Chapter 52
Fifty-Two
Kyrith
I’m back in the Vault, but I have no memory of how I got here. My back rests just above the altar, the spire pointing down into my chest.
I also…no longer have a body. I can’t turn physical at all.
Even the outline of me is incredibly faint.
Logically, I know that’s a good thing. I’m no longer troubled by the pain in my leg.
I’m obviously reconnected to the building, which means the dagger is gone.
There’s no way for Mathias to control us anymore.
Leo and Dakari were within sight of the Library. They don’t need me to guide them back, providing they don’t focus on the fog.
Later, I’ll let myself fret about what my loss means for everything beyond the next few hours.
Right now, I have to take advantage of being able to dematerialise and reform in Botanical Hall.
Above me, I can see the others hefting crates of bombs over the motionless bodies of half a dozen revenants. They’ve clearly been in some kind of battle and won. More importantly, they’re all alive.
That’s good. The Arcanaeum hasn’t absorbed my bonded like I feared it would. I suppose my body was a magical construct. It was probably more efficient for the building to reabsorb that instead of assimilating six new souls.
I’m a ghost again, but they’re still alive. Okay. I can…I can accept that. We can still be companions. I had my fun—
I shut off the thoughts threatening to spiral out of control and focus on them instead. Jasper and North set another crate down by the banister. Lambert and Eddy are already picking through a different one beside it, but none of them have noticed me yet.
The Library’s pain radiates through me on a soul-deep level, singing in the creak of the floorboards beneath their feet and the crunch of rust on the railing as Lambert leans against it. Once again, I can feel it like it’s my own body, but the awareness—the consciousness—is still missing.
Experimentally, I try to push the papers off a desk.
They rustle, but nothing more.
Anthea has destroyed the phylactery. My office, several rooms away, is drowning under the slick feeling of necromancy. There are corpses everywhere, and the dusty remnants of the jewel are spread across my desk.
When Isidora’s gem was broken, there was a small rush of power, but it damaged the dagger. I suppose channelling whatever was left of Mathias’s soul must’ve been too much for it.
I should’ve expected as much.
Now I’m reconnected to the Arcanaeum, but my form is so faint as to be almost invisible, and the two of us are powerless.
It’s not ideal.
Mathias must be drawing closer. His displeasure has stopped shaking the building, but the stone foundations are cracking and crumbling.
A door swings open to my left, and I whirl, expecting it to be him.
Pierce staggers through, wearing a shirt that definitely isn’t his. He’s clutching a collection of small vials against his chest, each full to the brim with a golden liquid.
“He lives!” Lambert crows, offering him a high five.
For a second, Pierce looks confused, then he rolls his eyes and shrugs the other man’s exuberance off.
“The McKinleys didn’t want me to come, but the drain stopped.” He chucks a potion at Lambert, then another at North. “Halinor sent these.”
Lambert glugs the liquid without hesitation.
“Restorative draughts,” he explains when North eyes his doubtfully. “Refills your magical well. We sometimes use them after games.”
Jasper’s lips pinch, but he throws the liquid back like a shot. Those are the very same potions that caused all the damage to his liver and kidneys while he was held captive by the Carltons. This one time shouldn’t cause any issues, but it can’t hold good memories.
I drift higher, only for Lambert’s eyes to slide right over me as I come to a stop beside him.
I glance down. I can still see me. I’m faint, but I’m here.
Maybe it’s the lighting?
That doesn’t make sense. I’m usually easier to see in the dark…
Being stuck as a ghost again mutes the pulse of dread as I clear my throat. “Ahem.”
Nothing.
They keep talking, the conversation having drifted to what kind of bombs are in the crates.
I can’t pay attention as Eddy points them out one by one. My thoughts are racing.
“Lambert?” I ask, reaching for his hand.
If I’m a ghost, usually my presence brings with it a kind of chill. He should recognise that, surely?
But he doesn’t. His hand flexes slightly, but that’s it.
“North?” I try to keep the tremor from my voice as I reach out for all of them, stroking their arms, grabbing for their hands. “Jasper? Pierce?”
“There they are!” Lambert leans over the banister, waving to catch the attention of Leo and Dakari. They run into Botanical Hall, charred and exhausted, but alive.
Their eyes scan the mezzanine balcony and pass right over me.
“Hey.” Lambert’s face falls. “Where’s the boss lady?”
“Here.” I want to shout the word, but it comes out as a broken whisper. “I’m right here.”
No amount of yelling will help. It’s agonisingly clear what’s happened. I was afraid of them being consumed by the Arcanaeum, but instead…it took me.
My breathing turns shallow and gasping.
No. We don’t have time for this.
“She’s not with you?” Dakari’s hand darts out, catching the vial Pierce chucks down to him.
Leo does the same, both of them gulping the liquid in two swallows.
Good. That’s good. They need their magic.
Pierce’s knuckles go white around the final potion—the one no doubt intended for me.
“We thought she was with you.” Jasper looks around as if I’ll poke my head out of a wall.
I’m right beside him, my fingers passing uselessly through his.
I’m grateful, really. Better me than them. This is a fairer outcome.
“She was,” Leo says. “But she disappeared when Mathias went batshit crazy and started trying to rip apart the Arcanaeum.”
“The phylactery was destroyed…and so was the dagger,” Jasper explains. “Though the last part was kind of my fault. It was fragile after Anthea—” He cuts himself off with a grimace at Pierce. “Well, it broke.”
“And Kyrith disappeared.” Leo’s expression darkens.
The vial in Pierce’s grasp falls to the floor, where it smashes, spraying its golden contents all over his shoes. He opens his mouth to say something, but no words come out.
They’re getting distracted. There’s a lich out there, and I’m not na?ve enough to hope he’ll stay lost in the mists forever.
“Forget about me,” I order them, clapping my hands like it will get their attention. “Focus on yourselves. He’s still coming for you.”
“I’m going to search for her,” Eddy announces, already striding back towards the stairs. “She could be—”
The front door of the Arcanaeum flies open.
If I thought Isidora was horrifying to look at after her soul vessel was shattered, Mathias is a hundred times worse.
His face is skeletal, those same black veins forking out from his jaw and his temples. His eyes are bloodshot and empty, seething with rage as he stalks forward.
Three grimoires still orbit his waist, but his blighted skin has blistered and peeled, leaving sores across his hands that ooze as he touches the pages.
“I was prepared to be merciful,” he snarls. “I would have let the adepts among you rule your families under me and preserve the traditions of our people, as long as you toed the line.”
A bolt of lightning soars straight for Dakari, but he’s ready for it, lifting a table to intercept the blast with a wave of his hand.
My relief is short-lived as the electricity hits the wood and more pain whispers up my spine.
The building. I’m feeling the building’s pain. I can’t feel my own toes, but when Leo dodges out of the way of a fireball, and it hits the floor, the answering burn flashes across my chest, scalding me.
They’re battling with a powerful lich, and I can’t protect them. All I can do is stand here and feel every single wayward blow. Every single strike is another stab into the haemorrhaging heart of the Arcanaeum—my heart.
Mathias’s lip curls. “But you six followed that ridiculous excuse of a Librarian to the very end, and look where it’s got you.”
“Where is she?” North demands, his hand on his grimoire as he sends a javelin of ice straight at the lich. “What did you do to her?”
Nothing. Mathias did nothing, but joy lights up his face as he puts my absence together with North’s words.
“I didn’t do anything.” A dark grin splits his face as his hand shifts to the third grimoire. “But if she’s not already dead, she’ll be joining the rest of you in the afterlife very soon.”