They could be limitless. Power unrivaled.
And if the Regulators were taking their blood—if they knew the kind of power a Collapsing wielded—Baz could only imagine what they might be doing with it.
He bit back a sob, racking his brain for what to do. Outside, alarms and shouts still sounded. Even so, he needed to act quickly before Artem and Vivianne came back. He tested his magic against the cuffs again, pulling on the thread that would unlock them…
A click, and at last they slipped off his wrists.
His magic was waking, stirring. Too slow.
He had to reverse the damage done to Kai, pull on the threads of time the way he’d done for Emory with her Collapsing. But that kind of magic…
That kind of magic might have once brought about his own Collapsing. But he’d already Collapsed.
All this time, he’d had this raw power coursing through his veins without even knowing. His fingers thrummed with the power of that revelation, his heart beating steadily, like the ticking of a clock.
You have to be careful now…
But Baz had been careful all his life, and what good had that done him?
He owed it to Kai—to the Tides-damned Nightmare Weaver himself—to shed his fears for good.
Baz blew out a breath. The threads of time appeared all around him. He seized the one tied to Kai, the one that would return the blood back to where it belonged, in his veins and not in any Regulator’s vials. Fear was a distant thing, still there but shoved deeper down into Baz’s vast well of power. And he marveled at it, this ease with which time unraveled at his command.
Life bloomed under Kai’s skin, and that ember grew to a flame as magic thrummed once more in his veins. It was still contained by the brand, trapped like a flame in an oil lamp, but there all the same.
Kai opened his eyes, drawing a sharp inhale.
Baz fell back with a shaky breath of relief. “Nice of you to finally wake up, asshole.”
Kai’s mouth slanted upward at the echo of his own words mirrored back to him. For once, though, he seemed to have no witty retort of his own. He awkwardly pushed himself up, hands still cuffed together, and sat resting his head against the wall. His eyes closed as if this small action had taken everything from him.
“I thought I was gone there for a second.” He peered at Baz. “I thought you were done for. Tides, Brysden. When you barged into the room like that…”
His throat bobbed with emotion as he swallowed whatever words he might have said.
Baz was almost too afraid to ask: “Do you remember what they did to you?”
“They took my blood. The power flickering in and out… It started the second they drew my blood. It felt like they were ripping my very soul from my body. Like they were bleeding me dry of everything that made me me.” Kai’s expression darkened. “You saw who did this, right? I swear if I ever get my hands on Dungshit Fuckby, he’ll wish he’d never been born. Him and all the Regulators in this Tides-forsaken place.”
A shiver ran up Baz’s spine; he didn’t think for a second that Kai was bluffing.
And it hit him then—truly hit him that he was the one to blame for what had happened to Keiran’s parents, not his father. He was the one who’d Collapsed all those years ago and brought down the Brysden & Ahn printing press, not Theodore.
His father wasn’t a killer. He was.
Keiran must not have known. If he had, Baz doubted he’d still be breathing.
“We need to get out of here,” he said.
With a flick of his magic, Kai’s cuffs unlocked. Kai looked around, rubbing at his wrists. “Where is here, anyway?”
“I don’t know. A Regulator’s office? There was one in here just now before the alarms went off. He and some woman were talking about—about taking Eclipse blood and using it for something.”
“A ritual. That’s what Keiran and the Regulator who came to get me said. They needed more power for whatever it was they were planning.”
The Tides will emerge from the depths of Dovermere and finally rid our shores of the stain of the Eclipse.
Cold slithered up Baz’s spine. “The others at the Institute… the ones who’ve been here the longest…” Kai had said their nightmares were empty and hollow—that they felt like ghosts. “What if they’re like that because the Regulators have been harnessing their sealed magic for years and it’s depleting their reservoirs? Taking every last drop of magic from their veins?”
Kai swore, the look in his eyes turning violent. “My blood—”
“I fixed it,” Baz said. “It’s in your veins where it belongs.”
A glance at the empty vial on the desk confirmed it. Kai watched him curiously. “How did you—”
The door unlocked, swung open. Baz scrambled to put himself in front of Kai, readying his magic to stop time, to keep Artem and Vivianne from coming in—
But stared dumbfounded at Jae Ahn instead.
“Jae—what are you doing here?”
“Saving you, clearly,” Jae said with ragged breath. They snuck a look behind them before shutting the door, then strode across the room to the desk. The sight of their charcoal uniform was jarring, despite it only being an illusion. “Gather anything you can find, whatever we might use as evidence for what they did. Quickly now—that alarm should buy us some time but not much.”
“How did you even know we were here?”
“I was coming to see Kai when I ran into Vera outside. She was worried sick that something happened to you.” Their eyes cut to Baz. “I told you to stay away from here, Basil.”
“We figured out what they’re doing.” Baz walked over to the desk. He held up the empty vial, watching Jae’s face blanch at the remaining silver sheen. “They took Kai’s blood. His magic.”
Jae looked between Baz and Kai. “Are you…”
“I’m fine,” Kai bit out.
“I used my magic to reverse the damage,” Baz explained. “My Collapsed magic.”
Jae’s face fell. “Basil…”
They took a tentative step toward him, but Baz shook his head, angry now. “How could you let Dad wither away in here while I remained free?”
“Your father begged me. He knew I’d been living a normal life since I’d Collapsed, and he knew I would keep an eye on you, help you through it as best I could. Those first few months, I was so scared you might slip into that wicked power we’re always warned of. But… you never did. At such a young age, you already had more control over your raw magic than I ever did. So I thought it best to keep you in the dark. Let you lead a normal life.”
Baz felt Kai watching them with narrowed eyes as he pieced it all together. “How in the Deep aren’t you both glowing like fucking silver stars? How’d you manage to escape this?” he seethed, shoving his branded hand in their faces.
Baz had been wondering the same thing. The answer was somewhere deep in his bones; he could feel it. The Collapsing was supposed to eclipse them until there was nothing left but this endless darkness, evil incarnate. The Regulators branded them because that sheer power was supposed to be a threat to everyone around them. But if Baz and Jae could live their entire lives with the raw power of their Collapsing coursing through their veins—if Baz could control it, this thing he’d suppressed all his life without even knowing what it was—then certainly, others could too.
Kai could.
The only thing stopping him was the U-shaped burn scar on his Eclipse tattoo. The Unhallowed Seal, this thing that sought to quiet the magic in their veins.
An idea started to take shape in Baz’s mind as Jae pocketed the empty vial Kai’s blood had been in.
“There’s no time to explain,” Jae muttered defeatedly. “I swear I will once we get out of here, but right now, we need evidence. They’re never going to stop coming after Eclipse-born if we have nothing to use against them.”