Chapter 53
Fifty-Three
Jasper
She cannae be gone.
I’m still in denial as I dive into the nearest crate and lob one of the bombs inside straight at the lich’s smarmy face. Eddy does the same. The projectiles bounce off Mathias’s shield, splashing the desks around him with acid, but leaving him completely unharmed.
Fuck.
Lambert launches himself over the edge of the balcony. His skin turns to rock to protect him from the impact, but he still lands hard, cracking the floorboards below.
North and Pierce are raining magic on Mathias like they can wipe him from the face of the earth if they try hard enough.
I can’t help but feel useless in comparison.
Destruction isn’t my school. Not that their attacks are doing much.
The ice and lightning they’re sending his way is absorbed by the shield just like everything else.
Above us, the beams groan. Crack.
Wood that has stood strong for a thousand years begins to split.
A glance at Dakari says this time it’s not his doing. He’s too busy hoisting every reading table he can at the asshole. Not that any of it is making a dent.
Mathias, however, is still chanting, fingers splayed across his grimoires.
The beams croak a final warning.
“Move!” I shove Eddy closer to the others.
She stumbles over one of the dead revenants beneath our feet, and my heart swoops as I reach for my grimoire blindly.
A pearly white shield erupts over our heads just in time for the glass and wood to come raining down. The lethal mess passes harmlessly over our heads, and Eddy shoots me a grateful look.
I cannae do anything about the stray piece of glass plummeting towards Leo, but Dakari slams it away with a burst of magic.
It crashes into a shelf instead.
Mathias scowls, unleashing a volley of ice at us. Fuck, fuck, fuck! My shield dissolves and reforms in front of North, just in time to deflect the icicles. They spear into the shelf three inches to his left.
Stars, that was close.
“Watch the books,” North grumbles, flinging himself over the edge after Lambert, slowing his descent with a hover spell.
“You’re fucking welcome!” I growl after him as Pierce follows suit, casting a bolt of lightning that ricochets off the lich’s shield.
They land in the swirling carpet of fog that’s growing thicker and thicker as the battle drags on.
All of them are attacking now. Furniture is flying. Mathias’s shield is sinking in, but I’m pretty sure that has less to do with us and more to do with how he’s distracted swapping between grimoires.
When his attention shifts to the others, I switch tactics. I dinnae ken many destruction spells, but there’s a lot of glass. I lift a few of the bigger shards with magic, flinging them at him.
It does fuck all.
I have no idea what spell the lich uses, but suddenly the floor below is liquid.
North curses, diving for a table. Lambert jumps and grabs one of the hanging pots to escape it.
The ropes hold just long enough for the wood beneath to resolidify, before giving way with a snap that sends him plummeting back to earth.
Dakari and Leo aren’t so lucky. Their ankles are trapped.
Leo flicks through his grimoire for a counter-spell, but Dakari is already aiming a brute-force wave of manipulation magic at the floor.
The pretty basketweave pattern splinters into matchsticks in the next breath, freeing them.
Their legs are bleeding, but I cannae do much about that from here.
Leo chants something else, and glowing patches light up across Mathias’s shield.
Weak spots. Lambert dodges another blast of ice with a flip I’ve seen him use in magiball games.
The move puts him within reach of Mathias, and he uses that, ramming his arm—transmuted into a spear—straight into the lich’s shield.
It punctures the glowing target Leo painted, shattering the entire construct.
Yes!
Mathias’s answering blast of power knocks Lambert back.
It’s so strong that it blows my hair out of my face even though I’m not the target.
There’s a crash as Lambert lands, but I’m too busy shielding my eyes against the flying debris to watch.
When I open them again, Mathias is bleeding, a neat line sliced across his face.
Savage satisfaction burns in my gut.
Lambert has been tossed into a heavy mahogany bookcase below me. The shelves have snapped under his weight, and books are still raining down on his head.
He shoves back to his feet before I can drop down and check on him.
“Sorry, boss,” he mutters under his breath.
The reminder makes my chest hurt. I grab another bomb from the dwindling number in the box, weighing the cool, hard brass sphere in my hand. Eddy has been throwing them like a woman possessed, but not much has come of it. I throw this one as hard as I can, trying to catch Mathias off guard.
He bats it away without effort. It hits a window instead, sending coloured glass bursting everywhere.
The fingers of the lich’s free hand rise to touch the wound on his face, and he fixes all of us with a glower. One that promises death.
Briefly, his eyes flick to the closest door.
Thinking about running?
North evidently thinks so. He shifts, placing himself in front of it. “Like fuck you’re running away after what you’ve done.”
That’s a damned suicidal move, and the way Lambert edges closer tells me I’m not the only one thinking it.
“I don’t need to run from a bunch of pathetic liminal bastards.” Mathias swipes the blood away with a scowl.
His hand drops to the other grimoire, a new, darker incantation spilling from his blackened lips.
The dead revenants behind Eddy and me shove to their feet. Their melted flesh falls to the floor with slick, squelching sounds as they reach for anything they can use as a weapon. Chairs, lamps, shards of glass.
I turn to face them, only for Mathias to send a wave of magic our way. No. Not at us. At the pillar supporting the balcony.
Shit.
The pages of my grimoire flick violently.
The structure sways as if caught in a wind. Somehow, I’m convinced I can feel the faintest brush of the Arcanaeum’s magic—Kyrith’s magic—keeping it upright.
The floor beneath us holds for a second. Two.
My eyes widen, and I grab for Eddy…just as the building’s magic runs out completely.
The mezzanine collapses under our feet. Wood splinters. Eddy screeches. Bombs erupt from the crates and roll everywhere. Shelves topple in a deafening avalanche.
My shield forms a protective bubble around us a nanosecond before gravity catches up. I wrap myself around Eddy, the two of us helpless to do more than hold on as we tumble down in a mass of limbs.
Dust flies everywhere, stealing what little visibility the ever-thickening fog permitted before.
“Onvosobli,” Eddy gasps the invisibility spell as we land hard in the rubble.
My bones ache, bruises already blooming on my back, which takes the brunt of the fall.
What? Why would she…?
“Don’t make a sound,” she whispers, her voice thin. “Let him think we’re dead.”
Mathias frustrated snarl echoes from somewhere beyond the dust, and I nod, seeing the wisdom in her idea.
“Can you hold it?”
She sets her jaw and nods once as I haul us both out of the rubble. She’s bleeding from a wound to her temple and moving stiffly as she lets me guide her away from the line of fire. It’s bleeding a lot, but it’s a head wound. They do that.
The air is thick, almost soupy with fog, smoke, and debris. It makes my throat burn, and I struggle not to cough. One wrong noise and we’ll give ourselves away.
Somehow, in the chaos, one of the lich’s spell books has been reduced to a pile of ashes on the floor. The grim smirk on Pierce’s face tells me he’s responsible.
Smart. Now Mathias is down to two.
The lich has given up on shields in favour of an all-out assault.
We have to get behind him. If we can sneak up on him…
I take Eddy’s arm, leading the way around the edge of the room.
“Ingaesh,” Mathias growls.
Dakari, North, and Lambert collapse under the torture spell. Leo manages to shield, but the tendons in his throat strain as he battles the power being levelled his way.
Pierce grunts but stays standing, aiming a blast of lightning at the grimoire Mathias is using to cast. It misses, because Mathias is using his free hand to attack back.
He casts a huge arc of white flame, and I clench my teeth as I shove even more magic into the shield. The heat is intense, unbearable even before the fire hits our bubble.
I swear I hear the Library scream in anguish.
Magic, no.
Pierce dodges. Leo gives an almighty groan as his shield snaps out, covering North, Dakari, and Lambert seconds before they would’ve been hit.
The shelves are on fire. The rugs. The desks.
Even some of the revenants stumbling their way down from the ruins of the first floor are alight, screaming incoherently.
The sound of their sizzling roasting flesh fills the air, along with the crackles of flame, and the groaning of a building in danger of collapse.
Stars, now that we’re out of immediate danger, I take in the wreckage with alarm. Kyrith’ll be devastated.
One of the macrame pot hangers gives out, sending the enormous terracotta pot it held crashing into the parquet floor on our left. Shards fly everywhere, cutting my skin.
Oh, stars, no. The books…
Dakari steps right through the destruction as he pummels the lich with furniture. Two steps, and I’m at Mathias’s back. Close enough to feel the magic radiating from him.
I grab the sword still at my hip, slipping it free soundlessly, though I doubt it really matters, given the noise.
I’ve never stabbed a man in the back before. It takes more force than I expected.
Mathias makes an odd wee sound, like a wet and breathless gasp. His blood rushes free, splattering onto my hands.
I’m so close to him that it’s not hard to lean forward and tell him, “That’s for Kyrith.”
He’s still moving. Trying to turn to face me.
Eddy loses her control over the invisibility spell as she flinches back, but I’ve got him.
I twist the blade.
Everything else stops. The bolts of ice. The fireballs. Leo’s chanting.
“No fire in the Arcanaeum,” I growl, kicking the lich forward.
The blade draws free with a slick noise I want to erase from my memory, and Mathias clutches at his chest for a second, dropping to his knees.
His grimoires drop to the floor by his side as he slumps, face-first, onto the floor.
I drop, fingers finding his wrist. Waiting as his pulse slows, then stops.
Dead.
He was already disgusting after his phylactery was destroyed. Now it’s like his body is aging at lightning speed, withering and blackening. I drop his hand with a grimace, wiping the mess on my jeans.
Pierce moves closer, footsteps crunching in the broken glass, but there’s nothing he can do. We have no dagger to funnel all of that stolen magic back at the Arcanaeum.
Even Mathias’s death is wasted.
He’s gone. It’s over.
It sinks into my chest like a weight. I’ve killed the man who drained me of magic for over ten years. A decade of bad memories, cut down with one single, underhanded thrust of a hastily conjured sword.
And the only thought in my head is, where’s my girl?