Arcanist (The Arcanaeum #2)

Chapter 1

One

Kyrith

“LEO!” Lambert’s voice is muffled. “DAKARI! What the fuck? Stop gawking and help me get her out!”

I strain to hear him. Am I underwater? No. I’m trapped in glass.

The burning, constricting pressure across my chest stole my ability to scream after the first time. Now my breath is forced to come in shallow gasping pants, each one ricocheting off the crystal and coating my face with humid, stuffy air. I can’t move. There’s agony between my ribs and—

Smash!

Tiny ice-cold splinters rain down on my face. The stuffiness eases, and I gasp like a fish out of water. The pain in my chest blooms bright again, and I whimper.

“We’ve got you, boss. We’re here. Don’t move,” Lambert reassures me over and over, louder now there’s nothing between us. “JASPER! Get your ass down here! She’s hurt!”

His fingers—magic, they’re so warm—caress my face, brushing back the crystal pinning me to the altar with frantic sweeps until his hands are slick with blood and the scent of iron overwhelms me.

Wait…

Warm? Iron? Humidity?

“Move!” Dakari’s voice is deep and urgent, richer than it was before. It vibrates right down to my bones.

“Dosongreti!”

It’s a manipulation spell, but somehow it frees me. My chest expands painfully with my next breath. Hands touch my waist, burning me through the fabric of my kirtle. I flinch, and agony flares again.

“Keep your eyes shut,” Lambert coaches. “That’s it, boss. You’re being so brave.”

To any other woman, perhaps that would be reassuring, but being coached like a child rankles. Also… My eyes are closed? Everything is so heavy.

“Help me get these shackles off her!” Galileo orders. “Jasper, stop staring at the knife, and do something about it!”

The familiar rustle of paper beside my ear is deafening.

Jasper’s panicked reply is close. “It’s been a long while since I healed a stab wound, okay!”

Stab wound?

I fight to open my eyes, but someone jostles me from behind. There’s a grunt, and then my head is lifted away from the cold hard surface and cradled in a warm, muscled lap.

My neck aches from the change in position, or perhaps it’s simply protesting the indignity of it. Either way, the sensation distracts me, making it even harder to arrange my thoughts into a coherent stream.

My head is in someone’s lap, and I can feel again.

What happened? Why am I here? I wrestle with my eyelids, but only succeed in freeing a humiliating groan that rattles through my bones.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” Lambert strokes hair out of my face. “Jasper will have you fixed up in no time.”

“Fixed up?” Is that my voice? So reedy and thin?

“You might not have noticed”—Wait, North is here too?—“but there’s a massive fucking knife pinning you to this ugly-ass altar.”

Of course there is. There has been for half a millennium.

Oh, no. I’m in the vault, which means they’re in the vault.

My eyes fly open, every part of me ready to berate them or kick them back upstairs.

I’m stopped dead by the sheer amount of colour everywhere.

“Hey, your eyes are brown,” Lambert notes weakly, his warm fingers stroking over my cheekbones. “You’re so pretty, boss.”

Involuntarily, I suck in another agonising breath and freeze as I get a lungful of his Christmas scent.

Sugar and nutmeg, like the pastries he sneaks into the Arcanaeum whenever he thinks I’m not looking.

His golden hair whispers around our faces as he leans over me, the strands still wild from his magiball game.

Somewhere to my left, Jasper says, “On three, pull it out. Quick and clean.”

“Got it.” North’s grunt precedes a harrowing jostle of the metal stuck inside my ribcage.

Instinctively, I flinch away, but that only makes it worse.

“One…two…”

It’s too much. All of this. Everything is devastatingly loud and colourful and overwhelming. When I open my mouth to complain, North adjusts his grip on the black and gold banded handle sticking out of my chest—which I can see all-too clearly with my head at this angle—and tugs.

The flood of warmth over my torso is immediate and pulsing. Blood spurts everywhere, and Jasper thrusts his hand over the bleeding wound. The pressure he’s exerting is somehow worse than impalement was, like he’s trying to crush my ribcage.

His chanting is frantic, the lengthy incantations mumbled hastily, his words tripping over one another. I can’t even check if he’s doing it right. It’s too difficult to make out his words over the reassurance Lambert is spewing and the frantic drumming of my heartbeat in my ears.

North chucks the dagger away, and the clatter of metal on stone echoes through the vault, followed by the squeal of protesting iron as the shackles on my wrists are forced open.

The moment I’m free, Lambert drags my arms down from above my head, and I groan again as pins and needles rush to stab at my fingertips.

“Too much,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “Why can I…? I’m supposed to be…”

Dead.

I remember it all. The game. Forgetting to keep an eye on the time. Lambert’s victory…kissing him.

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Dakari growls, tackling the shackle at my right ankle next. “I swear to God—”

“Don’t threaten her.” Leo is right there, freeing my left foot. His fingers are swift and sure as he unbolts the metal and wrenches it free.

This can’t be real. It’s got to be some kind of hallucination, or worse, just my imagination. I can’t be alive. I can still feel the dust gathering on the shelves above me and the slow creaking of a spine in need of repair two aisles away.

Those are the Arcanaeum’s feelings.

I’m dizzy, but it’s been so long since I last experienced any sort of disorientation that it takes me another minute to name it as such.

“Guys, this place is creepy.” Eddy’s voice echoes around the chamber. “Did you find Kyrith? Is she okay? Fuck. Why are there so many stairs?”

“We’ve got her,” North replies.

Jasper finally removes his hand from over my chest and slumps backward.

For the first time in forever, my ribs expand with a full, gasping breath.

“Jasper.” Dakari catches the other arcanist, but the Scot shoves back to his feet, snapping his grimoire shut.

“Don’t fret over me. Someone check I fixed her properly. I’ve not done something that big in ages.”

“Riviel treame,” Leo mutters.

They all slump slightly as my whole body glows softly for a second before the magic dissipates. “Aye. She’s just knackered.”

I want to protest that I’m fine, but the edges of my vision are blurring, and my mouth isn’t working like it should.

“Pass her to me,” Dakari orders. “I can’t believe…”

I don’t catch the end of his sentence. My adrenaline, or whatever was sustaining me, crashes. My head lolls back against Lambert’s warmth, and my vision goes dark.