Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Kyrith
It takes an hour. A whole hour where I’m consumed by healing first Jasper and then finishing off what Leo started with Dakari. The ó Rinn heir might not be qualified in restoration, but he managed to stop the bleeding. Small mercies.
It’s also a whole hour where I wait for the door to open again. For Mathias to come through, or a stubborn patron to stumble in and give me hell for keeping the Library closed for so long.
When neither of those things happen, my hope rises.
Because surely Mathias is trying to enter. Surely, he rescinded his banishment the moment he was able to. So logically, that must mean that someone has control of the building, and someone is keeping him—and everyone else—out.
Maybe the Arcanaeum isn’t as gone as it seems.
But when I look up, tearing my gaze from the neat scar decorating Dakari’s ribs, my heart falls.
There’s no cart waiting to take them upstairs.
No whisper of books in the air, or gentle humming through my soul.
Not a single sign of life.
Just grey linoleum and white paint shrouded in mist. Chrome fixings reflecting harsh fluorescent lighting.
Sterile.
Cold.
Dead.
I wish I could say that our rooms are unaffected, but I still can’t feel any of it. I’m still…severed.
The knot of fear in my gut that loosened when we crossed the threshold sours, turning to grief.
This isn’t the Library I knew. I can redecorate, spend days turning everything back to how it once was, but am I even the Librarian anymore if we’re not connected?
A hand lands on my shoulder, tugging me up and into a hug.
“I’m so glad you’re okay, boss,” Lambert mumbles into my hair. “And I know this isn’t what you expected, but we can restore it, right? I’ll help. We all will.”
It’s a nice sentiment, but right now, none of us are in any shape to do anything. I sweep a glance over the group slumped on the floor in the foyer.
Pierce is broken, head in his hands as he curls into himself against the door.
He didn’t react at all while Lambert quietly filled us in on everything that happened at enforcement headquarters.
There was nothing they could’ve done. We had no time to adequately prepare, and to be honest, we’re lucky they weren’t all caught in the process.
Still, to have come so close and fail anyway is a special kind of torture.
At least he was able to say goodbye, though that’s a cold comfort.
Dakari and Jasper are still unconscious and resting, but they’ll recover. North and Eddy look exhausted, sitting side by side on the floor as they examine the broken dagger.
Despite having faced off against Pierce’s magic earlier, Lambert is probably in the best shape of any of us, and that solidifies my next move.
“Would you…?” I clear my throat. “Can you run upstairs and tell me if the Clock Tower is still as we left it? Or no. Wait. We can just conjure some beds down here for the night. That would be easier than getting them upstairs. I don’t…I don’t know if the bathrooms are still as they were.”
There was no logical reason for Mathias to keep the showers I installed for Lambert to use after magiball practice, except perhaps laziness.
“I’ll check both. You get started on a bed for those two.” He pecks my cheek in the briefest of kisses, squeezing me extra tight for a second. “Be right back.”
He rushes off.
I have to keep going. Keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Because this… this is almost more heartbreaking than being locked out. Being here and being so keenly aware of the loss of everything that was.
“Bed,” I mutter, almost to myself. “I can do that. I just need a pen—”
One is held out in front of me in the next breath.
Leo is watching me with concern etched across his hawkish features. When I don’t immediately accept his offering, he draws back slightly, adding, “Or I can take care of it, if you like.”
I shake my head, accepting the fountain pen and forcing gratitude into my half-smile. “I need to be doing things. You could conjure clean clothes for everyone? If you’re willing.”
“Of course.” He reaches out, then drops his hand before it can make contact with my upper arm. “I’m sorry it isn’t how you remember it, but Lambert was right. We’re here now. We’ll put everything to rights.”
I don’t acknowledge the promise, or the almost-touch, even though my heart cries out for it.
There are a lot of things I need to be doing right now. None of them involve playing at romance with him.
With that reminder, I bury my head in my grimoire and start drawing out conjuration runeforms that I didn’t add previously.
My bond to the book has been growing apace, but I sensibly prioritised destruction and nullification when I began to fill the pages. Thankfully, I only need one or two new spells for this, and they’re simple enough.
“Crieti.” I conjure four double bedframes in a line. “Crieti.” Thick mattresses appear atop them.
I don’t have the energy for a bed each, or anything more than plain cotton sheets, but it will do. One night of sharing won’t kill any of us.
When I’m done, I cast a quick cleansing spell over Dakari and Jasper, transmuting their clothes into soft pyjamas before levitating them into the nearest bed.
And then, because I simply cannot stand to exist in this bland corporate hell one moment longer, I change the walls back to their wainscoted glory, switching white paint for a soft peach.
Another incantation erases the linoleum nightmare that is the floor, replacing it with familiar black marble.
A third rids us of those ghastly spotlights.
Something in my chest settles as the Arcanaeum’s motto scrolls across the foyer in familiar silver.
I bend down, touching my fingers to the metal as my chest pangs.
Absolute truth may be more dangerous than absolute power, but what ‘truths’ Mathias and Isidora have been spewing will not remain absolute for long.
I intend to counter the slew of misinformation I’ve been seeing outside of these walls with everything I have.
Lambert jogs back into the room, grinning. “The showers are still there, boss. And the door to the Clock Tower is gone. Do you reckon the Arcanaeum hid it to protect your stuff? It made a whole secret room to hide your body.”
It did?
I press my hand harder against the cold letters in the floor, trying in vain to feel something. Anything. A hint of my friend.
Nothing. Not even a whisper.
Worse, I can’t feel the rooms above. Can’t tell if the Clock Tower is safe or in ruins. I thought I felt the building while Mathias was using the dagger, but the blade is almost completely ruined.
Thankfully, I don’t need to break it further to confirm my suspicion that the lich’s banishment has been restored. A simple brush of my fingers over the broken blade is enough to tell me as much.
Was that the last thing the building managed before it shut down?
My throat swells, but I lock the emotion away. Things need to get done. People need caring for.
“Good. Everyone needs to get cleaned up.”
They’re already moving, motivated by the promise of washing away the lingering scents of blood and destruction magic still clinging to all of us like a smoky second skin.
Everyone except…
“Pierce.”
He doesn’t look at me. He’s slumped heavily against the wall, like his grandfather’s death has robbed him of the strength to stand.
“Pierce,” I repeat, a little louder.
Finally, his head snaps up, but his eyes are flat.
“Go and shower,” I say, softer. “Get some fresh clothes. Then come back here.”
He looks around, as if only just noticing that the others have all gone. “Someone should stay with you.”
“I—” I cut off as I consider that maybe this is less about his concern for my safety and more that he simply…doesn’t wish to be alone. “Very well. I intended to shower once someone else could keep an eye on them.”
I trace the rise and fall of Dakari’s chest with my eyes as I stand and brush aside a wayward lock of brown hair from Jasper’s forehead. Neither of them is likely to wake any time soon, so I drift in the Carlton heir’s direction.
He doesn’t tug me against him like one of the others might, so I simply wind my arms around his waist and sink into his body, offering comfort and hoping he takes it.
He’s cold. I go to raise the temperature…only to realise I can’t do that anymore.
I suppose I’ll have to settle for words instead.
“Benny was a good man. He should never have been subjected to that.”
“No.” The answer is hoarse. “He shouldn’t have. I should never have let him sacrifice himself—”
“Pierce.” I tilt my head back. “He wanted to protect you above all else.”
His eyes squeeze shut, and he says nothing. We stay like that, me resting against him, until North traipses down the stairs. His black hair is sodden, and he’s wearing nothing more than a pair of baggy dark sweatpants.
“I’ll watch them,” he says, settling onto one of the beds on their left. “Take care of our girl.”
Pierce’s mouth twists half-heartedly as he allows me to pull him away from the wall. It’s easier to focus on him than on the way the Arcanaeum has been tarnished. I can hear the others ahead, but by the time we get to the bathroom, it’s empty.
That’s probably a good thing. Mathias must’ve missed this room—or perhaps he simply didn’t have enough power to fix it while he was busy draining the Library to heal himself—because it’s untouched.
The brass fixtures and soft blue art déco theme are soothing after the harshness of the steel and glass in the hall beyond.
I unbuckle my grimoire holster and place it on the marble counter. Pierce places his beside it, before stripping in careless motions that don’t fit what I know of him. The bracelets come off. The gentle light from the wall sconces on either side of the mirror paints his scars in harsh shadows.
I follow his lead, tugging off my shirt and unlacing my corset. Without anyone to care for, the thoughts I’ve been trying to shove aside start to creep in.
What do we do about the broken dagger? Will the Arcanaeum ever be how it once was?
Are the other librarians alive? Is Artemius alive?
Halinor? How can I reopen the Library when there’s only me here to do all the things that the Arcanaeum and I used to share responsibility for?
We have Mathias’s soul vessel—that’s huge but dangerous.
Can I even protect us if I’m not able to influence the building?
What if they send enforcement here and I can’t banish them? What if we lose? What if—
Pierce’s hand grabs mine, pulling me under the warmth of the spray. The heat is a shock to my system.
Was I just standing there, naked and blankly staring into space?
He turns me so my back is to his chest, and his head falls into the space between my neck and shoulder.
“I just can’t believe he’s dead,” he murmurs.
My mind flashes back to that moment in the cottage. The way he repeated those words over and over again.
I get it. Benny was larger-than-life. It’s hard to picture a world without him in it.
“My mother—”
“Is gone,” I promise. “She died horribly, betrayed by Mathias.”
“She wanted me.” Pierce pulls back. “She couldn’t find me or Anthea, so she killed him instead. He was captured saving me and died in my place.”
He’s likely right.
Isidora needed a reason to justify invading Fort McKinley the way she did. Executing Benny after framing him for necromancy was the simplest way to do that.
She might not even have had to falsify the evidence. He spent time with Mathias himself. There’s every chance the lich taught him some forbidden magic.
That’s not the answer that will give Pierce peace. I don’t think anything will. So I stay quiet, lathering soap across his chest with gentle swipes of my hands. His scars are rough beneath my palms, and part of me wonders if perhaps Isidora should’ve suffered a little more than she did.
No. It wouldn’t make Pierce feel better.
His hands find my hair, undoing my braid and massaging shampoo into my scalp. We alternate between the water, one rinsing, the other lathering. Two broken people caring for each other because we don’t have the capacity to do so for ourselves.
By the time we’re done, redressed, and contemplating the huge task that is walking back through the unfamiliar halls to face the others, I’m just hollow.
“Tomorrow,” I say. “We’ll sort everything. Make a plan. I overheard the incantation Mathias used to destroy your mother’s phylactery. I can use that to create a runeform.”
“Mathias dies,” Pierce vows. “That was what my grandfather wanted. Mathias dead and me…free.”
“Tomorrow.”
Right now, grief and fear have turned to exhaustion. It’s late. No one is in any state to plan anything, least of all him. We need rest.
By the time we return to the foyer, most of the others have already decided to do just that.
Leo looks up from a chair in the corner, cradling a book in his lap. “We decided to keep watch,” he murmurs. “I’ve got the first shift, and North’s swapping with me later.”
Because they don’t feel safe here anymore. Because the Arcanaeum is no longer protecting us.
My throat tightens, but I nod. “Thank you.”
His chin dips. “Sweet dreams, Kyrie.”
Cheeks flushing, I glance over the line of beds and hesitate.
They’re all currently occupied by different men.
Lambert is spread over the entire mattress—one arm carelessly thrown over North, who looks unimpressed even in sleep.
I’d have to wrestle my way between them, which might not work.
Dakari and Jasper are healing, and I don’t want to disturb them.
Eddy is alone in the bed closest to the wall, but she’s hugging the pillow I would’ve used in a death grip.
That leaves…
Pierce grabs me around the waist and tugs me into his arms without giving me more time to overthink it. His arm wraps around my middle, pulling my ass flush against his hips as he presses a kiss to my nape.
I’m being spooned by Pierce Carlton, and it’s…intimate. Warm. Nice in a way I didn’t expect.
“Goodnight,” I whisper.
He hums softly in response, and then there’s only darkness and the quiet swish of Leo occasionally turning a page.
Sleep claims me faster than I thought it would.