Chapter 18
Eighteen
Northcliff
It’s my turn to watch Kyrith. Unfortunately, she’s an early riser, so by the time I’ve hauled my ass out of bed, the only person in her room is Jasper.
The Scot is snoring, snuggling her pillow and completely oblivious to the fact that the woman he was supposed to be keeping tabs on is fucking gone.
My anxiety is short-lived, because she’s left a note on her bedside table. She’s off doing research into the stupid ó Rinn curse, so it doesn’t take a genius to realise where she is.
You can take the Librarian out of the Library…
“No, I’m not helping,” I say, pre-emptively, as Eddy sticks her head out of her door. “I need to find Kyrith.”
“But the party is in a couple of days!” Eddy growls. “And I don’t have all the fairy lights up yet.”
“You have enough minions,” I dismiss. “And last year you told me Valentine’s Day was overrated. What happened to that?”
“Last year, we weren’t surrounded by hot Scottish women,” Eddy retorts.
“You might be getting some, but some of us have been pathetically celibate since that car accident.” My jaw tightens as it always does whenever I think about that night, and she softens instantly.
“I’m not blaming you for what happened.”
I know. She never fucking does. I wish she would. Maybe then I could get angry back. We could fight about it. I can deal with anger. I can’t deal with her pity and forgiveness and understanding.
My throat is thick as I reply, “Our parents would still be alive if I hadn’t turned Josef down. Mum would be here and helping you with this shit if—”
“You’re being thick,” she interrupts. “He would’ve just killed all three of us later.
Men like Josef don’t leave loose ends.” She pauses, then softens.
“You’re right, Mum would be helping me if she were here.
She always decorated for birthdays, for Christmas, for any reason she could because she knew that those were the times that really mattered.
” Eddy lifts her chin, even though there’s a wobble to her voice.
“Now it’s my job, and I intend to make her proud. ”
She clears her throat, but I can’t meet her eyes. She gets it; because she changes tactics, crossing the hall and banging on Lambert’s door.
“Lambert! Get your ass up! If North won’t help me, you can. Or are all those muscles just for show?”
A muffled groan echoes from beyond the door, and I smirk despite myself. Leaving her to pester him with a parting two-fingered salute, I turn and take the stairs three at a time. At least being on Kyrith duty gives me an excuse to get out of that.
No part of me wants to be hanging up pink bunting for the rest of the day.
Still, I slow down as I cross the yard, putting myself back together with deep breaths. By the time I reach Clan McKinley’s archives, I’ve shut the memory of our parents’ deaths away.
This library has nothing on the Arcanaeum, but it’s still large enough to give me a headache. At least I don’t have to go far to find Kyrith; she’s standing at one of the tablets, poking at it like adding more force will make it work.
“This is the most ridiculous system,” she gripes under her breath. “What was wrong with index cards? Why on earth would anyone think this makes everything easier?”
Just the sight of her eases the last of the lingering tension in my body, and I smirk. A flicker in the corner of my eye makes me bristle, but it’s only Leo, sliding a book back onto a shelf just out of her view. He catches me looking and offers me a nod.
I’m still pissed at the bastard for what he did, but it eases something in me to know that Kyrith wasn’t in here alone.
Plus…after a few nights of sleeping on it, I’ve realised I can’t really criticise.
He’s not the only one who’s risked pissing her off to save his family. He was just unlucky enough to succeed.
She forgave me when Josef sent me to break into the Vault. Sure, Mathias’s grimoire was never down there in the first place, but the principle is the same. I suppose in his case, it was worse because they had something before he went rogue. Anyone with eyes could see it.
That morning Lambert and I walked in on them snuggling, I thought he might stop fighting it. Instead, he threw her away.
I just don’t understand why.
Only I kind of do, because I did a lot of shit I didn’t want to do when I was protecting Eddy from Josef. I felt responsible for her and still do. I’d lost my parents, and I didn’t want to lose my sister, too.
Huh.
Maybe we’re more similar than I thought.
Leo was still stupid to think that Mathias had a better chance of breaking his curse than Kyrith did. Our Librarian is scarily smart.
Unfortunately, it leaves us in a weird position. Leo will clearly do anything to keep Kyrith safe, but we’re shutting him out of all our plans.
Not that it seems to be working, given that he’s here and Jasper isn’t.
Judging by the increasingly frustrated noises Kyrith is making at the tablet, I don’t want to get between her and it any time soon. No sense getting my head bitten off trying to help. I’ll let her wear her anger out first.
I head for Leo instead.
“You spying on her now?” I ask, following him as he turns a corner towards a desk that, at first glance, appears empty.
Then we cross some invisible threshold, and the illusion drops.
Piles of books and papers are everywhere.
All around him, star charts are floating on invisible walls, and some have been magically glued to the ceiling.
All of them are arranged to allow him an unrestricted view of another stacked table across the Library. I’m betting that’s Kyrith’s.
Stalker.
Leo takes his seat, keeping his voice low as he says, “When I realised she’d given Jasper the slip, I followed her to make sure she was safe.”
He pulls a massive book towards him and scribbles something in the margin of a piece of paper on his right.
“And you decided to sit all the way over here because…?”
“See that black mark on the carpet?” he asks, gesturing at a spot about six feet from Kyrith’s table. “I conjured her a basket of roses and romantic shite. She swiped it off the table and vaporised the bleeding thing. Then she conjured her own.”
“Ouch.” I pause. “You did kinda deserve it though.”
Leo shakes his head and mutters something under his breath I don’t catch, then he clears his throat, changing the topic. “Yeah. About that. I need to apologise.”
Eddy warned me about this yesterday, so I nod reluctantly. “Okay.”
“I put you and your twin at risk with what I did.”
God, please let this be over soon. “Yep.”
“And I won’t ever make that mistake again.” He pauses. “Stars, that was awful.”
“Agreed.” I pause. “Do I get to punch you like Lambert did?”
Leo winces, but offers a small nod, every muscle in his body tensing. “Get it over with.”
I snort, shaking my head. While punching him might erase the last of my anger, if any of the dozens of books on this table were damaged in the process, Kyrith would have my balls on a platter next to his.
Instead, I cuff him upside the head.
“Nah. Way I see it? Mathias had puppet Eddy spying on us, and all three of you were sitting ducks at that dinner party. Yeah, you were dumb enough to make it easy for him, but even if you hadn’t, the result would’ve probably been the same.
From one fuck-up to another? You’re handling this better than I did.
Living with a stupid magical boot on your neck sucks. ”
He gapes at me. “I figured you, out of everybody, would’ve been happy to deck me.”
Maybe I would’ve, but…yeah. Not feeling it. He hurt Kyrith, but she’s a big girl. She can choose how she wants to punish him for it. If she wants my help to kick his ass, I’ll offer it. Until then, it’s a little too close to kicking a starving puppy for my taste.
“I’ll leave that to Lambert. Honestly, I think he enjoyed it. Apology accepted and all that shit. I’m not interfering with Kyrith, though. I’m fed up with getting crushed into the floor.”
Leo pinches the bridge of his nose and waves me away. “Go sit with her. If she catches you hanging around me, she won’t be happy.”
He’s not wrong.
Kyrith’s desk is just as cramped, but it’s girly. She’s replaced the provided wooden chair with a cosy wingback complete with cushions and blankets and shit. There’s a glass reading lamp, a potted plant…
My heart sinks.
I’m no Lambert, but even I can tell Kyrith’s trying to recreate the atmosphere of the Arcanaeum.
She’s stopped cursing out the technology and is wandering the shelves, reading the numbers on the edges.
When she returns, book in hand, she rolls her eyes at me.
Still, I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten away with it as she takes her seat, summons a second chair into being beside hers, and gets back to work.
At least until she asks dryly, “Is it not enough that Pierce gave me panic earrings and Galileo has marked my door frame with threshold alarm spells? Now I’m to have two of you shadowing me while I work?”
Threshold alarms, huh? I need to learn how to cast those. Eddy being kidnapped has made me paranoid to the point where she’s getting frustrated with me. I get it. No grown ass woman wants her big brother hovering around her all the time.
But if I can do it with magic, she’d never need to know.
“You have to admit it’s necessary.”
“I do,” she says, still not looking up or betraying any kind of emotion beyond studious resolve. “But you’ll be very bored sitting with me. You’d be better off going back and bothering Leo.”
“You two would probably work faster if you sat together,” I point out, bracing myself for a bollocking.
Kyrith just hums under her breath. “We’re working on separate runeforms, so I doubt it.”
“How long has he been watching you?”
“Two hours. Is there a point to this line of inquiry?”
“Nope. Just curious.”