Chapter 33 #2
He proves me right when he answers, “Yeah. Kyrie’s the hurt one here. Sure.”
With a shake of his head and a clench of his jaw, he pivots on his heel, stalking down the stairs with an angry exhale forced through gritted teeth.
When he’s gone, I fall back against the cushions with a sigh.
“I’m not handling his situation well,” I mumble, already pushing off the bed to go after him. “Would you mind if I—?”
Dakari shakes his head. “Give him a minute to breathe, baby girl.”
I don’t think that will make a difference. In fact, it might only make it worse. “Leo is upset because I’m not devoting enough time to dealing with his ensorcellment. If I leave him alone…”
“He might pull his head out of his ass and remember you’re the only person trying to save his ungrateful hide. If you go down there right now—after he saw you with me—you’ll be his enemy by association.”
My gut twists uncomfortably. Dakari has a point.
I hate this. Leo’s criticism, so fresh on the heels of Pierce’s, and combined with what I just learned about the bonds we share, burns like acid in my chest.
“No matter which direction I turn, I fail one of you.” I fall back in defeat.
“Not true. You’re sheltering their useless asses. Even if you weren’t, you think Jasper and I haven’t noticed how you’re always working? Every time one of us isn’t looking, you have your head buried in a book—and none of them are your sexy romance novels.”
Oh magic, he noticed?
“Only part of that is Leo’s curse,” I admit guiltily. “I’ve been researching liches—what little I can—and arcanist law. Trying to come up with a way we can at least replace Mathias as vicegerent before he does any more damage.”
Not that I’ve had any luck. Thankfully, Dakari doesn’t ask for a progress report.
“And you weren’t exactly sitting around doing nothing before I interrupted, either. You need your grimoire to work on his ensorcellment.”
Reluctantly, I concede his point. “I was also trying to figure out why Ackland hasn’t used it to force entry.”
He stays silent, and I find myself elaborating without meaning to.
“My connection to it is so withered that Mathias trying to use it to exert his will over the Arcanaeum would be like trying to force entry through a crack in the wall. It would take years. During that time, I would’ve noticed and put a stop to it.
The dagger is a better option. The dagger, me, and… you.”
“Me?”
Deep breaths. “All six of you are tethered to the Arcanaeum—and me—now. I think it happened when you cracked me. That’s why touching you makes me solid. It completes the bond.”
“Does it hurt you?”
“Not at all. But…I don’t know what the implications are.
So far, the Library is treating you all like books.
Feeding you energy whenever we touch. You probably haven’t noticed since none of you have been hurt.
In theory, I suppose it could go the other way.
The building could drain you if it needed to. ”
I brace for his reaction, but his expression doesn’t change. His face is a careful blank mask, those predatory eyes revealing nothing of his thoughts. The silence stretches, tears at my nerves, and I tug at the sleeves of my cardigan, standing just to put some distance between us.
“You’re afraid,” he finally notes. “Is that because of me or this bond?” I dart a glance up, and he curses. “Baby girl, I’m not angry. Even if I were, you didn’t do this. It just happened.”
My next breath is shaky. “I don’t know if I can undo it. I could study it further, but—”
“But you have a lich, that stupid ó Rinn boy, and the Carltons to deal with. It’ll keep.” He dips his chin. “You do need to tell them, though. Mathias could use this against you. Every time one of us leaves the building, it’s a security risk.”
“I know.”
I can only imagine how that will go. North won’t like being the subject of more magic he doesn’t understand.
Lambert will just make some joke about the whole situation without really grasping what it means.
Perhaps Jasper will forgive me, but Leo will no doubt rage, worried about what this could mean for his ensorcellment.
I deliberately don’t let myself think of how Pierce will react.
The Carlton heir’s coldness has a calculating edge that scares me. If he knew he was one of the linchpins that could topple the Arcanaeum into the palm of Mathias’s hand, what would he do with that information?
“Leo was out of line.” Dakari cuts off my gloomy thoughts. “I’ll get Lambert to speak to him.”
The idea of Lambert being his brother’s keeper is almost laughable. “It won’t help. He’s under a lot of stress.”
“Are you really making excuses for him?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” I stop as I realise I’ve started pacing. “You see the worst of him because you’re a Talcott. There are…softer parts of him.”
I’d hoped the confession might soothe his ire, but Dakari’s frown darkens. “Please tell me you’re not falling in love with him.”
“No!”
“He’s dangerous.”
“His ensorcellment is dangerous.”
“And you could be its next victim if you keep tempting out the ‘softer parts’ of Galileo ó Rinn.”
“That’s not likely.”
“Why? Because he thinks he’ll lose his brother? Do you know the number of times an ó Rinn has accurately guessed what they’ll lose? Almost zero. That spell is vicious and unpredictable.”
“I’m going to break it, so it won’t be a concern for much longer. Actually, I wanted to ask you for your help on that front.”
“Mine?”
“The next runeform has mutated. It’ll take four arcanists to break it.”
“Me, you, Pierce, and Jasper?” he guesses. “You think Leo will even let me within ten feet of him?”
No. I don’t. But I hope my pleading look conveys what I can’t say.
Perhaps it does, because Dakari stokes a hand through his dreads, then shakes his head. “Won’t work.”
“Why not? It’s not like you cast the original. You’re both generations removed from Ammie Talcott and—”
“It doesn’t matter. ó Rinns don’t trust Talcotts. Ammie cursed Donal and then spent the rest of her life bragging about how justified it was. Most people believe they deserve it.” My mouth turns down, and he groans. “I’m not one of them, obviously. But you’re not going to convince Leo of that.”
“What happened?”
“Same thing that always happens in a divorce. Somewhere in the middle of the shitstorm, things were said that couldn’t be unsaid, and Ammie decided to curse her husband.”
“They were married?”
“For a few years. He wasn’t faithful and ended up with a bunch of illegitimate children. One of his mistresses gave him something that he then passed on to Ammie. It made her infertile and then later killed her.”
Oh.
I can see why one might be driven to curse such a man, but his children? That still takes a special kind of spite.
“People are awful,” I mutter to myself. “And Leo doesn’t deserve to suffer for that. Nor do the other ó Rinns.”
“Agreed.” He catches my arm, tugging me gently back to the bed. “But I can’t exactly pin him down and force him to let me help. If you can convince him, then fine. Otherwise…”
Leo is on his own.
The unsaid words linger like smoke, suffocating me. Their impact is lessened by the gentle rub of his thumb across the inside of my wrist. Briefly, I consider restarting what Leo interrupted, but my curiosity has been sparked.
“What did he mean when he said you levelled a village?”
“I don’t talk about it.”
The shutdown is rough, almost pained.
“Okay.” I back off instantly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have pried.”
He takes a deep, deliberate breath, the tightness in his posture easing. “No. You should hear it from me, not some idiot who wasn’t even there.” He pauses. “I was a kid, and it happened on the other side of the world, but people just won’t stop shoving it in my face.”
“I understand. I made a mistake when I was young, too.” At least my death wasn’t the subject of gossip and scorn. “You should be free to live outside of the shadow of your past.”
“You had an excuse. I was just angry.” Dakari drops my wrist. “I thought I was hot shit, following in my older brother’s footsteps.
Racing cars, sneaking out, drinking whatever I could get my hands on.
I was heir. I knew I was powerful. Girls loved me; my friends wanted to be me.
The only people who saw the dangerous path I was on and cared enough to try to stop me were my parents. ”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
My jaw drops. “So young?”
“Yeah. I was big for my age. Tyler was nineteen. Everyone assumed we were twins, and we were inseparable.”
That doesn’t make it better.
“So your parents tried to protect you?”
“Yeah. They took me out of school without telling me why, and then dropped me in my room and told me to pack everything I wanted. They were sending me to live with my grandfather, and I wasn’t coming back.
” He pauses. “I lost it. I told them it was unfair, that they were being unreasonable. I wish I could take back some of the shit I said. In the end, my mum threatened to use magic to get me in the car. I reached for my grimoire, and I just… I cast without thinking.”
“Causing an earthquake?”
His head falls into his hands.
“Yeah. Buried half the town…including my parents’ house. Mum managed to shield us, but my brother was in the kitchen.”
“He was hurt.”
“Nearly died. By some miracle, no one did. Still, I caused a tonne of damage, and when I got to my grandfather’s place, he wasn’t particularly thrilled to have me.”
“I remember him. His name was Elijah…right? He was always…” Harsh. Stoic. Almost on the same level as Artemius ó Rinn, now that I think about it.
“Strict.” Dakari finishes, a grim smile twitching the corners of his lips. “Obsessed with ‘discipline.’ He spent too much time in the army. The only reason I stayed sane was because he played chess with Jasper’s grandfather and dragged me along.”
“Is that how you two met?”
“Yeah. There wasn’t much shit I could get up to in the middle of nowhere, and Gramps used it as a reward. I figured it was only until I turned eighteen, then I could go home, but my parents didn’t want me back.”
His shoulders drop, hands fisting on his lap.
“So how did you end up homeless?”
“Gramps died, and Abe wouldn’t let me keep the house. Didn’t want to ‘encourage freeloading.’ My parents still wouldn’t talk to me.” He shrugs. “I wandered into the Arcanaeum because I had nowhere else to go. Then you made me a collector—”
“The Arcanaeum did that.”
“Whatever. The money you paid me was enough to put me through UAA.”
Embarrassment worms its way into my throat, forcing me to clear it before I can speak again. “That wasn’t a typical collector’s salary. I just… You were nice. And handsome. I—I wanted to see you again.”
His lips twitch with the ghost of a smile. “Objectifying patrons, now?”
“Only the polite, quiet ones with nice muscles,” I mutter under my breath, cheeks glowing as the shelves creak in amusement. “I couldn’t help it. You were an adult, and it’s not like I ever believed anything would come of it.”
“Cougar,” he teases.
“Hey, I’m still technically twenty-one.”
“Is this like that woman thing where you pretend you can never reach thirty, except with a few more magical excuses?”
I shush him. “Don’t you have a grimoire to find?”