The Drowned Gods, #2
Stranger Skies
by Pascale Lacelle
Contents
Chapter 48: Baz
Overview
Baz commits to Clover’s risky plan to rewrite history despite fresh student deaths. Research reveals Aldryn’s founders died in lunar-phase order and were Selenic Order members; Dean Elisava Orlov likely raised the wards. Tensions ripple through the group as a sudden tremor cracks a painting, releasing nightmare shadows from the secret room.
Summary
Baz broods over grim news: Clover and Luce’s visions implicate Emory in the world’s end, and four missing students have been found drowned and bloodless. Debating with Kai, Baz decides the risk of following Clover is worth it if restoring the Tides and Shadow could correct historic injustices for Eclipse-born.
Campus panic spreads, and Cordie urges them to quit the games, but Baz and Clover persist. In the Decrescens library, Luce and Kai slip into the secret room to map the sleepscape. Baz wrestles with Luce’s past choices and Emory’s burden while rumors swirl about the Vault’s victims.
Clover shares new findings: the library founders died within a month, each on the day of their respective lunar phase. He reveals the founders belonged to the Selenic Order and shows a warded journal listing early members—Dunhall, Delaune, de Vruyes, Belesa, Dade, Esedenya, Caine, and Orlov—linking the Order to Aldryn’s wards.
Clover identifies Elisava Orlov, Aldryn’s first dean, as a Wardcrafter, reinforcing that the Selenic Order likely built the barriers. Baz presses about Clover’s foreknown legacy, but Clover prefers uncertainty to keep agency if the future changes. Their exchange underscores Baz’s hope that rewriting history could erase his own guilt.
Thames arrives, jealous that Luce and Kai began without him. Clover explains Thames’s proximity to the Order despite Eclipse-born exclusion. Before Baz can elaborate on initiation marks, a brief quake shudders the library. The Vault remains still, but shadows seep from a cracked painting by the secret room—nightmares breaking into the waking world.
Who Appears
- BazProtagonist; resolves to support Clover’s plan, seeks redemption, and helps investigate founders and Selenic Order ties.
- CloverTidecaller; leads research, reveals founders’ lunar deaths and Selenic Order link, identifies Orlov as Wardcrafter.
- KaiBaz’s ally; skeptical of Clover, collaborates with Luce in the secret room on the sleepscape.
- LuceEmory’s time-lost mother; works with Kai in the secret room, withholds details of Clover’s future.
- ThamesClover’s close friend; arrives late, reveals connection to the Selenic Order despite Eclipse-born exclusion.
- CordieFriend; urges abandoning the games amid student deaths, emblem of Baz’s lingering guilt.