Chapter 3: Baz

Baz narrates how Theodore and Kai have been hidden at Henry Ainsleif’s secluded lighthouse after the failed case against the Institute and Selenic Order intensified the Regulators’ hunt. Baz had previously told Henry the truth about Emory, winning Henry’s help despite the risk. The group keeps the evening light and celebratory, postponing plans until morning.

Later, Kai quietly takes Baz outside. In the snow, Kai admits he can’t stay; his Collapsed Timespinner-adjacent nightmare magic is worsening, involuntarily dragging nightmares into waking and lasting longer. He senses a growing wrongness in the sleepscape and fleeting impressions of Emory drowning in darkness. He wants to return to Aldryn to be closer to Dovermere and try the portal again.

Baz offers, again, to restore Kai’s Unhallowed Seal with time magic; Kai refuses, noting Henry has been using Nullifier magic to suppress his nightmares, an unsustainable stopgap that ties Kai to the lighthouse. They skirt the painful subject of Baz’s Emory-laden nightmares and Kai’s entanglement with them, then head back intending to rejoin the others.

Henry bursts out in a panic: the tide is “swallowing everything.” Down at the shore, midnight waters surge unnaturally high, wrecking gear and beaching Henry’s barge. At Kai’s shout, Baz halts an incoming wave with time magic so they can haul equipment to safety, then releases it to watch the sea continue its erratic battering.

As they take in the impossible high tide at low tide’s hour, Baz concludes something fundamental is wrong—likely tied to Dovermere and the door they opened—hinting at broader, destabilizing consequences beyond their small refuge.