Chapter 30
Thirty
Kyrith
Footsteps.
My incantation fades to a whisper, but I can’t lose focus.
They’re coming closer. Whoever it is must be right outside the door. In my peripheral vision, I see Dakari take up a defensive stance behind me.
When did he get back? I didn’t even notice his return.
“Kyrith…” he mutters.
I can’t stop chanting to tell him I just need more time.
Stomp. Stomp.
North is already muttering a defensive spell, being careful to keep away from the lines of magic that surround us, or it’s sheer dumb luck that he’s standing outside of them as he casts.
Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.
Those aren’t the magister’s footsteps. They’re too heavy. Clumsy.
Just another revenant, then. Probably come to check on the one Dakari got rid of. Perhaps Mathias can sense when his minions are dispatched.
Finally, I crack the destruction spell that would’ve barbequed the whole room had it been triggered and whirl, an illusion runeform already open in my grimoire, the incantation harried.
The door swings open.
Lifeless revenant eyes stare out from a wrinkled face. The putrescent old woman’s maid outfit remains impeccable despite how long she’s been dead.
She takes in the room but doesn’t step over the runeforms on the threshold.
I don’t breathe. None of us do. I’m sending magic into the grimoire in my grasp, clinging to the memory of how the room looked before as I hold the illusion. My fingers are so numb with terror that I barely feel the page beneath them.
The revenant doesn’t blink. She might as well be a rotting statue.
He knows, my nerves scream. Mathias knows we’re here, or suspects something is wrong.
Then, finally, the corpse turns, heading back down the hallway…
When her grey hair disappears from sight, I release the spell.
“You need to cast an illusion to keep us invisible,” I tell North.
“Illusion?” he asks. “I can try.”
Dakari is already helping. Good.
“Eddy, I need your blood,” I add.
She looks at me with wide eyes. “What?”
“This spell is keyed to Ackland blood. Yours or North’s will do—”
Eddy has already offered out her hand, and I take it, using a scrap to prick her finger. She squeezes the wound, and a bead of blood wells to the surface, then another.
They tumble onto the page of my grimoire like scarlet pearls, swiped into the lines of the runeform by my pen where they’re absorbed into the paper without leaving a mark.
“Bludra ni breik…” I chant, watching the red lines of the spell flare bright as the nullification magic works to dispel the barrier.
Knots tie and untie themselves in my stomach. I think I’m doing this right. I’m not as certain as I was a second ago.
“Shit,” North whispers.
That’s all the warning I get.
“It was well done,” Mathias acknowledges, his voice distant. “And no one caught you absorbing his power during the execution?”
“Of course not. I cast the illusion at the perfect moment. With the number of powerful liminals currently sitting in enforcement’s cells, no doubt I’ll find more sources for us both soon.”
Stars. Their voices are drawing closer.
I finish the spell, my voice barely a whisper, then glance over my shoulder. Mistake.
Isidora and Mathias are striding down the hall.
Dakari’s hand finds my elbow, guiding me towards the window, but I resist.
We’re invisible, thanks to North. Dakari has our magical signatures hidden. This is our chance.
It’s risky, but this whole operation was.
That dagger means re-entering the Arcanaeum. I can’t leave it. Not now. Without it, we’ll continue being chased around the world by the lich. With it, I can keep them all safe again.
So, with a quiet shake of my head, I look pointedly at the Ackland heir, then at him, and then towards a shadowy corner that hasn’t been covered in alarm spells.
“Hide,” I mouth.
Then I grab Eddy by the hand and sandwich us both into the shadows beneath the desk.
“Why are we here?” Isidora asks. “We should be issuing a statement. The journalists will want to cover the aftermath of his death, and hiding makes me look weak.”
My gut sinks like a stone.
Benny. She’s killed Benny. The others must not have made it in time.
Something in my chest keens on Pierce’s behalf.
“I would worry less about their perceptions of you,” Mathias says. “And more about the fact that one of my revenants stopped resp—”
He crosses the threshold, and I watch as he takes in the corpse on the floor, the bent bars, and the lines of magic still faintly glowing in the aftermath of Dakari’s divination spell.
It’s very obviously a breakout.
I don’t dare breathe as his white brows turn thunderous, his grimoire flopping open at his side as he strides right over to the desk. I’m frozen, but North’s illusion is still holding, because Mathias’s gaze slides right over us.
“They were here,” he growls. “While you were busy making a spectacle of Benjamin, they somehow broke the young McKinley out. Look at this! They were only a few enchantments away from stealing the heart.”
“It wasn’t my fault.” Isidora folds her arms. “You must’ve missed something.”
“The wards were strengthened this morning. They would’ve needed a—” His eyes fall on the cell. “Clever, clever, Kyrith. A concealed tracker. Undetectable unless activated. She must’ve utilised their bond as an anchor—”
“It doesn’t matter how they did it,” Isidora interrupts. “Where’s the McKinley heir? We need him to keep his family in line.”
Mathias’s lips thin, his displeasure at being talked over plain as he lifts the dagger from the desk with a murmured incantation.
My hand flexes. It’s right there. Unprotected.
Eddy grips my arm, eyes wide like she thinks I might launch myself at the lich. A tiny part of my brain urges me to do just that. The longer we stay here, the more likely we are to be discovered.
“You needed him,” he says, pacing across the study and then back. “This has made it clear that you’re more of a liability than a help.”
Isidora’s hands drop to her sides, fingers casually tracing the pages of her grimoire. “That’s not true. Enforcement is mine. The aegis does your bidding on my orders. Everything I’ve done has been for you.”
Mathias moves out of my line of sight, heading in the direction of the window.
“You’ve lost our prisoners twice. The execution you so confidently decided would draw out the Librarian failed to elicit a peep from her.”
My relief is instant. If they’d caught Pierce and the others, he wouldn’t regard it as a failure. He, Lambert, and Leo must be safe for now.
Mathias keeps ranting. “All it achieved was parting me from the dagger long enough for her to get within seconds of stealing it! And you expect me to believe enforcement is completely under your control? They’re still consumed with infighting thanks to the video of you murdering their officers.
The only thing you’re capable of is executing useless has-been parriarchs and making pretty speeches. ”
“You wanted to watch him die!” She takes a deep breath, forcing the indignation from her tone as she continues, “We had every reason to believe they’d come for my father, and it was your idea to leave the dagger behind to avoid arousing enforcement’s interest. It’s not my fault you were arrogant enough to leave that thing on your desk in plain sight.
” Isidora’s fingers slip a little deeper into the book at her side.
“Every remaining ranking officer is under my thumb and working to restore my good name. I’m handling it. You need me to keep them in line.”
He’s not listening to her. “Worse, I still cannot enter the Arcanaeum.”
Eddy’s fingers dig into my skin, pinpricks of pain adding to the adrenaline buzzing in my veins.
“You just need more power.”
“Power that you have helpfully been gathering for me from the second I taught you your first dark spells.”
Isidora recognises the threat for what it is and doesn’t hesitate.
Fire streaks out of her palm, heading straight for Mathias, only to splutter out just as quickly. I still can’t see him, but whatever he’s doing is sucking away the flames like a vacuum.
Metal groans. I can feel my bones aching.
The heart is…breaking.
I don’t know how I know that. Perhaps proximity is to blame. Right now, I can feel it as surely as I can feel my own body.
Isidora’s knees buckle as he strides into my view. The dagger is held out in front of him and pointing directly at her.
No. Not at her. At the gleaming gem at her throat.
“You can’t,” she screams. “I’ve been loyal—”
“Loyal? Dear Isidora.” Mathias whips the blade away, and she gasps in a breath. “You think I didn’t understand your plan from the moment you said all you’d ever wanted was to become like me?”
Isidora starts to chant, but Mathias’s spell is faster and wordless, sending her grimoire flying down the hallway behind her.
Disarmed.
She’s done for. The dawning panic creeping into her eyes as she pulls out a handful of scraps from her waistband says she knows it, too.
Mathias chuckles. “You think I didn’t do the exact same to my mentor once I had my soul safely hidden away and no more use for him?”
“I would never!”
He tuts under his breath. “Yes, you would. You have no loyalty to anyone but yourself. I’ve always liked that about you. It reminds me of myself.” His smile is condescending as he stands over her, his legs almost obscuring her from view. “But do you know what the difference is between you and I?”
She tries to cast again, using a shield this time. It doesn’t matter.
Mathias steps right through her barrier with a single spell from his grimoire.
“I succeeded.”
She casts a wisplight right in his face, trying to blind him.
But his long, spidery fingers find the chain and rip the gem from her neck.
Isidora screeches like a banshee, launching herself at him.
Spears of ice rain down around her, stabbing through clothes, flesh, bone.
She’s pinned in place, her cry of pain echoing off the walls as the metallic tang of blood—already present—grows thicker.
“No,” she sobs. “No. Please. I can—”
Her soul vessel clatters onto the desk above us, and I will the frantic pounding of my heart to quieten.
Thump. His grimoire lands next.
The second it’s within touching distance, my skin crawls. I might as well have dunked myself in rotten slime.
“An mekith imediom, myrtel ottarn myrtel…”
The oleaginous wash of necromancy beats against my skull with every word. I commit each syllable to memory, praying to the stars that Dakari or North is watching what he’s doing above me.
Because this is it. This is how to destroy a phylactery.
I can recreate a runeform from this incantation if I must.
Without meaning to, my eyes find Isidora. Her face is stricken, but there’s no surprise there. She always expected this, although I suppose she hoped their roles would be reversed.
That was never a possibility. Mathias is vastly more experienced than she is. Too powerful, even for another lich, especially a baby one.
The sound of a page turning above us barely penetrates. I don’t even notice that anything is different until the incantation changes.
He’s switched spells.
I barely have time to recognise the new chant before my consciousness is yanked violently from my body.
No twinkling stars. No dizziness. Perhaps my closeness to the dagger hastens my transfer from body to blade. Perhaps it’s simply the amount of magic in the air that’s responsible.
But here I am. Back in the dagger, and this time…all I feel is pain as I’m driven down into the shattered remnants of the black gem on the table.
It’s too much. Magic rushes through me in one great, straining burst. My atoms vibrate with the wrongness of it.
The tip of me hits the desk and stays there, splintering away from the rest of my body—the dagger’s body. Cracks are embedding themselves in my bones, winding up through the gold and into the handle.
Mathias doesn’t notice. I don’t think he even knows that he’s forcing me into the role of an involuntary observer, or surely he would’ve gloated about it by now.
He’s turned to watch Isidora, letting me see as he drains every last ounce of her soul from the phylactery and funnels it straight through me, into the void.
Black streaks out from her chest, the delicate tracery of her veins turning to black vines beneath her skin. She screeches, agony twisting her features into something unrecognisable.
And yet she doesn’t die.
No. He destroyed the source of her immortality. Her body and mind are still there, kept alive by all the magic she stole.
Now he points me at her, and the incantation begins anew.
My head echoes with screams—Isidora’s blending with my own—because this hurts.
The blade throbs with every word. I’m splitting apart.
Power rushes through me in a flood that makes what came out of her soul vessel look like a trickle.
Stars only know how much power she must’ve taken to be this strong.
She must have stripped countless sacrificed souls of their magic and hoarded it.
All of that is flooding toward the Arcanaeum.
The cracks deepen.
I can’t even close my eyes to hide from the pain. I see everything: the sallowing of her cheeks, the growing shadows around her eye sockets. Her nose withers, collapsing in on itself.
Her flesh is retreating. Mummifying. Her skin starts to turn a horrid purplish black.
Dead.
My stomach threatens to revolt.
Something clicks.
A yawn. A faint trickle of familiar consciousness.
No. He can’t have done it. He can’t.
But he has.
Isidora was the final sacrifice Mathias needed, and from his pleased hum, he knows it too. My vision starts to dim, the spell finally over.
No. I can’t be unconscious here. Not now. The others—
“As a revenant, you’ll make a far more reliable mouthpiece,” he tells Isidora’s corpse as he draws the blade back and notes my missing tip with a frown. “No matter. I can create a new heart now that my Arcanaeum is reopened.”
He traces a finger over the sharp edge, but his words are distant, like I’m underwater. In the back of my mind, the Arcanaeum is slowly flooding with power. Doors are unlocking.
With a war cry, Eddy launches herself out from beneath the desk.
And everything goes black.