Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Dakari
Icome awake with a start, my heart still racing. In my mind, Kyrith is right there, being dragged out from beneath that desk, but instead of North pulling her to safety, it’s Mathias. The lich’s bony fingers wrap around her neck—
My hands battle with the covers as I fight to breathe, to pull myself out of the nightmare and into the present. In the middle of it all, a sharp ache stabs through my chest, and I hiss.
“Careful,” North murmurs. “Leo and Kyrith spent ages healing you. Don’t fuck up their good work.”
It’s dark, so it takes me a second to locate him.
He’s sitting in an armchair, illuminated by the faint light coming from his phone.
I push myself up until I’m resting against the headboard and run my eyes down my chest. The skin is shiny, and I raise a brow.
If Leo’s so deep in his grovelling that he’s willing to heal a Talcott, he must really think he’s fucked.
An obnoxiously loud snore erupts from the bed beside mine. Lambert is on his back, dead to the world, with his mouth wide open. The noise must be what woke me. There’s no way I’m getting back to sleep even if he miraculously stops, not with the nightmare clinging to me like a second skin.
Someone has partially redecorated the foyer of the Arcanaeum, but I ignore the changes in favour of scanning the mattresses until I find Kyrith, tucked against Pierce’s side. He’s curled around her in his sleep. Shielding her from the world.
I can’t say I disapprove.
The band around my chest eases, then returns with a vengeance when I finish counting the sleeping figures around us and realise one is missing.
“Where’s Galileo?” I grunt, swinging my legs out of bed.
Kyrith’s face scrunches in her sleep, and I wince, counting the seconds until the lines smooth out. I didn’t wake her. Thank magic.
“He woke me for my watch and went for a walk.” North shrugs like it’s nothing. “Seemed fine.”
“He could’ve gone anywhere.” I lower my voice to a whisper.
Lambert is still snoring like a beast, so maybe I’m worrying for nothing.
North is unconcerned. “Relax. He’s still here. Listen.”
Two seconds stretch by in silence.
“Okay, you can’t hear it now, but he was chanting and shit.”
Chanting? What is he up to? If Leo is out there, doing magic-knows-what to the building, someone should be supervising him. My grimoire is in my hand, legs wobbling as I head for the closed door separating us from Botanical Hall. It creaks slightly as it opens.
North’s judgemental answering cough warns me to be quiet.
How can he be more concerned about waking them than he is about whatever Leo is doing?
If we’re not careful, we’ll end up exactly where we were—
My internal rant cuts off as I come face to face with the man himself. He’s chanting, just like North said, but it’s…a transmutation spell? His grimoire rests on a vintage reading table, and his free hand is raised to the window. The glass bends and warps with threads of colour.
He’s fixing the windows.
I gnash my teeth together. Maybe I can slip back through the door before he sees me.
No such luck.
Leo finishes in the next breath, and his dark brows lower into a frown as he turns in my direction and spots me.
“Sit your arse down. You were bleeding out four hours ago.”
Stunned, I half-obey, leaning against another reading desk that wasn’t here before.
“How long have you been at this?”
He checks his phone as he approaches me warily, the pages of his grimoire turning in the air beside him.
“Two hours. Couldn’t sleep.” He places his hand on the paper. “Riviel Treame.”
The warm, golden glow of magic makes him appear younger in the brief second before it fades.
“All good.” He dismisses me with those two words, turning back to his task.
“You’re not going to manage this by yourself.”
“That’s not the fecking point.”
“Then what is?”
He shakes his head.
Fine. Well, I’m not going back to sleep while he’s out here unsupervised. I don’t have a whole host of transmutation spells in my arsenal, but I can probably start on the furniture or something.
I manage to turn two uncomfortable plastic chairs into wooden ones before Leo groans.
“That’s not right. They were darker than that.”
I almost snap at him that he can do it himself if he’s going to be picky about it, but then I realise he’d probably prefer that and shut my mouth.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” I grumble, even though I know that’s a lie.
Kyrith will notice any differences, and they’ll only cause her more pain.
That same knowledge lingers in his expression as he replies, “Yes. It does.”
“Do you remember exactly what this place looked like?”
He makes a face. “The leather was dark red. Wine coloured. And the wood was definitely darker. Probably walnut or something.”
The more he talks, the more I begrudgingly admit he might be right. My nostrils flare on a deliberate inhale, and I return to work. Darker it is.
“You think this is going to make her forgive you?” I ask several quiet minutes later.
“No.”
“Then why are you out here playing with windows instead of sleeping like everyone else?”
He huffs out a long breath. “The look on her face when she saw it fecking gutted me.”
“Wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t betrayed her.”
“You were at that dinner as well, eejit. Mathias could’ve changed his mind and used you or Pierce instead.
Do you think you would’ve stood more of a chance than I did?
” He pinches the bridge of his nose, turning away.
“Argh, look. I’m sorry. Yeah, I’m the reason it got ruined, so the least I can do is fix the fecking windows.
” He huffs. “Let me get on with it in peace. Besides, I’m not injured, unlike some people, and I can’t sleep. Might as well be useful.”
There’s a pause where he and I return to casting, and then he mutters, “After what she did for my family, I owe her even more than I already did.”
There’s truth to that, though Kyrith would never call in the debt.
“Any news on Artemius?”
Leo nods. “He’s stuck on bed rest and hating it, but alive. My cousins interrupted Mathias, and he chose to run instead of just slaughtering them all—small mercies.”
“You stayed with her instead of saving him.”
Leo’s hand fists at his side. “Wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice, was I?” He scoffs and moves over to the next window. “Just quit it with the inquisition and go back to bed. I was hoping to be done with this section of the hall before everyone woke up.”
He starts casting. Stops. Turns back.
“No. Actually. You know what? I’m done with this.
Yeah. I chose her over my family. I put her first. And yeah, it was a stupid, desperate fecking move to go to Mathias in the first place, but I thought I was putting her first when I treated her like shit to save her from my curse.
I intend to keep putting her first for the rest of my life, if she’ll let me.
So, if you’ve got a problem with me, tell me, because I’m not going anywhere until she orders me away. ”
I raise one brow, fighting the smirk tugging at my lips. “A shame.”
Leo makes an aggravated noise in the back of his throat. “Feck you. What more do you want? I already apologised and let you throw me off a fecking wall.”
Let me? I scoff. Asshole didn’t see that coming, and he knows it. “Why do you care what I think?”
He deflates slightly. “Something Lambert said. I’m beginning to think maybe he’s the smart brother.”
My reply is cut off by an indignant, “Well, duh.”
Both of us whirl, looking at the door where the man himself is currently grinning.
“Eavesdropping’s rude, eejit,” Leo says.
The unrepentant grin on his brother’s face says he doesn’t care. In fact, he almost looks…smug. Hang on. Those snores…was he even really asleep?
“Are you two bonding?” Lambert prompts, cutting off my suspicious thoughts. “Is this the start of a beautiful bromance?”
“No!”
I’m not sure which of us says it first, but it doesn’t deter Lambert. He shuts the door behind him and bounces towards us.
“That’s a shame. I figured neither of you would want Kyrith to be miserable trying to balance your grudges on top of everything else.”
My denial is instant. “She would never have to do that.”
He tilts his head to one side and shakes it slightly. His disappointment is soft but cutting.
“Come on, dude. She shouldn’t, but we both know she totally would, and she has enough to deal with right now. Our job, as members of her polycule, is to bring good stuff into her life. You know, like pizza and orgasms.”
A really immature part of me wants to point out that at least I’m helping with one of those things.
Leo pinches his brow. “Lambert…”
But his brother has already wrapped one arm over his shoulders and is reaching for me, expectation shining in his eyes.
Hell. No. I never agreed to group hugs.
I step back.
Lambert’s grin doesn’t dim, and he holds out his fist instead. I stare at it for a second, then reluctantly tap my own against it.
“Speaking of bringing good stuff into her life, I’m gonna grab Westley from Fort McKinley so he’s here when she wakes up. You’re doing great with the windows, but don’t forget the skylights. If it rains, she’ll want those open.”
That quickly he’s gone again, heading through the door with a quiet knock and a murmured destination.
“He should’ve taken someone with him.” Leo frowns, like he’s considering following.
“Fort McKinley is safe enough,” I say. “Halinor chucked out Isidora’s overseers and dismissed the last enforcers before we went after Jasper.
She’s still a parriarch, and they didn’t have any excuse to hang around when they finished scouring the place for necromancers and found nothing. He’ll be fine.”
Leo just grunts.
I switch my focus to the roof. Damn it. Mathias replaced all of that stained glass with a plain white drop ceiling.
“It wasn’t enough for him to be the evil undead,” I mutter. “He had to be a shitty interior designer as well.”
Leo snorts. “Unlimited power and good taste rarely go together.”
Thinking about some of the ostentatious places I’ve retrieved books from as a collector, I’m inclined to agree. Kyrith is the exception.
“What do you reckon are the chances he left the skylights and just covered them up?” I ask.
Leo bites his lip, considering it. “He was running out of power.”
I flick through to a dog-eared page near the back of my grimoire and lift myself into the air. Shoving one of the white tiles up with my free hand, I groan in relief.
“Still up here, thank magic. I’m not sure I could’ve recreated this.”
Transmutation has never been my thing. Destroying stuff, however, is firmly in my wheelhouse.
It’ll take minutes, at most, for me to crush the ugly tiles and the metal supports into dust. But how do I do that without making a mess and damaging the hammer beams…?
I’m so stuck in my thoughts that I forget to keep an eye on Leo until he asks, “Are we good?”
I glance down at him, then let my head fall back so I don’t have to read the hope in his eyes.
She asked him to call her ‘Kyrie’ again.
He chose her over his family.
I can’t ignore either of those facts.
Lambert is right; the last thing I want is Kyrith’s unhappiness. She might’ve originally responded to his betrayal by stonewalling him, but it’s obvious to anyone with a brain that she’s softening.
She’s not the type to deny herself something because she cares what others think—or Pierce wouldn’t currently be wrapped around her like ivy—but Lambert’s right; if she makes that decision and Leo and I keep fighting, we’ll be the assholes making her miserable.
I won’t do that to her.
What I will be is behind her one hundred percent.
“No.” His face falls, and I let him stew in the disappointment for a long minute before adding. “But we might get there. One day.”
“What’s it going to take?”
The sharpness in his gaze makes me doubt my decision. He obsesses. It’s part of the reason I struggle to trust him. I’m used to seeing that stubborn resolve aimed at solving his family’s curse, but now he’s turned it towards earning her forgiveness.
If he applies that dedication to keeping Kyrith happy, I can tolerate him. But if I ever have to watch the woman I love shrink into her skin as a result of his words again…
I roll my shoulders to dispel the tension settling in them at the thought.
“Honestly? It depends on Kyrith. I’m not standing in the way of what she wants.
If you somehow manage to bring more joy into her life than you did misery, I’ll consider us good.
” My tone darkens. “But the moment you treat her like that again—”
Leo frowns. “I don’t plan to.”
“If you do, I’ll make Ammie’s curse look merciful. Got it?”
His jaw works, but instead of reacting to the threat, he lifts his chin once.
Good.
The two of us return to work, this time in silence.