side, with jet-black hair kept in the same short style Baz remembered, though it was now streaked with faint strands of silver. They had never ascribed to the gender binary, preferring to use neutral pronouns, and their style could be described as androgynous: today they wore a charcoal knit vest over their ample-sleeved white shirt, layered silver chains visible around their neck.
“Thanks for meeting me.” Baz sat on a plush lavender upholstered chair. In the background, a jaunty tune blared from a gramophone. “How’ve you been?”
Jae swept an impatient hand in the air. “Never mind little old me. What about you, Basil? How are you?”
Baz shrugged; Jae hummed as if he’d said quite a lot indeed, and leaned forward in their chair. “I’m so sorry to hear about Rosemarie—sorrier still I couldn’t make it to the funeral.”
“That’s all right.” Unlike Emory, Jae had at least notified Baz of their absence—they’d been away on a research trip to the Constellation Isles and couldn’t make it back in time.
“How’s your mother been dealing with everything?” Jae asked. “I called her last time I was in Threnody, but she must have been out. I’ll have to try her again next time I’m there.”
“She’d love that, I’m sure.”
Jae gave him a knowing smile tinged with sadness. They both knew she likely wouldn’t answer next time either. It hadn’t been easy on his mother for a long time now. Anise Brysden had begun to shut down after her husband Collapsed, distancing herself from the warm, lively woman she used to be. A part of Baz always felt guilty at being here at Aldryn, leaving her alone in that big empty house. Whenever he asked, she always swore she was fine. He knew she wasn’t, but Baz didn’t know how to help her because he’d often felt much the same, as if he were simply going through the motions of existing. He knew Jae had tried many times to coax his mother back to her former self, inviting her to gallery openings and tea outings every time their work brought them to Threnody. But Anise always gently shut them down, staying sheltered in the safety of her home. Alone with her ghosts.
Baz’s eyes drifted to the Eclipse sigil on the back of Jae’s sun-kissed hand as they poured him a cup of steaming tea. Jae dealt in illusions, the most common magic among the Eclipse-born. Professor Selandyn still talked fondly of the illustrious Jae Ahn, the best student she’d ever taught in her long career.
“How is everything at Aldryn?” Jae asked, wrapping their ring-adorned hands around their own gold-rimmed cup.
They didn’t need to elaborate for Baz to know they meant specifically with the Eclipse students. He took a sip of his tea. Jasmine, with notes of vanilla. It scalded the roof of his mouth.
“I’m the only one left.”
Jae’s mouth thinned. “I heard about the Salonga boy Collapsing. Did you know he’d contacted me sometime before, asking about my research on the matter?”
Baz went very still. “I wasn’t aware of it, no.”
He’d once told Kai of Jae’s vested interest in all things House Eclipse, but he never thought Kai would go so far as to reach out to them.
“By the time I tried getting back to him, I’d learned he’d Collapsed. It’s partly why I’m in town, actually. He’s at the same Institute as your father, so I mean to go pay him a visit.” Jae regarded Baz over the rim of their glasses. “Have you been to see him recently?”
Whether they meant Theodore or Kai didn’t matter, because the answer remained the same.
Baz fiddled with his teacup. “You know how particular the Institute is about visitors.”
It wasn’t the real reason—though the Regulators did make it especially difficult for Eclipse-born visitors to step into the Institute—but Baz felt ashamed enough as it was; he couldn’t admit to Jae that facing his father and Kai was too difficult. That the thought of the Institute still gave him nightmares.