Chapter 15
Fifteen
Kyrith
Arguing with them is…exhausting. I wouldn’t even say that winning feels like a victory. If anything, watching them leave with promises to keep this to themselves—with the exception of letting North know—is a hollow relief that sinks heavily into my bones.
The Arcanaeum rustles, drawing my attention over my shoulder and back to…Leo…still in his corner.
“What are you…?”
“I’m not leaving.” His tone is flat, cold. Like he anticipates another row. “I know, you can banish me, and I’m politely asking you not to.”
I swallow back my instant retort, taking a deep breath instead. “I assume you have an argument prepared?”
“Several, actually.” His lip quirks. “First and foremost, you shouldn’t be alone after learning that someone who tried to murder you is still out there. Second, I won’t sleep even if I go home, so I may as well be here where I can be productive. And third, I’d like your opinion on my work so far.”
My sigh is long and riddled with unspoken criticisms he chooses not to acknowledge. The ó Rinn before me is already gaunter than he was a few weeks ago. His eyes are deeper set in his face, adding to the natural menace that falls from him in waves.
He and I… Well, I’d be lying if I said I knew where we stood.
“I have a question before I decide whether to banish you,” I say instead.
His book snaps shut, his piercing eyes drilling into me. “By all means.”
“Does Lambert know you’re his brother?”
“Half,” Leo corrects, not missing a beat. “And who told you that?”
“No one,” I say, stepping closer. “I checked the lineage room because I didn’t understand how you could be so certain that he was the one your curse would take from you. I dismissed the idea at first, because you look almost nothing alike, but…”
There they were, Leo in one book, Lambert in another, connected by a single thread that read: ‘Christine Winthrop, Heir’ and the dates of her birth, marriages, and death.
“My father made my mother leave us, for her own safety,” Leo explains stiffly.
“Their marriage was political, which was supposed to spare her, and she moved on quickly, but that didn’t stop him loving her.
She chose her second husband for love. A liminal.
She redid her life over in the States. Had a new son…
I was so jealous of him. He got the family I always wanted. ”
Leo lets out a dark, huffing breath.
“Then we both lost her, and House Winthrop tried to sweep her name, her second marriage, and even Lambert under the rug entirely, until he turned out to be the next heir. I met my brother for the first time at that same gala where Anthea apparently tried to poison him, and he was just so…Lambert.
“He treats everyone like family, so it took me a while to realise that no one ever told him about me. To be fair, most people look at me and see the ó Rinn curse, and no one talks about my mother, since she married a liminal, so I suppose it just…never came up.”
“And you didn’t think to tell him?”
Lambert would want to know. Lambert should know.
Leo shakes his head. “Telling him would only complicate matters, and it’s not like it would benefit him at all.”
“Unilaterally making that decision for him is neither caring nor wise.” I hold up my hand when he goes to interrupt me. “But you answered my question, and I’m tired of arguing. You may stay.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks, but he nods. “Would you prefer to stay here, or can we move to the Astrology Room?”
I shake my head. “Do you still believe that prophecy? I told you, seeing the future is a murky subject at best.”
Leo shoots me a look full of such hopelessness that it takes my breath away. “I’m not taking any chances. This curse has been active for a month already. I’m running out of time, and superstition is in my blood. Humour me.”
My mouth turns down at the corners at the reminder. “The Astrology Room it is then.”
There’s no point in trying to comfort him. No point reminding him that, by the terms of the curse, he may just lose a pencil down the back of his chair. Leo is too deep in his catastrophising to really listen to such platitudes.
Without waiting for him, I take both of us up to the familiar room, bringing his book with us. It’s odd, but his shoulders sag a little as soon as he realises where we are, sinking into that familiar old armchair like it’s the comfiest thing in the world.
“You really should sleep,” I tell him.
“Are you going to?”
As if I can, knowing that Mathias is still out there? My reluctant understanding must show, because he folds his legs, resting one ankle on the opposite knee, and returns silently to his reading.
Without meaning to, I drift closer, shedding the heaviness of my body until I’m kneeling as a ghost on the floor beside him, the star chart from my room in the clock tower appearing on the floor before me.
I’ve done this a hundred times, so it's a habit, really, to just sink into the quiet between us.
Leo, however, freezes… “You look…comfortable.”
I glance up as realisation hits. He still has no idea that I used to read beside him for company.
I retreated to this spot, leaned up against the side of his chair, out of habit, and… I suppose it does look rather odd. Now that I think about it, perhaps the chill of my presence is making him cold. Magic, what if I have been all along?
“I float through chairs too easily.” I stumble over the explanation.
“It was always easier to just kneel on the floor or stand when I was a ghost. Of course, I floated through floors and walls too, but they’re part of the Arcanaeum, so it was easier to recognise when I was doing it.
” And I was hardly going to draw up a chair and reveal myself, or the depths to which I was sinking in my fruitless search for companionship. “I can move if your leg is cold.”
His lips quirk, and he picks his book up from the side table. “Don’t worry…I’m used to it.”
With that final damning sentence, he turns the page, dismissing me entirely while the books around us rustle with humour.
He… He’s not surprised. Did he always know? My body flickers, giving me flashes of gut-sinking horror tempered with cool embarrassment. Then…his long fingers tangle in my hair, resting against my scalp.
“You find it easier to stay solid when we touch you,” he murmurs.
Did he think I was struggling to stay physical just then?
Without meaning to, I find myself nodding. “I do.”
I should correct him, I really should, but his fingers are trailing over my scalp, and the sensation is so heavenly, so addictive, that it takes everything I have not to lean into him.
Magic, I need to get a grip. This is undignified, and worse, demeaning, to kneel at a man’s feet and let him absently pet me like some kind of faithful dog.
Especially Leo, with whom I have arguably the most complicated relationship of all the heirs. Pity, annoyance, understanding, contempt, and admiration all bubble up with every stroke of his fingertips.
I can’t bring myself to ask him to stop. Just like I can’t bring myself to protest Lambert’s hugs or Dakari’s kisses. I spent so long without feeling anything. Is it any wonder that I’m now so easily swayed by simple touch?
Did I manage to hide the tiny shiver that just ran down my spine?
It should be impossible to focus like this, but I let my eyes lower to the charts, anyway.
When he inevitably drifts off half an hour later, I stand, letting his fingers fall free of my hair, and stare down at him.
With his expression unguarded like this, the extent of his exhaustion is plain.
“I understand why you’re like this,” I whisper. “But I fear you’ll lose everything that matters in your quest for a cure, and you won’t notice until it’s too late.”
With a long sigh and a wave of my hand, I transmute a different chair into a soft mattress, but the Arcanaeum goes one step further, creating a cosy cubbyhole bed, nestled between the shelves and stuffed high with cushions.
Leo doesn’t even stir as the furniture lifts him, then tips him into bed, nor when I tug the covers over him.
“For the record,” I whisper, as I gather the charts I was reading and perch on the edge of the mattress to continue my work. “I am still angry with you for how you behaved when your curse activated.”
But if I’d had a brother, or any siblings at all, I think I might’ve done the same.