Chapter 54
Fifty-Four
Northcliff
There’s something wrong with the Arcanaeum.
It’s not just the flames Dakari is hastily smothering with magic. Or the pile of corpses that dropped to the ground the second Mathias took his last breath. Or even the very noticeable absence of our Librarian.
It’s something deeper.
I can feel it.
Eddy slams into me with the force of a hurricane, hugging the shit out of me. The contact makes every cut and bruise flare bright for a second, but my arms wrap around her anyway.
There’s blood streaming down her face, but the cut looks shallow. She’s mostly unhurt, thank God.
“Are you okay? Is everyone alive?” Her words are so fast they fall over one another. “I can’t believe that invisibility spell idea worked. Holy shit. I thought we were going to die.”
I scoff at the last. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Jasper shakes his head. “Fuck, we almost did die. But that was a good idea.”
Yeah. We did. Several times. Just looking at the wreckage of Botanical Hall is an awful reminder of how close we came. Over her head, I watch as Pierce mutters a spell over the corpse of the lich, disintegrating his body into a pile of black ash. Then he moves over to the revenants and repeats it.
No coming back from that, I guess.
“Nah, you wouldn’t have let us go splat.” Her grin falls as she looks around. “Wait. We have to find Kyrith. Do you think he was telling the truth?”
“I’m checking the Vault,” Leo says, already moving. “Someone else needs to take the Clock Tower.”
“I’ve got it.” Eddy wrenches free of my hug and sprints for the end of the hall.
“What if she’s still outside?” Dakari asks as the last of the flames are extinguished. “You can’t see anything out there.”
“She looked towards the Arcanaeum before she disappeared,” Leo calls over his shoulder. “If the dagger was fully broken, it’s possible she was reconnected, just like she wanted to be.”
Jasper rubs the back of his neck, glancing towards one of the doors, hesitantly. “Has anyone checked if we can still leave?”
Everyone stiffens.
“Only one way to find out.” I stride over to it, wincing at the scorch marks marring the front and knock. “My house.”
It doesn’t open.
“Shit.” Dakari’s shoulders sag. “The doors were getting temperamental before we messed with the Library. If we’re going to leave, you’ll need to use the transport beacons.”
Which isn’t something I know how to do. I grind my teeth together, but he doesn’t criticise. He just grabs his grimoire, manually flips it open at a dog-eared page, and murmurs a spell.
He’s gone in a flash of light.
I count the seconds as we all turn to stare at the Rotunda, where Kyrith left the weird metal pyramid thing she called a beacon.
Dakari reappears a full minute later with a shrug. “We can come and go. I felt no ill effects.”
Jasper visibly sags in relief, so do I. No one was looking forward to being stuck here if we didn’t need to be.
“Pierce,” Jasper begins awkwardly. “Just so you know, Anthea didnae make it. Something must’ve gone wrong with the spell, because when I got to her, the phylactery was destroyed and she was…gone.”
Pierce’s brow furrows. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Jasper shrugs. “I figured it was something to do with the—”
Pierce is already striding away. “Where?”
“Kyrith’s office.” The Scot jogs to keep up. “It wasnae pretty.”
“Let me guess,” Pierce remarks dryly. “The body is unrecognisable?” He sounds more amused than upset, and it takes me a second to realise he doesn’t believe what Jasper is saying. “We’ll check this floor. Have you two got upstairs covered?” He aims the last question at me and Dakari.
“Yeah,” I answer for us both, already moving.
I need to do something. It’s like an itch under my skin, or maybe that’s Kyrith’s absence.
Dakari is silent, but that’s not unusual for him. Eventually, though, I can’t stand it anymore.
“Does this not feel…wrong to you?”
His black eyes look right through my soul as he answers. “Nothing has felt right since Kyrith disappeared, but you’re right. The building is…”
“It was already still.” I roll my shoulders, trying to dispel the chill creeping between them. “But now it’s almost like it’s…dead.”
The last word echoes around us, haunting. Dakari swallows once, then turns his attention to the Shrouded Hall.
“Kyrith!?” he yells.
For the next hour, her name rings out across broken hallways and fog-drenched rooms. We even search every floor in the Vault.
Nothing.
Mathias is dead. We’re all free to leave, and yet…
“Kyrith is gone.” Dakari is the one to say what we’re all thinking as we trudge back up the stairs into the Rotunda.
“Like fuck she is!” I drive my hand down onto her desk, relishing the sting. “She’s not gone. She can’t be.”
Eddy’s cheeks are already tear-streaked, and fresh ones gather in her eyes as she absorbs the news.
“No way,” Lambert agrees, though he lacks any kind of conviction. “It was supposed to be us, right? We were supposed to be sucked into the Arcanaeum.”
Leo swallows, jaw clenching. “Unless the magic chose the path of least resistance. It created her body out of its own magic. She was more closely linked to it than we were. It would have been easier to take that than absorb the magical wells from six different people. Especially when none of us were touching her to make the transfer easier.”
“You’re saying she’s just lost her body?” Lambert perks up. “I mean, that’s okay. I loved her even when I couldn’t touch her. That doesn’t change anything.”
He’s missing the point. I don’t have the heart to tell him.
Thankfully, Jasper puts him out of his misery. “Nah. She’s naw just a ghost. Remember how she said the other librarians had been absorbed by the building entirely? How they were a hive mind? He means…she might be…gone.”
My nails cut into my palms as a boulder settles on my chest.
I don’t want to believe it. Don’t want to think of a world without her. Don’t really want to live in one either.
My thoughts stutter to a halt as Leo rights a chair and slumps into it. “We don’t know anything for sure.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Lambert asks. “We could search again…”
“That’s a waste of time. If Kyrith could hear us, she’d have answered.
” Dakari looks around, eyes lingering on one of the shards of stained glass that’s landed a few feet from her desk.
“The Arcanaeum is a mess. She could be trapped under the rubble, or maybe she can’t manifest while the building is out of power. ”
“So, we fix it?”
“Not alone,” Eddy protests. “It will take too long.”
We all look at her, and she groans. “Men. Honestly, you’d think it was a crime to ask for help. Look, there are hundreds of patrons who love this place. They’d all pitch in. The McKinleys would probably be first in line.”
Jasper nods. “Aye, we’ve been restoring the Fort, but this…this is more important.”
“And ó Rinn owes her for the curse,” Leo adds. “They’ll jump at the chance to help.”
“Talcott might need some pushing, but I’m their damned parriarch,” Dakari mutters. “They’ll do it or else.”
“What about Ackland, Carlton, and Winthrop?” Eddy asks. “Will they listen to North and the others?”
For some reason, Dakari, Jasper, and Pierce all turn to Leo.
“Well, Rector?” Pierce asks. “Who’s in charge there?”
Rector?
Shit. Well. Better him than me.
Leo runs a hand through his messy curls with a groan.
“They need new vicegerents. Until then, a rector’s order combined with the support of their heirs should be enough to mobilise them.
Feck, we can probably bully enforcement into it too…
They owe her for outing all of those necromancers who were swanning about under their noses.
” He straightens. “We need to issue a joint statement as soon as possible.”
“For now, I’ll get everyone I can.” Jasper is already pulling out his phone. “Even if the lack of magic isn’t the problem, she’s going tae freak when she sees the Library in this state.”
I appreciate him saying ‘when’ and not ‘if’. It doesn’t do anything to ease the numbness creeping through me at the thought of an Arcanaeum without Kyrith.
Who would even run it?
She has to come back. She just has to.
When she does, I’m going to spank her ass for scaring the ever-loving shit out of me like this.