I thought I might have pulled one into the waking world with me once, Kai had said.
But it was impossible. He’d claimed they were contained to the sleepscape, and yet—
A low rumble rattled her bones, the only warning sign before the umbra swiped for her.
Baz wrenched Emory out of the way just in time. “Run!”
They bolted for the exit, feet slipping on the wet cave floor as the creature behind them shrieked and screeched, darkness and fear given form. Emory felt its cold breath on the back of her neck as she stumbled forward. She fell to her hands and knees, the breath knocked out of her.
“Baz!”
Pain lanced through her ankle as claws pierced her skin. She kicked at the creature, desperate to extricate herself from its grasp. Baz’s feet sloshed into a shallow pool as he came to an abrupt stop, turning toward her. The umbra let out a piercing wail and recoiled, as if blinded by the light Baz was holding up to it.
Emory scrambled to her feet. As Baz reached for her, the lantern slipped from his grasp, shattering on the ground.
“No!”
Emory shot her hand out—not to grab the lantern, but to pluck the last flickering ember of light from it before it died. The Lightkeeper magic came instinctively, and she was glad she’d had practice wielding it on the harvest moon. The feeble light twisted around her outstretched hand, kept safe in her grasp.
“Look out!” Baz yelled.
Emory glanced over her shoulder and stared into the face of nightmares—into eyes so black they seemed to drown out every bit of light in her soul.
They devour dreams like black holes gobbling up any star that moves too close.
She thought she might have glimpsed something human in those depthless orbs, but then the umbra’s power seeped into her, and Emory screamed.
Fear was a blade and it ripped through her, bright and burning.
30 BAZ
COLD SPEARED THROUGH BAZ’S SOUL. Fear was a seed in his chest that bloomed into a thing he might choke on as the umbra turned its empty eyes on him, making images come to life in his mind:
A blast of power. Blood and rubble and veins shot through with silver. His father telling him everything would be all right. His mother’s singing that he hadn’t heard for years and Romie’s baking that he would likely never taste again. His sister’s name on a silver plaque and caves that beckoned and the stormy-eyed girl who pulled away from him over and over. The ache in his heart every time he watched her drift into a world where he could not follow. The empty commons and the dismal absence of Kai.
Everything he’d ever hoped and dreamed and feared, pulled to the surface by the umbra’s magic as it sought to make him hollow.
This was so much worse than the kind of magic that Kai would use on him, because he could trust Kai to make it all stop, to end the nightmares with a look, a touch, a single note of his midnight voice. But this… If nightmares were but a single droplet of fear, this was an entire ocean of it. Baz felt himself slipping, tumbling through fear after fear—until the umbra scrambled back with a shriek of pain.
Beams of light shot from Emory’s hands as she stood defiantly in front of the umbra, the gash on her ankle already healing. She cast the creature back into the depths of the cavern, creating a barrier of light between them. A light to keep the nightmares at bay. A reprieve—if only temporary.
“What happened back there?” Baz gasped. “How did an umbra follow you out of the sleepscape?”
Emory ignored him, taking a careful step toward the creature that writhed in the darkness beyond the light. Baz tried to stop her from getting any closer. She shrugged him off.
“Jordyn…” The umbra stilled at the name. “Jordyn, if you’re still in there…”
Bleak, horrible understanding dawned on Baz. If this was Jordyn, then Emory must have found Romie in the sleepscape too. But there was nothing of the student behind the umbra’s eyes. It was a predator assessing its next move, and as Emory took a step closer, it pounced.
The umbra clawed at the barrier of light, and Emory buckled beneath the impact, biting back a sob. Baz’s hand shot out to steady her.
“He’s gone, Emory. That’s not Jordyn anymore.”
The umbra’s wails turned piercing as it sought to disperse the slowly waning light. Emory couldn’t keep it back forever. They had to stop it, but could a nightmare be killed? Could fear be conquered?
The walls rumbled around them, giving even the umbra pause. There was a sound like a great thunderclap, so loud it rattled his bones.
The tide rushing in.
Baz glanced at his watch. The hands had slipped, and now they were out of time, with nightmares closing in on both sides. The umbra pushed back against Emory’s light, using their distraction to its advantage. She faltered, leaning heavily against Baz’s side as she held trembling hands out to keep the light from dying.
Out of time out of time out of time—
They needed more of it, or for it to stand still.
Baz reached for the threads of time, this power he was familiar with if only in a distant, scholarly sort of way. It was knowledge that existed without experience, and as his eyes focused on the hands of his watch again, he tried not to think of it, this nagging inadequacy he feared had become him.
For so long, he’d kept his power in check, shying away from his ability and that damn line he’d drawn between small magic and big magic.
What if in pretending to be mediocre, he had become so?
What if he couldn’t wield his magic now, the one time it counted?
A trickle of water appeared at the mouth of the cavern. Baz thought of Romie, of how any hope for her would drown here with them if he couldn’t bring himself to save them now.
Stop, he thought as the water streamed in, so much quicker now.
Please, he begged.
It was a language he had not spoken often, but it came rushing back to him all the same. Familiar and lovely and strange and entirely his. The whole world seemed to pause for him. Time held its breath. He knew it by the way the pools of water at his feet stopped rippling, by the droplets of water that hung untethered in the air. He and Emory were still in motion, as was the umbra still testing itself against the light, but time, Baz knew, had stopped around them. For them.
The hands of his watch were frozen where they stood, but he could see their subtle vibration, as if they longed for that forward motion ingrained in the very fabric of their design, trying to break free of Baz’s hold.
Quickly now, his magic murmured in his ear. It wouldn’t hold forever.
But Baz didn’t need forever; only long enough.
He tugged at Emory, pulling her wordlessly toward the tunnels as she focused on keeping the umbra at bay. Shallow water nipped at their ankles, then all the way up to their knees. In the narrow corridor outside the Belly of the Beast, they came upon a large wave frozen in time, like a great, watery hand stopped mid-motion as it reached for them.
Baz ran tentative fingers along the wave, watching in amazement as the motion rippled slowly through the particles of water. A little farther down, the frozen wave rose into a veritable wall between them and the next bend in the carved corridor.
The only way out was through.
“You think there’s any chance the umbrae are deathly afraid of water?” Emory asked. She sagged against him, weakened light pouring from her hands. The umbra lay in wait in the dark.
“It’s fear itself. I don’t think getting a little wet will be much of an issue for it.”
“So what do you suggest?”
Baz considered her. “Can you swim while holding the light?”
A nervous, near-hysterical laugh bubbled past Emory’s lips. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” Something dawned on her face then, an idea taking shape. She grabbed his hand in hers.
“What are you doing?”
“As soon as I release the light, we make a run for it.”