Chapter 11
Eleven
Kyrith
“Take your time, lass.”
His patience only adds to my frustration.
“This is ridiculous.”
“Naw, you’re allowed to be nervous.”
My grip on Jasper’s hand is so tense I fear I might snap his bones, but it’s entirely due to the wind and the slippery stone beneath my feet.
It has nothing to do with nerves. Or that car over there. Or that tree.
Oh, who am I kidding? The world looks so alien, and right now, I want nothing more than to go back to my Library and never leave.
At least, after a few days of rest, I’m no longer draining them like I was, and if I do break his hand, the McKinleys can heal that easily enough.
“I was ready to run out into Amsterdam without issue.” I stare at the windswept yard before me. “This is nothing.”
The clan is using the central yard as a car park, and the fleet of coloured vehicles judges me silently as I hover in the doorway. They look so much bigger in person. Smellier, too, if the old van pumping out black smoke to my right is any indication.
There’s a chill in the air that burns my nostrils on each inhale, and in the distance, two women are berating someone loudly enough that if I cared to, I could make out every word.
It’s the real world, in all its chaotic, unpredictable glory. Everything I wanted is right there, and yet my feet still refuse to traverse the distance from the doorstep to the gravel.
“You had the Arcanaeum back then, and all your grimoires.”
My free hand falls to the book at my hip—the one he had to repair for me. I’ve spent the hours since filling the pages with basic runeforms drawn from my memory. My pockets are full of scraps for the smaller magics that make life easier.
It still doesn’t seem like enough.
“It doesn’t feel like mine,” I mumble, caressing the spine. “I’ve not used it in so long, and now…”
Our connection is weak. A long-term bond between an arcanist and their grimoire enables them to draw it and select a page with their mind, but I’d have to fumble with the buckles like North used to and then flick to the correct page by hand.
Stars, North is better equipped to cast spells than I am. That’s galling.
It’s like being chucked back to the day I was first brought to the university.
“I’m defenceless.”
I need to deepen my bond with the book, but I’ve barely lifted a finger since I woke up. I haven’t hated their pampering, or the cuddles, but it’s clearly got to stop. Now.
“You’re not,” Jasper promises. “And no one would dare touch you with Dakari up there scowling at anyone who comes close.”
True enough, Dakari is reclining on the curtain wall above the gatehouse, black gaze fixed on the two of us. He plucks something from a pink floral tin by his side, then pops it into his mouth with a wink.
It’s strange how comforting his presence is. It reminds me of how he used to watch from the Gallery while I worked at my desk. He and Jasper are my bastions of strength as I take the first step, then the next.
An evil-looking goose waddles out from between two cars, halting me in my tracks with a grumpy hiss and a flap of its wings. I’ve not seen birds in ages. From the looks of things, they haven’t changed much since I was alive, but the novelty brings a healthy dose of sadness.
I’ve traded the creaking of floorboards and the smell of bibliosmia for an overgrown chicken. Already, I miss the reassuring rustle of books being tidied away. The quiet of bright minds engrossed in study. The steady schlick of pages being turned.
Instead, there’s a hissing, honking bird and yelling. So. Much. Yelling.
“Why is it so…loud?” I venture, taking another step away from the creature. It honks again, like it’s laughing at me.
“That?” Jasper carefully extracts his hand from my grip and wraps his arms around my waist, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “That’s just how my clan communicates. Twenty quid says Uncle Ronnie is getting arsey about how one of my cousins has parked, and my aunts are telling him where to shove it.”
“I should banish them all,” I mutter, before I realise what I’ve said.
My heart falls.
This isn’t the Arcanaeum. I can’t banish anyone.
I never considered how strange it would be to leave. Now I’m homesick and unable to return. Still, I refuse to remain cooped up.
“Where are we going?” I ask, taking another few steps.
Jasper points at a smaller building set into the wall across the yard. “There. That’s my parents’ house.”
Oh. Of course. I suppose he thought that was an easy first venture beyond the confines of the keep; unfortunately, there’s nothing more nerve-wracking than meeting your partner’s family.
I’ve met his parents before, of course. But that was as the Librarian. Not as the woman who locked up their son’s penis for good behaviour.
As if to drive the point home, Jasper steps closer, eliminating the gap between us, and a hard bulge settles against the crack of my ass. Too hard.
He didn’t take the cage off?
It’s been days.
Did he forget the spell? Or is this intentional? I tilt my head back, searching for an answer in his eyes, but the door across the neatly maintained yard slams open, and a familiar man’s head sticks out.
“Jas! Yer ma wants tae ken if the Librarian likes broccoli?”
“I’ll eat anything,” I reply automatically, but Jasper’s father is already turning to Dakari.
“Oi. You too. Her orders.”
Dakari snorts in concert with Jasper, then clicks the lid back on the tin and drops casually from the wall.
My hand flutters, searching for my grimoire, heart seizing.
But Dakari’s already caught himself with a hover spell, slowing his descent so his next step lands casually on the grass, as if the distance were mere inches.
“Anything for Mama Dee.” He winks.
“My mother wants to adopt him, and she doesn’t care that he’s parriarch now,” the McKinley heir murmurs in my ear. “Better watch out, or she’ll do the same with you.”
Being mothered? At my age? That will be novel. I try for a smile in response, but the expression falls as stars start to twinkle at the edges of my vision. Blinking doesn’t make them go away, and my steps slow to a halt.
What’s happening?
“Lass?”
Jasper’s voice is distorted, overlaid with the smashing of glass, but when I look behind me, nothing is broken. My stomach lurches, head swimming.
Isidora chuckles low in my ear. “Come now. Is this any way to welcome your new rector, Georgina?”
The stars in my sight brighten to the point of pain, and I squeeze my eyes shut, moaning.
“You can’t do this!” Georgina’s normally deep voice is squeaky with fear. “I told you. I don’t know where he is!”
Jasper tries again, his hands on my shoulders turning supportive as my knees give out. “Lass? What’s wrong?”
I force open my eyes, but the yard is gone, replaced with an opulent, sunlit room. I observe it all from hip height, making me feel small and childlike, as the violence unfolds.
Georgina is sprawled amongst the wreckage of her glass coffee table, her hand stretching desperately for her grimoire as Isidora stalks closer. Lambert’s aunt is not a small woman, and yet she looks terribly fragile as the necromancer’s shadow falls over her.
I brace, tensing all over as I wait for the final spell, because Isidora would not break into the home of another parriarch for a less-than-deadly reason.
“Omubolosi.”
The freezing spell stops Georgina’s fingers inches from the book that might’ve saved her, but Isidora shifts to one side instead of taking the final step.
I move forward, and Georgina’s eyes fix on a spot above me. “Please,” she whispers. “I don’t know where Lambert is.”
“We know,” Mathias says, and I wish I could turn to look at him, because having him at my back sends spiders scurrying down my spine. “It’s clear your heir has no use for such a weak excuse for a parriarch. I still can’t believe you’re the strongest House Winthrop has to offer.”
“I’m a parriarch! An adept! Just like you.”
“Barely,” Isidora scoffs, the enormous black gem at her throat glinting in the dim light. “And not for much longer.”
Mathias kicks Georgina’s grimoire away, and she scrambles back as the spell releases her. There’s nowhere for her to flee. The necromancers are already chanting, familiar words echoing in the room.
My whole body tingles like I’ve been electrified. I’m too big for my own skin. My bones crack. No. Those aren’t my bones. That’s the blade. I’m the blade, and the metal is straining under the influx of power.
The last thing I see is Georgina’s terrified face as I swoop towards her. I’m forced back into my real body with her shrill scream still ringing in my ears.
“There’s no need to threaten me, Parriarch,” Benny says. “She’s completely fine, and I’m no threat to her. There, see? She’s already waking up.”
The first thing I see is Dakari’s deep black gaze boring into me from inches above my face. A crowd has gathered in the time it took for me to watch Georgina’s murder, and I pick out Jasper, his parents, and Benny among a host of confused faces.
Dakari’s scarred brow rises, drawing my attention back to him, and I rush to say, “I’m fine.”
“Exactly,” Benny says, and gravel crunches as he moves away, giving the larger man space to stand. “I can’t tell you what happened, but I agree with the young McKinley’s evaluation. Physically, she’s in perfect shape.”
He starts to say something else, but I’ve stopped listening. Lambert. Where is Lambert?
Being in Dakari’s arms gives me a spectacular view of the crowd I’ve drawn, and I clear my throat as I search for a blond head of hair that isn’t among them.
I can’t feel him close by either. Though I note with absent curiosity that I can still feel the grimoires of those in the crowd.
Evidently, some aspects of being the Librarian haven’t changed.
“I need to talk to Lambert.” My eyes fall on Jasper, and I grimace. “Food might have to wait. Would you mind getting the others?”
“I’ll bring everything to the Great Hall,” his mother pipes up from the direction of their home. “You need to eat.”