Chapter 20
Twenty
Pierce
Speaker’s Corner is one of my least favourite places in London.
Not only is it subject to the bellowing of inepts bemoaning their ridiculous problems on a regular basis, it’s intolerably close to Marble Arch.
The only thing worse than the local inepts, are the tourists swarming like flies around a half-finished tribute to one king’s vanity and another’s frugality.
I can’t help but wonder why on earth my grandfather picked here to meet as I tune out the droning of the idiot on a box behind me. He’s wittering on about oppression when I doubt he even comprehends what the word means. Worse, his voice is grating on my bones, which already throb with weariness.
“You look tired,” Benny says, and I whirl, grimacing when I find him holding two paper cups that reek of poorly brewed coffee.
Still, I need it, so I accept without complaint, lifting it to my lips.
“Slowly. It’s hot.”
The heat is searing, but that’s almost a relief after the last few days. I embrace it with a grimace.
“Thank you.”
Benny sweeps an arm out, and I relax a little when I realise he’s traded in his jacket for a shabby practical woollen coat and a stripy mustard coloured scarf that might once have been a sunny yellow.
“You’re walking stiffly,” he observes. I just grunt. “Pierce. Look at me.”
I gulp more coffee instead, wishing it were stronger.
If I look at him, he’ll read the strain in my gaze. My mother’s spellwork is strong, and she always adds an exhaustion ensorcellment at the end. So, not only am I battered and healing, but the process is harder than it should be because I can’t even sleep.
Hopefully, it will wear off by the end of the day.
My grandfather stops unexpectedly, and I almost crash into him. It’s a calculated move, one that forces me to look up to check his expression for signs that he’s okay.
Instead, I catch his mouth going slack in dismay.
“I know you didn’t want me to ask you again,” he says. “But you only need to say the word, and I—”
“We should be talking about Kyrith.”
If he offers to get me out of that house one more time, I might break down and agree. My position as a spy is useful—critical, even—but stars, I’m so close to snapping.
I won’t quit while I can still be helpful, but privately, I wonder how much more I can take.
There’s a beat where the force of his concerned stare drills into me, before he resumes walking. “I’m glad you’re on a first-name basis with the Librarian. How are your tutoring sessions going? Are you enjoying them?”
“She’s insufferable,” I blurt without thinking.
“I went to all of that trouble to show her what we’re up against, and the next day, she just continued on like nothing had changed.
Then, when I confronted her about it, she brushed off the matter like she was unconcerned. She started questioning my motives.”
“You think she's short-sighted?”
“I think she’s smug and overconfident,” I correct, rolling my left shoulder to ease the spiking pain running through it. “She thinks because she banished Mathias that she’s safe, and she can just leave the rest of us to—”
“I highly doubt that. The Librarian is a doyenne of arcanist history. She recognised the threat for what it was and chose the next logical step.” He waves a hand between the two of us. “Alliances.”
My mouth twists as I consider it, then dismiss the notion. He didn’t see how calm and unruffled she was. Nothing about her seemed threatened.
“She needs us,” Benny continues. “We have something she doesn’t.”
Knowledge. An inside eye. Not that I can reveal much.
My mother trusts me, but after hearing that I swore a covenant to the Librarian, that faith is fragile. I’d be surprised if she weren’t considering demanding the same of both of her children. The second she so much as catches a whiff of disobedience, she’ll stomp it out.
“We’ve done more to thwart him in the last five years than she has in the last five hundred,” I add.
“Your frustration is understandable, but she didn’t know he still walked the earth until you stole that pendant and showed her.”
“She’s the Librarian.” I sneer the title. “The all-knowing repository of knowledge.”
“And yet…still mortal.”
I miss a step, head jerking around to check he just said what I thought he did. We’re approaching the public lavatories, and soon the moment to ask will be lost.
“Mortal? She’s a ghost.”
One that’s somehow gained physical form, probably via some quirk of the necromancy used to create her. But that’s her secret, and unless I want to activate the covenant, I can’t tell my grandfather.
“Is she?” Benny cocks his head, a delighted smile on his face. “I can’t wait to find out. Can you?”
Closing my eyes briefly, my nostrils flare on a deep inhale.
Patience. He’s a parriarch, for all that he gave up the title. Questioning him when he’s obviously being purposefully ambiguous will get me nowhere.
“Josef’s murder has made her assistance more vital than ever.” My grandfather strokes his chin thoughtfully. “He was a fool to trust his own people. Especially with young Northcliff’s ascension having ruffled so many feathers.”
And now, Mathias can make the play he’s always wanted to. My jaw clenches just thinking of the news I was forced to celebrate last night. I imagine Northcliff and his clueless twin will be learning the identity of their new vicegerent right about now.
I can only hope Kyrith and I managed to cram enough spells into his pea brain for him to escape unscathed.
If not, well…I won’t lose sleep.
There’s always a powerful arcanist willing to step into the position of heir. The next one might know more than some clueless liminal Josef snatched off the street.
We reach the lavatories, and Benny’s pace slows. “You haven’t done anything that I should know about before we return to the Arcanaeum, have you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Lying to your elders is a sin, Pierce.”
It’s also a waste of time. I swear he reads me so easily sometimes. “I challenged her to a duel and got my ass kicked for my trouble. That’s all, I promise.”
My grandfather’s snort lashes my already bruised pride, and he wastes no time lifting his hand to knock quietly on the door.
“Ad Arcanaeum,” he whispers, passing through and then holding the door for me with an obliging wave of his hand.
The Library admits us into a small, cramped room I don’t recognise. It’s stacked high with papers and books and completely lacking in windows, forcing us to rely on a handful of wisplights for illumination.
Kyrith is perched against the over-burdened desk, three delicate teacups and a matching floral teapot waiting on a tray in the air beside her. Is it my imagination, or is she dressed more casually today? The pastel dress clings to her curves in ways I shouldn’t notice, but I do.
“You’re early,” she comments, as the hair-prickling sensation of wards rising skitters up my spine.
The teapot lifts, then delicately pours its steaming contents into the waiting cups without prompting.
“Librarian, you’re looking lovely as ever.” Benny sweeps forward, holding his hand out for hers and pressing a kiss to the back of it even though she’s careful to keep to her ghost form.
Kyrith nods, accepting the compliment without fuss. “I am much recovered, thanks to your deception.”
“Ah, am I not yet forgiven for my part in that?”
One delicate, feminine brow rises in a way that has me tensing. My mother’s brow does the same thing when she’s about to unleash her most vitriolic comebacks.
Kyrith, however, simply sighs. “Your publication was invaluable in restoring Mr McKinley to full health. That spoke a lot to your character, if not your grandson’s.”
My jaw clenches as I accept the cup and saucer that float to me, but I say nothing. I know my place, unlike the others. A good heir doesn’t interrupt their betters when they’re having a conversation that could change the fate of arcandom.
“Fortunately, then, I have another gift for you,” Benny concludes, pulling a large tome from his jacket and handing it to her.
“This is John Ackland’s treatise on stasis spells,” she murmurs, her hair falling around her face and hiding her expression as she strokes the cover.
“Which concludes that the suspension of all bodily systems is impossible to achieve, because the power required would drain any arcanist who attempted it, just like all time spells. John went on to conclude that ‘Messing with temporal states is messing with the fundamental laws of the universe,’ and thus well beyond the ability of mere mortals.” Benny quotes from memory with a soft smile.
“A pity he didn’t consider the magical potential of a building enriched with the lives of dozens of sacrificed liminals when making his hypothesis. ”
Kyrith has frozen, as have I.
“Sacrificed liminals?” I choke out the words.
“Ah, forgive me, Librarian. My grandson doesn’t know.
” Benny turns to me, face unusually grave as he explains.
“Dozens, if not hundreds, of liminals were sacrificed here in the early centuries. The parriarchs justified it as a way of fortifying the Arcanaeum, binding magic to the building to create a well that could be used for its defence should our people be threatened by inepts again. The first parriarchs may have had noble intentions, but by the time Mathias and his fellow necromancers took over, it had become a convenient source of power for them to draw from whenever they wished. It gave them sufficient magic to prolong their lives and assert their positions of power. The Librarian was the last such sacrifice.”
“How do you know that?” she presses.
Benny’s lip quirks. “I heard enough of Matty’s rants during our ill-fated time together. The night of your intended sacrifice and his resulting banishment has been a source of many bitter tirades over the years.”
“How terrible it must’ve been for him,” Kyrith mutters, though there’s little heat in her voice.
She seems…distracted. It’s hard to place the emotions running across her face, because I’m still working through the knowledge that Kyrith was just one of dozens of sacrificed liminals.
I’m not surprised. Mathias has assuredly done worse in the years since, but thinking about the pretty ghost before me as an innocent girl at the mercy of the lich isn’t exactly…
pleasant. Nor is the sad, melancholy look that passes over her face as she stares into the corner of the room, lost in thought.
I’ve seen firsthand how the victims of necromancers die: terrified and pleading. Imagining Kyrith in their place makes me oddly…nauseous.