Chapter 41
Forty-One
Kyrith
It took less than two hours for something to go wrong on reopening day.
One of the students knocked over a cage of white rats in their alchemy class, sending them scurrying for their freedom.
Rats. In the Arcanaeum.
Rodents who might chew up books and use them as nesting materials. It’s somehow worse than my fear that Goodberry’s students would set fire to the place. Fire can be extinguished. Worse, the alchemy professor couldn’t even recall how many of the blasted things she brought with her.
She’s beyond lucky I can’t banish her. Luckier still that I have the professionalism not to smack her about the head with books in front of her students.
Animal experimentation is unnecessary on the best of days. If her third years are good enough to brew the potion, they should be confident enough to try it on themselves.
I couldn’t even sense where the animals had gotten to.
I ended up on my knees, checking under shelves and in corners. Fury made my movements jerky. Patrons gave me a wide berth. There were a dozen spells I could’ve used. None of them were in my grimoire.
The only reason I didn’t end up closing early was Dakari. He came up behind me, rubbed his invisible hands up and down my shoulders, kissed my temple, and then took over rounding up the creatures with a quiet order for me to return to my desk.
Not that it’s much better for me here, especially when Westley appears with a live rat in his mouth. The cat deposits it on my desk in clear view of the patrons.
The screech one of the magisters releases makes my fingers itch.
No. Even if I was sure banishing them all with the dagger would work, I don’t want to risk using the blade more than I have to.
I shouldn’t have reopened. This plan will drive me to murder before the day is out.
Subconsciously, I start to drift towards the classroom where Hopkinson is holding his lecture. Can I creep inside and listen in without anyone noticing? I just need a break for a few minutes…
Jasper, Eddy, North, Pierce, and Lambert are all in there. At the very least, I would have their company.
Unfortunately, I can’t ghost through doors anymore, which means I probably won’t get away with it. More depressing is the number of people I have to turn away when they ask me to access the Lineage Room.
Some of them are trying to prove adept ancestry—protecting themselves. Understandable. I make discreet copies of their immediate family trees for them and send them on their way.
Then there are those seeking to look at the trees of others.
Those patrons are dismissed without guilt.
Their motivations could be innocent, but if they aren’t…I won’t be the person to lead enforcement to someone’s door.
I slump against the desk as I send the latest such patron off in a huff, and for the first time I wonder if maybe…
Maybe I can’t enjoy this without the Arcanaeum. I used to think this was my calling, but without my friend here to bring levity to the place, it feels like I’m going through the motions out of an ossified sense of duty. Is that enough of a reason to continue?
No. I’m being silly.
This is just a stressful situation.
Things will get better when Mathias is gone.
I’m not normally predisposed to optimism, but the alternative is listening to the pragmatic voice in the back of my mind whispering that this is how it will be from now on.
Can the Arcanaeum even survive in this state? The mist is constantly seeping into the building in tiny wisps. That’s not an affectation designed to lure in Mathias. It’s a consequence of how drained the Library really is. There could be other effects.
What if there isn’t enough magic to hold the mist back? What if there’s not enough to preserve the consciousness of the Arcanaeum? What if we defeat Mathias, channel all of that power into the building, and it never comes back?
I stroke the desk, listening for a reassuring creak. Waiting for the drawers to pop open and slam shut in a temper.
Please.
“What are they doing here?”
I don’t see the student who asks, but my head whips up at the disgust in his tone.
Enforcers.
Dozens of them. Easily over a hundred, marching through the doors across the Rotunda and further down Botanical Hall. All in uniform. All wearing blank expressions.
It takes a second, in this light, for me to realise they’re in dark blue, not the black of Isidora’s aegis, but I don’t want to guess what that means.
“Kyrie,” Leo whispers, his hand brushing against my spine. “What do you want me to do?”
He’s been watching me all morning, but I’ve chosen not to acknowledge it. If it wasn’t him, it would’ve been one of the others. I understand where their protectiveness is coming from.
It would be imprudent to send them away when I’m not as strong as I should be.
“Stay invisible,” I order, not daring to move my lips. “And do nothing rash.”
His hand drops, but he doesn’t move away. The heat of him stays close to my back as the soldiers crowd the room. I’m glad for it.
If this is Mathias’s next attack, I’m not alone.
My heart hurts a little when I realise the ranking officer approaching my desk this time is a longstanding patron. Blanche Winthrop. A regular with a habit of arriving early on the weekends to secure her favourite table in Kinetic Hall.
It’s odd to see her in a uniform. I never knew what she did for work. Why would I? She was one of the good ones. Never causing trouble.
Not so much as one strike in all her time here.
If the epaulettes she's wearing are any indication, she’s a sergeant, too.
“That’s the woman who got us out after what happened to Benny,” Leo whispers from behind me.
I look her up and down with new eyes, noting the lines of stress around her mouth and the stubborn set of her spine.
“Librarian,” she begins. “We’ve come to join you.”
The silence that follows is too long. For some reason, my mind cannot seem to process those five simple words.
“Join us?”
I know she was an ally of Benny’s, but that surely can’t mean what I think it does. Not all of these people.
“This morning, Mathias Ackland alerted enforcement to the murder of Isidora Carlton,” Blanche explains.
“He then claimed it was part of a plot by the parriarchs of the other houses, with absolutely no evidence, and declared them enemies of arcandom, along with all of the current heirs. After that, he quickly claimed the position of rector and made himself vicegerent of both Carlton and Winthrop.”
My mouth falls open at the ludicrously blatant overreach, but she’s not done.
“And the aegis have gone off the deep end. They’ve made Isidora a martyr, and now they’re arresting anyone who’s spent too much time in the Arcanaeum or spoken out against her in the past. They’re even questioning people who shared the video of her executing our officers.”
“And all of you decided to come here?”
Blanche shrugs. “The way I see it, my job is to defend arcanists. Right now, that means protecting them from my own corrupt leadership and a vicegerent on a power trip.” She pauses, shifting her weight to one side.
“Also, Benny Carlton was a friend. I believe what he said about the real necromancers being Isidora and Mathias. Truth be told, a lot of us tried to demand an investigation the moment the video came out, but that pinned targets on our backs. A lot of the higher ups on our side are currently in cells or being forced to resign.”
My gut goes numb, and I look back at Leo, who drops his invisibility spell. “Go find Dakari and Jasper. They should know about this.”
It’s an escalation we can’t ignore.
Such loud moves are unlike him. Mathias has always worked from the shadows. Even when he killed me, he was never interested in taking the position of rector. Now he’s stepping into the spotlight fully?
Why? Is this just a distraction?
“What else has happened?” I ask Blanche. “Leave nothing out, no matter how small.”
One of her men walks forward, hefting a heavy pile of paper in his arms. “It’s dry reading,” he apologises, dropping it onto my desk with a loud thud.
“I’ve barely gotten past the first page, but it was published this morning.
There’s a bunch of reforms to the arcane public services.
Job cuts. New positions. Removal of funding from several media organisations… ”
I raise a brow, flicking through. There must be several hundred pages here.
I’m willing to bet that whatever is in this document will cause more headaches, but that’s a project for after I’ve figured out what to do with these soldiers.
The obvious answer would be to enlist their help fighting the aegis, but that’s not necessarily the wisest course of action.
While there would be some merit to having martially trained arcanists willing to defend the Library, I still can’t bear the idea of it becoming a battleground.
Historically, peaceful campaigns of resistance are twice as successful as violent ones. I don’t want to start a war. I want to create change, to avert Mathias’s takeover of arcandom, and excise the rot that allowed him to mount it with so little resistance.
Above all, I want to protect my family, the Library, and our patrons.
“What are you planning to do?” I ask the officers at the desk.
Blanche offers me an apologetic shrug. “I suppose I hadn’t gotten any further than going to the Library for answers.”
I start to pace behind my desk, thinking.
While the lich almost certainly won’t slink away peacefully, Mathias isn’t the only problem here. Not anymore. He and Isidora have spent years corrupting and warping systems that were supposed to serve and protect people, turning them into instruments of oppression and surveillance.
We’ve already dissented by opening the Arcanaeum to liminals in need of a magical education. We could continue that vein of peaceful resistance with all of these people on our side.
“How do you feel about subversion?” I ask carefully, meeting Blanche’s eyes.
She tilts her head. “Normally, not a fan. But for this…I’ll make an exception.”