Chapter 44
Forty-Four
Kyrith
My new normal is being pleasantly surprised by which man is in my bed each morning.
I fell asleep with Dakari, but I blink open my eyes to find Jasper propped up on one elbow, staring down at me. From this angle, the light streaming through the clock faces catches in his curls, making him seem more angelic than normal.
“Good morning.” I stretch, feeling the pleasant ache in my limbs. “Did Dakari…?”
“He’s gotten started. Leo and Pierce are messing with the plumbing, and North’s gone with Lambert to check on his dad.” Jasper lists them off one by one. “I think they’re trying to get him to move in with someone else for a while, for his safety.”
“That’s a smart idea.” I shove myself into a sitting position, smiling as I spot the tray with breakfast set carefully on the bedside table. “Thank you.”
“Any time, lass.” He kisses me sweetly. “Leo set you out some clothes for when you’re done.”
Those words are quiet, almost wistful, and I follow his gaze to where an outfit has been hung carefully on the door of my closet. He’s even included a pair of sensible, low-heeled boots.
Submission outside the bedroom. He’s been doing it all weekend, though the Library has been closed. His choices so far have been safe enough, but I have a feeling he’ll start testing my boundaries now that we’re open again.
I shiver, and Jasper smirks.
“Don’t laugh, or I’ll start picking out your clothes,” I say, brows rising when his pupils expand and that pretty blush rises to bless his cheeks. “Do…do you want that?”
He shrugs, the action so casual that it can only be an affectation. “I’m happy to dress myself, Mistress, but I’d never say no to helping you.”
I bite my lip as I consider it, and he uses the moment to place the tray on my lap. Serving me.
“I can manage my clothes,” I finally say, watching him deflate. “But I think you’ll look good on your knees lacing up my shoes.”
The memory of him undoing them on our first night together is burned into my brain.
His groan is almost inaudible, but as I finish my food and slip out from the covers, he can’t hide the way he tracks my every movement.
The skirt Leo has chosen is…tight. Shorter than my usual ones, though arguably still tame by modern standards.
It clings all the way from my hips to my knees, with a slit at the back to allow for movement.
The top has long sleeves, but it’s soft. Strokable. The fabric is so luxurious it may as well be screaming, ‘touch me’. It’s still a professional outfit, but the way it conforms to my curves makes it sinful.
Thankfully, the red marks from the wax they used on Friday night are long since gone, but there’s a love bite on my neck from last night that I carefully cover with a cosmetic ensorcellment.
Jasper sinks to one knee, the first boot already unlaced and waiting. I have to grip his hair to keep my balance, and he looks up at me with his pupils blown wide.
I slip my foot into the boot, then rest it against his chest.
He makes a noise of satisfaction, or perhaps it’s torment, deep in his throat.
The amount of care he puts into the lacing makes my heart melt even as my core weeps.
Then I swap to the other foot, and he gives it the same careful attention.
I expect him to stand once he’s finished, but he stays on his knees. “Please, Mistress.” He doesn’t look up. “Please let me out. I—fuck. The pressure is driving me mad.”
I drop to a crouch, the skirt forcing me to keep my knees together, making the action racier than it needs to be as I reach out and cup his cage through the thick fabric of his jeans.
Jasper hisses out a breath as I rub up and down, then slip my hand under the waistband and stroke the velvet skin of him through the cage. My fingers travel lower, cupping his balls gently. His hips buck, trying to get more of my touch.
“No.”
My one word stills him, and he groans under his breath as I draw back.
“You’re trying tae kill me,” he complains, pressing his face into my thigh as I stand. “I kinda love it, though.”
I chuckle under my breath. “If you’re good, I have plans for you when all of this is over…” I pause, thinking of the strap-on currently hiding in one of the drawers. “Depending on what you’re up for.”
“Anything.”
That one word drips with sincerity.
He’s too sweet. I bend to kiss him. “Later. First…I have an Arcanaeum to break.”
If it feels wrong to say the words, then it’s a hundred times worse when I cast the spell to create a huge crack through the wainscotting in the foyer.
For the last few days, I’ve been keeping the damage minimal. A handful of doors that squeak when they’re opened, rickety tables and tatty rugs scattered about the place.
Now it’s time to up the ante.
Jasper sticks close, lending me his strength to lean against when I have to break the marble columns of the Rotunda.
“This is horrible,” I mumble, putting the dagger on my desk.
I’ve started keeping it out of the holster on my thigh when I need to open or close. Otherwise, Jasper has to waste his time and magic healing me. Even pre-emptively funnelling my own power towards the blade doesn’t stop it.
I check the clock and sigh. Three minutes until opening.
“It’s only temporary,” he reassures me, even as Dakari strides through the doors.
The Talcott parriarch—stars, it's still strange to think of him with that title—has made it a point to be with me every single morning at opening time. I offer him a sad but grateful smile and a kiss as he comes to stand on my other side.
“Ready?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I know this was my plan, but it feels wrong to open in such a state.”
He takes my hand, stroking it. “Take the day off. You still have more of that document to read.”
Ugh, the document. Just thinking of it makes me want to scream.
I’ve been annotating as I go, but really, it’s all the same.
Mathias is quietly removing public service positions, destroying the small amount of oversight that governed what the parriarchs could and couldn’t do.
In one long proclamation, he’s removed all forms of independent accountability from enforcement.
The idea of reading more makes my gut churn, but I have to. When I’m done, I’ll keep it and my notes safe, so we know exactly what needs to be changed back.
The one good thing about all of this is that Mathias’s edicts are new. That should make them easier to repeal.
“No. I’ve adjusted my illusion.” I tap my bracelet, throat going thick as my skin turns blue with a familiar crack running through my arm and sleeve. “I want to work. Besides, I should be seen like this, to further the impression of the Library failing.”
Leo and Pierce appear to my left, and I check the clock.
Opening time.
I reach for the dagger, sending the tiniest burst of power in its direction, and—
Crack.
Heat flashes over my skin. My heart skips a beat. I draw my palm away like I’ve been burned, searching…
One of the paper strips binding the blade has disintegrated. Beneath it, a fresh crack bisects the golden metal.
Oh magic. No. Not a crack. A canyon. The metal has split apart again.
My knees go weak. If not for Jasper reaching out to wrap his arms around my waist, I might’ve buckled.
This isn’t supposed to happen. I’m using the tiniest bit of magic. Barely enough to open some doors…
“I made an error,” I whisper to myself. “Or maybe I just…No. I can’t have. It shouldn’t be happening like this.”
Worse, the patrons are already arriving, shuffling through those same doors. If my men are touching me and they see, it will soon be abundantly clear that I’m not a ghost.
“North and Lambert are gone,” Leo notes. “Could that have altered things?”
His mind has moved straight past the catastrophe and into cold logic, and I accept the anchor in the storm he provides.
“I…don’t know.”
Suddenly our plan seems less like a plan and more like a prayer. We’re playing with magic I barely understand. Whatever the Arcanaeum did was done hastily, and now the spell is failing.
“Take it to the Clock Tower,” Jasper suggests, letting me slip free of his embrace. “We’ll keep watch on things here.”
“You can figure this out,” Dakari says, his dark gaze holding me captive. “Don’t panic.”
How can he be so calm?
I’m shaking as I gather the pieces of metal carefully in my hands and flee up the stairs, ignoring the stares of the patrons. When I get to our space, I lay the blade on the kitchen island, staring at it.
“I need you to come back,” I say to the silent building. “I need you to tell me what to do, because I can’t risk them becoming stuck here and hating me for it.”
“Wouldn’t happen.” I didn’t even realise Dakari had followed me until his deep voice soothes over my fragile nerves like a balm. “There’s nothing in this world that could make me hate you, baby girl.”
I turn, and sure enough, there he is. All solid comfort and surety.
“You could be stuck inside the building. Absorbed into the Arcanaeum’s consciousness. Stars. It might not even have a consciousness anymore. You could die, and all that would remain of you would be your magic.”
His hand cups my face, and he presses his forehead to mine. “If it gave you back the Library and kept you safe from Mathias, I could live with that.”
“I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.” I shake my head. “It would destroy me. I can’t go back to living alone.”
Not now that I’ve lived with them. Touched them. Been held by them. I endured the loneliness before because I didn’t know any other way.
Now, if the pain of losing any of them didn’t kill me, returning to that empty existence certainly would. And without the Arcanaeum…
Dakari’s hand tilts my lips to his and claims them in a kiss. “If the worst comes to pass, you have people. Eddy, Hopkinson, Westley…You wouldn’t be alone.”
My heart thumps hollowly as I kiss him back. It’s not the same, and he knows it.
“Before I became Librarian, I thought I knew what love was,” I mumble, when he releases me. “But whatever destruction Edmund’s betrayal wrought on my soul would be nothing compared to the devastation of losing any of you. Maybe it would be better to just…close. Call this off.”
“No.” He’s unyielding. “You have a solid plan. Don’t doubt yourself now.”
I ease from his grip and look back at the blade. “Then we need to move up the timescale.”
I’d planned to wait weeks, initiating a slow ‘breakdown’ of the Arcanaeum. That’s not possible if I can’t open and close without risking the dagger.
I need to work on the spells to destroy Mathias’s phylactery and funnel his power into the Library, and then we need something big. Something that will make the lich stand up and take notice.
Something that will play on his overconfidence and bring him rushing to claim victory.
I swallow and meet his eyes again. “How do you feel about causing another earthquake?”