Chapter 58 #2
The chuckles and smirks from the others melt me, and I can’t help reaching for Lambert, pulling him into a hug.
He stiffens, then shudders. “Magic, that’s cold…Don’t stop.”
I manage to talk them down from daily infusions. We settle on twice a week as a compromise. It takes three more attempts for my outline to grow visible again. The moment they can see me, they start to walk a little lighter. They smile more easily.
Hope, that fragile, cursed emotion, starts radiating from them.
There is one downside…They can see my reaction to the spell.
To say they’re unhappy is an understatement.
I not only have to apologise—an ordeal that ends with Leo and North threatening to take turns spanking me when I regain my body—but also convince them to try again.
It’s worth it. The fifth casting gives me enough magic to lift and hold things like I used to, albeit with less control.
The sixth does nothing beyond replenishing the building’s reserves, neither does the seventh, nor the eighth.
We still haven’t reached that critical mass. The tipping point at which the well will begin to refill by itself. Realistically, I know that we need to hit that milestone, if only to stop me being dependent on their infusions of energy, but it’s taxing to face disappointment over and over again.
Part of me wants to just return to work, to make do with what I have. They’ve appointed volunteers to take care of things in my place—over twenty young arcanists, each carefully vetted and approved by me—and restricted opening hours to compensate for my absence.
I itch to take over. Every time one of the volunteers does something wrong or performs one of my favourite tasks, it kills me a little.
But returning in my current state would waste the power my men have already given me.
It’s counterintuitive to empty the Arcanaeum’s well, even a small amount, when we’re doing all of these rituals to refill it.
That’s why we collectively decide on a ninth infusion.
It’s been a whole month since they started doing the rituals, ten weeks since Mathias’s downfall.
“Perhaps this could be the last time,” I begin, circling the altar as they lay their grimoires against it. “Maybe it’s better to make do with what we have, rather than draining you in the hope of more.”
Being visible and audible is enough, I tell myself sternly.
“The progress is unpredictable,” Leo reminds me, catching my hand, even though he simply passes through it. “Every time we do this and nothing happens, we’re still helping the Library.”
The almost touches comforted me at first, but now they’re driving me mad. I know why they’re doing it. They can feel the coldness of my skin, and it reassures them that I’m still here.
I still feel nothing.
I really, really wish the heat of him would permeate the chill that surrounds me. The closest I get is when their fingers glide over the furnishings.
I school my thoughts, refusing to hope for more, as I inch beneath the spire again.
“We want to do this, boss.” Lambert grins at me, already slicing through his hand with a wince. “Well, maybe not the bleeding part, but we have potions for that.”
“I will do this a hundred more times if it gives me the ability to hold you again,” Dakari says.
“Same.” North grips the knife next, then offers it to Jasper, who nods. “Besides, we’ve already started; might as well continue.”
“That’s the sunk cost fallacy,” I say.
Lambert and North blink blankly at me, not having heard of the term, but Leo shakes his head. “That’s love.”
Their hands drip blood through my ghostly body, the chant rising around me as I close my eyes and fight not to move.
Something changes.
A cracking, widening sensation begins in my ribcage. In the back of my mind, a vast knowledge shines through me for a fraction of a heartbeat, then it’s gone. Shut away.
Above my head, glowing golden words inscribe themselves in a ring around the spire at their eye level. Flashing with power in a desperate demand for attention.
DON’T STOP.
What? No! It could drain them.
I open my mouth to object, but the words die on my tongue. My jaw snaps shut, cutting off my pained screech as the Arcanaeum’s magical well starts to warp.
I’m frozen. Unable to move. The Library has woken up after months without a peep. Now it’s doing something. Immobilising me so I can’t counter its order.
Somewhere inside us, our immense—and mostly empty—magical well is splitting.
Is the Arcanaeum trying to sever me again? I don’t have a body. I’d just be an untethered ghost. My mind rebels, and I fight it, only to pause.
No. I’ve doubted it before. Every single time, the Library has been on my side.
Surrendering to whatever it’s doing goes against every basic survival urge I possess. Worse, my men’s faces are beginning to show the strain. They’re powerful. That doesn’t mean they’re not digging deep into their reserves to answer the Library’s request. Even they can’t keep casting forever.
A minute passes. Two.
The golden letters flicker, dissipating on a spectral breeze.
As one, my bonded stop chanting. Leo’s knees give out. Lambert stumbles away from the stone, looking queasy. Dakari sways. Even Jasper and Pierce shut their eyes like they’re trying to hold themselves together.
“What was that?” North demands, panting.
I don’t know, but I can feel the building again.
Distracted…but there.
“What did you do?” I ask it.
And for the first time in months, the shelves give a smug little shuffle.
The Arcanaeum is a genius.
I suppose that should’ve been obvious, given how many books it contains, but once we recover and I have a chance to investigate the changes, I really appreciate it for the first time.
“I’m a satellite,” I realise, pacing the length of the living room.
“Like a space rocket or…?” Lambert asks, swigging heavily on the beer that North just passed him.
Pierce groans, collapsing onto the sofa, still clutching a golden restorative potion. “Honestly. The acoustics in your head must be incredible.”
He downs it, then reaches out to accept a beer from North.
“Don’t pretend you have any more of a clue than he does.” Jasper shakes his head. “Lass, care to explain?”
“It’s separated me, but not totally. Before I was part of its magical well, but now I’m not.
We’re still linked…like…” I grasp at straws to find a metaphor that suits what I’m trying to explain.
“I’m a bucket in a huge pond.” It’s a convoluted image, but it’s close enough.
“When my reserves are full, they overflow into the Arcanaeum, but my well is smaller. And because I’m still in the pond, I can draw from it whenever I need to. Connected, but separate. A satellite.”
“What does that mean?” North asks, and I dimly realise I’ve started floating higher again when I notice I can see the top of his head. “You’re recharging it by yourself?”
I nod. “I’m low right now, but my well isn’t so massive that I need to reach critical mass to regenerate my magic.
” It’s probably the same size as it was before I was sacrificed.
Larger than most, but not outside the realm of possibility for any normal arcanist. Much like theirs.
“Once I’m recovered, I’ll be able to feed power to the Library without you needing to cast that spell. ”
Thank stars.
“And we’re connected to—”
“Both.” That was the first thing I checked. “You’re keeping me from being absorbed by the pond, but you’re also tethering me to it.”
It’s magnificent work. The kind of magic that would be impossible for any living arcanist to replicate.
“I think…I think this will let me leave.”
Leo sits up straighter. “Leave?”
“Temporarily, with one or more of you,” I amend. “It’s a theory. I don’t want to test it until the Arcanaeum is back, but… I think that’s what it intended with all of this.”
“What about your body?” Eddy asks. “Do you get that back too?”
I…don’t know. Before, I could still feel them, even when I was a ghost. That hasn’t happened yet.
If, by some miracle, my body did manifest, I could drink restorative potions to speed everything up. Unfortunately, they’re less than useless to a ghost.
“It’s been less than an hour,” Dakari intercedes. “Give it time.”
I agree without fuss, because the exhausted building is still purring delightedly in my chest.
“Glad you’re back, dude.” Lambert addresses the sentiment to a lamp on the coffee table. “But next time, give me some warning? Feels like I got smacked by all three magiballs at once.”
The floorboards give an apologetic little creak.
It’s exhausted. We all are.
I’d give anything to be able to drift off, but I settle for floating over to Dakari’s side and arranging myself so I’m hovering horizontally beside him.
I may not be able to sleep, but simply shutting off my mind for a few hours may help.
He shivers a little, then brushes a hand over my arm in a gentle caress.
The Arcanaeum sighs, full of the same contentment that runs through me.
We’re getting there.