Chapter 22 #2
He nods jerkily. “Yeah. I get that. It’s just…we can’t stay out there anymore.”
“I finished moving in,” Eddy adds brightly, jogging down the stairs. She pauses at the opposite end of the table, her brows creasing as her eyes land on the copy of Leo’s ensorcellment and linger. “Is Pierce gone?”
“Yeah.” North drags the contract underneath a book, hiding it from her. “He skulked back up to his room. Said he was tired.”
Small mercies. I wasn’t looking forward to witnessing his reaction to the contract—assuming that the Arcanaeum left him a copy, too.
“Now, explain,” I demand. “What do you mean you can’t stay ‘out there’, and who told you about the Sanctuary plan?”
“Sanctuary plan?” Leo steps through a door on my right, and I groan.
“It's been suggested that you would all be safer here.”
“Because Mathias just crashed North’s meeting with Rector Talcott and declared himself the vicegerent of Ackland House,” Eddy supplies, abandoning her perusal of the runeform and drawing her dressing gown tighter around herself.
“He did what?” The crunch of paper alerts me to the fact that my hands have balled into fists.
“He had all the paperwork and everything,” North grumbles. “Turned up at the meeting with the lawyer and Talcott, and started changing shit straight away, and they just let him.”
That was why the Carltons needed Abe Talcott. To give Mathias a position of power.
Now he’s a parriarch once more in all but name. Stars only know where that leaves us.
I smooth out the wrinkles on Lambert’s contract as I think things through.
“What kind of changes?” I finally ask.
North shrugs. “Moving the official residence. Some stuff about raising liminal tax contributions, stopping them working in enforcement or directly for the parriarchs. Stupid shit.”
That’s North for ‘I didn’t understand what they were discussing.’
“Raising liminal tax contributions is essentially charging the liminals of your house more for Mathias’s protection,” Leo explains.
“Which means he’s dragging Ackland back to the way it was when he was last parriarch.” I sigh, turning away with a groan.
“What, just because they’re liminals?” Eddy says. “Why would he do that?”
“Because he doesn’t see liminals as arcanists.
” I rub at my temples. “Many adepts believed—and some still do—that the magic of their bloodlines was watered down whenever they intermingled with inepts. It gave them someone to blame when weak arcanists were born to strong parents. In times past, when inepts hunted us, those children were a drain on resources and a liability. Nowadays, inepts no longer believe we exist, and it’s been proven time and time again that magical strength is not genetic, but… people will be people.”
The pattern of deprivation turning to blame, blame to persecution, and persecution to violence is as universal as it is sad. Still, a lot of progress has been made in the last five hundred years, and Mathias will undo all of it if given the chance.
Leo chooses the chair I expected he would, pointing a sleek black remote at the television on the wall. It flicks on so easily, and I purse my lips. Had I embraced electricity earlier, we could’ve been watching the official footage rather than reliant on North’s distracted gaze.
Not that I want these infernal devices, of course. But I’m not mulish enough to deny they have their benefits.
“What are we going to do?” Eddy asks me, coming up on my other side. “Hide here until North passes his magister exams?”
“Or until the rector can be convinced to choose a new vicegerent,” I say. “If the two of you end up under his thumb…”
Well, it’s not exactly hard to control North. Mathias only has to threaten Eddy, and the heir would bend. Josef already proved as much.
“Did he do anything?” I ask. “Speak to either of you without the other parriarchs present?”
North shakes his head. “Eddy wasn’t in the meeting, and we came straight here the second it was over.”
I shoot her a questioning glance, and she scowls. “They wouldn’t let me in. I was stuck waiting in the foyer with Pierce’s awful sister for a full hour—and she wasn’t exactly talkative.”
No. Given Anthea’s disdain for weak arcanists and liminals, I can’t imagine she would be.
“Watch the game,” I tell them both. “You’re safe here, and you can stay as long as you need to. Tonight, I’ll search the records for cases where a vicegerent was removed. There must be something we can do.”
Our options may be limited with Rector Talcott on Mathias’s side, but perhaps one of the other parriarchs might be able to sway him.
My focus drifts to the screen without meaning to. The cameraman really loves Lambert. I don’t think I’m imagining the way they’re focusing on his intent gaze as he huddles with his team.
I dread to think what he’s saying. Probably something like, ‘Hey guys, please help me win my blowjob by playing well today.’
The huddle breaks up, and I flick my gaze down to Lambert’s crinkled contract as the teams take their places.
He’s written the date in the American format, which confuses me for a half-second. I skim quickly over the front page again, then inevitably land on the second.
Magic, he’s added more boxes, and drawn little arrows to notes on some of the existing ones. This has to be the most heavily annotated contract I’ve ever seen.
Many of them aren’t even sexual.
One is just a winky face.
A tiny, scribbled line from ‘food in the bedroom’ leads to a note requesting no strawberries as he’s allergic, and he doesn’t like sleeping with crumbs.
‘Massages’ has a note stating he gives great foot rubs but doesn’t enjoy receiving them because he’s too ticklish.
Then, under additional acts, he’s written ‘Jar opening…because it makes me feel manly.’
A tiny snort escapes me, but it cuts off as a roar erupts from the television. My eyes snap up, jaw dropping as I realise Eddy is on her feet, hands in the air.
The scoreboard on the screen now shows a hundred-nil to UAA. Lambert’s jubilant team have hoisted him onto their shoulders, raising him towards the ceiling as the commentator yells about what a once-in-a-lifetime shot the Winthrop heir just made.
“What are the odds?” I whisper, jaw slack.
“You weren’t even watching,” Leo mutters.
The footage cuts from Lambert blowing kisses at the camera to showcase the winning strike. I watch agape as it replays his kick from every angle.
They can’t have been playing for more than two minutes.
“Unbelievable.”