Chapter 11 #3
Swallowing back my sadness, I break their dreams of valour with cold logic. “But you aren’t strong enough. Not individually, at least.”
North only knows a handful of destruction spells, and his overconfidence would be amusing if the circumstances were different.
“I could train you for the rest of your lives, and you wouldn’t learn even a fraction of the magic that Mathias commands. A brute force attack would only end with you all dead.”
As much as he may terrify me, I’m the only one who comes close to his knowledge and power.
“Wait,” Benny repeats. “We need to sow enough chaos that they’re caught off guard when we do strike.
If we can gather enough evidence, we may even get enforcement on our side and wipe out a considerable portion of their supporters.
You may be the only person alive with a magical ability to rival Matty’s, but right now, you’re in no condition to fight.
It would be better for you to put your considerable talents towards breaking the other ó Rinn ensorcellments—”
“She doesn’t have to do that,” Leo objects, and I groan at the reminder that he’s here. “I’m handling it.”
Benny raises a brow. “We need all the allies we can get. If Kyrith is willing, bringing ó Rinn to our side is the most strategic use of her time.”
“The Librarian has done enough. She owes us nothing.”
My eyebrows rise, because I promised to help, but before I can say as much, Leo continues.
“And it’s a mite suspicious that a Carlton is telling us to sit on our arses while his daughter helps a lich destroy arcandom.”
“I’m telling you to wait while we build up alliances.”
Leo isn’t placated. “You met with Anthea earlier. Why would you do that when she’s been on their side since the beginning?”
Benny cares for his grandchildren. The truth potion told me as much. I understand Leo’s suspicion, but I’m willing to bet that the older Carlton is trying to judge whether his granddaughter can be saved. While his optimism may be misplaced, I’m certain his judgement is sound.
Otherwise, Anthea would be here right now, or on the run again.
I open my mouth to tell them Benny is trustworthy, but he lets out a long sigh.
“Because once upon a time, I was a young arcanist who’d just lost the love of his life.
I became enthralled by a magister who promised he could reunite me with her…
” His shoulders drop, fingers lacing together under his chin.
“The sad truth is, by the time he’d finished showering me with his attention, I didn’t even want her resurrected.
I wanted to move on, with him. He was wonderful with Izzy and seemed to genuinely care about both of us. ”
He pauses, and my heart falls, because it sounds like he’s saying he…loved Mathias. Then a cold mask drops down over his normally affable face.
“As soon as he was sure I was properly under his thrall, Matty slowly tore my life apart, used me up, and left me for dead. Not unlike several others at this table.” Benny looks at Leo, and then Jasper, and finally at me. “Not unlike Anthea.”
His words touch a nerve, but before I can object, he continues. “I visited her to see if she could be convinced to join us.”
“She’s a necromancer,” Jasper objects. “They kill people. It’s in the name.”
“She was the one who hit me with all of those ensorcellments,” Eddy adds. “And it’s not like she apologised while we were cell buddies, either.”
Pierce’s knuckles turn white, but he says nothing in his sister’s defence.
“Anthea wasn’t exactly stable when I got her out of the Carlton dungeon,” Dakari begins. “She wanted to go after her mother and Mathias.”
“She’s cracked,” Leo finishes.
Benny hums a disagreeing sound beneath his breath. “Regardless, she may still be useful. I would prefer she wasn’t handed over to enforcement just yet.”
His sanguinity chills me.
Anthea has never shown any signs of being anything less than a perfect instrument for her mother’s schemes. From what Dakari said, she made one last desperate attempt to escape her fate, but one moment of cowardice hardly warrants a pardon.
Once Mathias and Isidora are dealt with, her children’s fates will need to be decided. For the first time, I look at Pierce and wonder what he’ll do when this is over. Will the next parriarch of Carlton House also be a necromancer?
“What about me?” he asks, and for a second, I wonder if we’re thinking along the same lines. “I could be useful. I know where some of their boltholes are and—”
“Pierce,” Benny’s tone turns exasperated with the weight of old arguments. “I need you here. Protecting the Librarian.”
“She’s got five other protectors. And—”
“Kyrith is the most vital part of all of this,” Benny cautions. “If Mathias gets to her, the Arcanaeum is too weakened to intervene a third time.”
“Why didn’t it work?” Eddy pipes up. “When they sacrificed Kyrith five hundred years ago?”
Benny tilts his head, fixing me with a curious look. “I have a theory. I’m surprised you haven’t thought of it.”
“I always assumed my original sacrifice tipped the building over some kind of power threshold, allowing it to do what it did. None of the books I read had any other explanation.” I pause, remembering the events of the night where I lost the Arcanaeum with a shiver. “Mathias himself didn’t seem to know.”
“There was something—or rather someone—missing from those books.” Benny pauses, like he expects me to catch up, but I’m still confused. “Entire families who were never recorded. Think about it. Who is the only arcanist whose name isn’t recorded in the books in the Lineage Room?”
Me.
“The Arcanaeum was founded on the sacrifices of six families.” Benny stands, adjusting his kilt with a fond little smile. “The spells were designed for magic from those bloodlines, so when a seventh line, unrelated to the six who founded it, was sacrificed…”
Seventh line?
I blink at him, shaking my head. “I…”
“Wait,” Leo says. “She’s not related to the six houses?”
“During the purges, some arcanists gave up magic to survive and lived as inepts,” North remembers. “She told us that in Hopkinson’s first lecture.”
I…did, but I’m shocked that he listened.
“Mathias was recruiting liminals hidden in the inept population,” Benny adds. “If arcanists from different lines did escape the purges that way, then it was inevitable he would come across one of their descendants eventually.”
“Oh, thank magic,” Lambert mumbles. “It would’ve sucked if you were our great-grandma or something.”
“How could she be your grandma if she never had children?” Eddy groans. “Honestly, think before you speak.”
North’s face falls into one hand, and Dakari just shakes his head, but Benny uses the pause to continue his explanation.
“The new line of magic would’ve had different qualities and interacted with the Arcanaeum and the sacrifice spell in unpredictable ways. Maybe the Arcanaeum was already sentient before then; maybe Kyrith’s magic was what tipped it over the edge. We’ll never know.
“During her second sacrifice, I would hazard a guess that the Arcanaeum itself overpowered Mathias’s spell, and then reversed it, channelling all of its magical potential through the spire and dagger and sealing it into Kyrith as a means of protecting itself from his influence.”
I’d guessed as much.
A fresh wave of loneliness washes through me like saltwater, stinging and cold, but I brush it aside.
I always felt like I didn’t belong, but I’ve carved out a place for myself in the world, regardless.
Perhaps, deep down, I secretly wanted a house to claim me.
At a base level, every child wishes to be loved, and I had an orphan’s dreams that my missing family would provide that.
But I have the heirs around me now. I have Eddy, and Westley, and the Arcanaeum. The last sends a tiny pang through my chest, but I refuse to call it grief. The Arcanaeum isn’t gone. It can’t be.
This is my strange little family, and the Library is our home. I’ll die before I let Mathias take either from me.