Chapter 8
Eight
Kyrith
Iknow two things.
One, it’s imperative we leave the Arcanaeum right now.
And two, that I can no longer feel the foundations, which terrifies me.
The only thing grounding me is the six men holding onto me like I might die if they let go.
Another quake shakes the building, but I feel it in my bones, not my soul.
“No.” I gasp at the vaulted ceiling. “What have you done?”
“We’re saving you,” Lambert objects as dust rains down around us.
I wasn’t talking to him. I was talking to the Library.
Not that it matters. Someone releases my hand, and everything is black once again.
I’m cradled in a pair of strong arms, and my eyes are full of grit. The air is thick with magic, smoke, and the cracking of stone.
Dakari makes a noise of frustration. “He’s going to break through if we don’t get out of here.”
Lambert is on our left, pleading with the walls. “Arcanaeum, dude. Help us out. We need to go.”
A crackling smack echoes through the space, and I turn my head to watch as the door glows and blackens under the force of the magic being used to try to break in.
Leo’s hand is smashed into his grimoire as he stands shoulder to shoulder with Dakari and Pierce. The three of them are standing between the rest of us and the door, casting such a strong ward that the ozone scent of nullification magic coats my tongue.
Wait. Pierce? Leo? I open my mouth to warn them, but my tongue is numb.
“Feck.”
“There’s another door!” Lambert calls, and I crane my neck to look, but I can’t see him.
“I can’t go with you.” Pierce sounds strained. “There’s a tracking ensorcellment on my back. They’ll find us if I go.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you say so?” Jasper retorts. “Where?”
The Scot opens his own grimoire as Pierce reaches back and yanks up his shirt, revealing a small runeform at the base of his spine.
Tagged like a dog.
“Pierce Carlton, open this door!” Isidora’s voice is muffled but incandescent with fury.
Her son flinches, the mark on his cheek scrunching up in a grimace. But he doesn’t stop casting.
Mathias’s cold threat follows soon after. “Whatever you’re doing, boy, it won’t work. I control the Arcanaeum now.”
I shiver. I can’t help it. North—and it is North whose arms I’m wrapped in—clutches me a little tighter against his chest.
“Hey, dickhead,” he yells back. “Good luck controlling a pile of fucking rubble.”
Then we’re moving, shoving through a door.
No. I can’t leave. It’s not possible. It’s—
I’m outside.
I’m…I’m outside, and the wind is freezing. The sky above is a deep, mournful grey.
“No!” I choke, but there’s no pull. Nothing.
There’s no connection to the Arcanaeum, and when North turns around to look at the graffiti-covered door, I can only watch with horror as he keeps backing away, and I—
I feel nothing. No stretching, elastic band of pressure around my chest. No scraping, pulling pain.
Only the cold, sharp blade of fear.
Lambert dives out next, Westley hissing and clawing at his arms. Then comes Jasper, dragging the three others with him.
They collapse on the weed-strewn, cracked concrete as the door on the other side of the tomb disintegrates.
There’s a moment—less than a second—where my eyes meet Mathias’s. His pure, unbridled fury is just as terrifying as before. He raises the dagger, and something inside me tugs. I lurch forward without meaning to, almost toppling out of North’s grip.
But North’s free hand is already buried in his grimoire, which is hovering by his side. “Inflemi aerchilon.”
An arc of pure white flame soars through the space, right for Mathias.
It’s brilliant, powerful magic. A hundred times more skilful than his previous attempts.
It’s also too much for the Arcanaeum. The ceiling of the tomb we were in collapses.
Dust billows forth, only to be sucked back inside as the metal door between us slams shut.
“Wahoo!” Lambert crows into the silence. “We did it!”
Dakari staggers to his feet, searching for me.
“Are you okay?” he demands.
The world is swaying. All I can do is shake my head and stare mutely at the door.
What just happened? I was… The Arcanaeum…
“She’s probably in shock,” Jasper mutters, lifting Leo’s burnt arm to examine it.
The other man snatches it away. “It’s fine.”
“It’s a second-degree burn—”
“It’ll keep. Pierce is worse.”
I barely register Dakari’s eyes widening before my stomach drops out from underneath me. It’s only thanks to his fast thinking that I don’t end up on the ground beside North.
“North?” Lambert is at his friend’s side in an instant, Leo right behind him, muttering incantations. A tense second passes as North’s body glows softly.
“Magical exhaustion,” Leo mumbles. “Kyrie’s drained him.” His eyes land on Dakari, who’s started to sway as well. “Put her down before you drop her.”
But the moment he releases me to the cold earth, my head swims. I slump before anyone can catch me. My fingers start to tingle so badly that it hurts.
No. Not again. I can’t pass out…
The bed I’m in is so warm and cosy that it takes me a second to realise what woke me.
“You got her?” Jasper asks, as a warm body jostles the mattress, settling behind me.
“Yeah. Set the timer and get some rest.” Dakari’s arm bands around my waist.
“She’s getting her colour back. Might be a better idea to wake the others.”
A pair of lips presses a kiss to the curve of my neck, and I melt. I’m not quite free of that sleepy place between unconsciousness and wakefulness. Maybe that’s why it takes me a second to realise that these aren’t my sheets.
There are gulls cawing outside.
There aren’t any birds in the Library.
I jolt upright like I’ve been electrocuted.
“The Arcanaeum!”
Dakari pulls me back down against his chest. “Keep touching me and healing, and I’ll tell you everything we know.”
“I’ll get the others.” Jasper leans down to press a rough kiss to my lips. “Fuck, I’m so glad you’re not dead.”
“Keep Leo out,” Dakari mutters, but the door thuds closed with no indication that Jasper heard him.
The noise draws my eyes away from his glower and around the large, old-fashioned room. It looks like we’re in a castle, but I have no way of knowing where.
“Fort McKinley,” Dakari explains, as I spot the white ball of fur on a chair across the room.
Westley. Oh, thank magic he’s okay.
“Everyone is here, including Eddy. We made her go get some sleep an hour ago. She took what happened pretty hard. She’s barely left your side for the last few days.”
It’s been days? I tense in his arms, but he soothes a hand over my hair.
“What about the Library?”
“Closed the moment we got you out. All of the patrons were evicted, including Isidora and Mathias.”
“I can’t feel it anymore. Is it—?”
“It’s…shut. No one can get in.” He pauses, letting me absorb the news.
“That shouldn’t be possible.” Mathias has the dagger, and with it, ultimate control of the building’s magic. Unless…there’s no magic left.
My memories of the time after Mathias stabbed me are foggy, but I remember meeting the other librarians. I remember how drained the building was. Mathias drew on our energy constantly to heal himself, and then took more and more as he redecorated…
He must’ve used more magic in those few days than I normally did in decades.
I’m still exhausted.
“You’re pulling energy from us,” Dakari says. “It’s slowed since yesterday, but—”
“My magical well is depleted.” I’m becoming painfully aware of the gasping cavern in my chest that’s slowly filling with warm, syrupy energy. “But…I share the Arcanaeum’s. I shouldn’t have one.”
Dakari remains silent; he doesn’t have any answers for me. As for me, I turn my search inward, to the well that shouldn’t be there.
No part of my magic is connected to the Library anymore. We’re separate. Our bond has been severed.
That final word reverberates in my mind, haunting me.
I’m still connected to the heirs and the dagger. I can see the dark, withered strand of magic that leads to my grimoire. That’s it. The hundreds of grimoires in the Vault are gone. I still have all my power, but I can’t cast without them.
“The dagger is a key,” I mumble to myself. “A conduit for the magic of Mathias’s sacrifices. But if that pathway were reversed…if the Library transferred its energy into a person…”
Into a body created by the Arcanaeum, a body forged specifically to handle all of that power. My body.
But that can’t be right. The building’s magic was intricately woven with the collective consciousness of the other librarians. It was keeping them alive—in a manner of speaking.
If the Arcanaeum no longer has any power…if it sent it all away with me…
Oh, stars, no.
“What did you do?” I whisper under my breath.
Because please, please don’t let this be what I think it is. I couldn’t live with myself if all that remains of the Arcanaeum—of the other librarians—is the ball of power in my chest.
My heartbeat stutters, then chokes. Did the Library sacrifice itself to set me free?
“You’re awake!” Lambert bursts through the door, launching himself straight onto the bed with such enthusiasm that I bounce on the mattress.
“North’s getting food. How do you feel? Do you need more magic?
Can I kiss you? Do you know what’s going on?
Because none of us has a clue. Also, you’re outside!
We can take you to see those pigeons now, boss!
Okay, so it’s mostly seagulls and geese up here in Orkney, but I’m sure we can find a pigeon… ”
“Oh, do shut up,” Pierce grunts, shoving through the door. “You’re giving me a headache.”
Lambert half-drags me onto his lap, though he’s limited by Dakari’s reluctance to let me go and the way my body turns rigid at the sight of Pierce.
The covenant mark is there on his cheek, but it’s scarred over, so pale that it’s almost silver. That shouldn’t happen. The magic usually keeps the wounds fresh and painful. You can’t even cast an illusion to hide one.
Unless it was never a real covenant mark.
“You—”
“I’m truly sorry,” he interrupts, every trace of haughtiness evaporating at the sight of me.
“I thought if I faked loyalty, I might be able to persuade Mathias to keep you alive, but by the time you were summoned to the Vault, it was too late. I couldn’t see any way that we’d make it out alive. I should’ve saved you, but I failed.”
Idiot. He’s strong, but he couldn’t have taken on Mathias or Isidora by himself. While they stabbed me, he was silently enduring a torture spell that would’ve sent most people to their knees. There was no way he could’ve prevented what happened.
I can’t even blame him for his deception. It was horrible to die thinking that he’d betrayed me, but he made the smart decision. The right one.
One thing doesn’t add up, however.
“If it was all an act, how did Mathias know so much about the protections I put over the dagger?” I challenge. “He broke through them in minutes.”
Pierce folds his arms and frowns. “I never told a soul. I didn’t even understand half of what you were doing at the time.”
That admission draws a snort from Lambert, but Pierce continues before he can say anything.
“Eddy was watching us both while we were working. She was covered in ensorcellments. Mathias probably saw everything you did through her eyes.”
Concern for her rises, but Dakari promised me she was fine. He wouldn’t lie.
“So you never broke the covenant?” My voice is smaller than I’d like it to be.
Pierce rolls his eyes. “When my mother asked, I made up a story about how you’d severed our bond because you didn’t trust me. It was all lies. Honestly, I can’t remember most of what I said. I would’ve told her anything to get to the Arcanaeum and save you. I’m sorry that it was for nothing.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I seal my lips shut. In the hallway beyond this room, several voices are getting louder and louder.
Before I can ask if everything is okay, Lambert pipes up, “I still can’t believe your mom had a tracker on you. Jasper said it was one of the strongest ensorcellments he’d ever seen.”
My jaw drops, but Pierce shrugs it off. “Both Anthea and I were investments who knew too much. Of course she needed to keep an eye on us.”
“That’s inhumane,” I growl. “You could’ve asked, and I would’ve—”
He brushes off my concern. “It was a necessary evil. She would’ve known if the spell was broken.”
My lips purse, because I’m sure I could’ve come up with something, but the argument outside is getting more heated, intruding on our conversation.
“Just let me see for myself that she’s okay,” Leo begs.
A fissure the size of the Grand Canyon opens in my chest.
Stars, I want to ghost just to escape it, but I no longer can. Because of him.
Something of what I’m feeling must show on my face, because Lambert’s grip on me tightens, and Dakari’s expression turns into a full-on glower.
Jasper’s huff is audible even from beyond the open door. “She’s fine. Now, go back to sleep.”
Leo doesn’t back down. “Not until I see her.”
“She doesn’t need this right now.” North’s shadow fills the doorway as he speaks. I don’t know how I know it’s him, but I do. Just like I can sense Jasper down the hall and Leo caught between them.
Whatever the Library did to cut me off strengthened the bonds between us to the point where I’m feeling them like I would the books. I don’t know what to make of it. Was it always this way and just now noticeable because I can’t feel the tomes in the collection?
Or perhaps it’s because they’ve been feeding me their magic. The Arcanaeum stealing power from them was how our bonds were formed in the first place. It stands to reason that this would strengthen them. Only…it’s not just Dakari, Jasper, and Lambert whose bonds are stronger.
Which would mean…
“Did you all touch me while I was out?”
“That sounds much creepier than it was,” Lambert objects.
“Don’t make it out to be a big deal,” Pierce says. “I only held your hand.”
Dakari snorts. “Leo was lucky we allowed him that much.”
“It was only because we were worried you needed magic from all of us… Well, and we kept getting drained, so we had to take shifts.” Lambert says the last almost apologetically, like it’s a personal failing that he was unable to provide enough energy to keep me alive.
Never mind that I’m basically a parasite living off their magic.
“I’m grateful for your help,” I admit. “And I’m sorry I sent you away. It was the only way I could protect you.” I pause. “But I don’t want to see him until I’ve recovered.”
I say the last sentence loud enough to carry.
“Kyrie.” Leo trails off in the middle of my name.
North and Jasper enter, shutting the door behind them with Leo firmly on the other side.
It’s fitting, because I’m shutting out anything and everything to do with Galileo until I’ve figured out what’s happened to the Arcanaeum.
He made it clear I wasn’t his priority, and now he’s no longer mine.