Chapter 69: Baz

Baz sits in the Decrescens library wrestling with Clover’s betrayal and the tainted legacy of Song of the Drowned Gods. He decides history should remain intact and begins to write the book himself—using Clover’s journals and his own memory—reclaiming the story that shaped him.

As Baz writes, he recognizes the scholar in the tale was effectively himself, not Clover: he is the breath and bloodstream of the story, the unseen sixth piece who moves through worlds. He completes an epilogue, intending to leave the manuscript with Cordie to publish under Clover’s name for her benefit.

The epilogue page flares with starlit motes like ash, echoing the words Baz just wrote. Drawn by the page’s scent of sea and storm, Baz is pulled through a literal portal on the paper into what appears to be the sleepscape.

Following the spiral path, Baz passes doors to the Wychwood, the Wastes, and the icy fourth world, but an inward pull leads him to the spiral’s center: a vast workshop where an ancient loom weaves time-threads amid clockwork and celestial instruments.

A bell chimes and a stocky, anxious tinkerer with multiple pocket watches greets him, having summoned Baz via the page. The man reveals this is where time’s threads are spun and introduces himself as the god of balance, declaring he has been expecting Baz—the Timespinner.