Chapter 43
Forty-Three
Kyrith
The first indicator that something is wrong is the brush against the wards.
I’m so caught up in checking my work that I don’t notice. I’ve done it. The victory rings hollow as I sit on the floor of the Astrology Room and recheck the incantation that will set an entire family free. I’ve made a dozen copies, all lined up on my desk and ready to go in the morning.
This is a good thing. A wonderful thing. But I can’t really feel any relief or joy in my accomplishment, because it’s too late. Leo is already at that dinner, already betraying me for no reason. It rankles that I have the solution right here and yet—
The brush happens again, sparking another warning bristle of the Library’s defences. I sit up straighter against the arm of Leo’s chair, the runeforms scattered on the rug around me fluttering in response.
Oh. Someone’s knocking?
“Ad Arcanaeum!” Anthea’s voice echoes through the room. “Sanctuary! Ad Arc—”
It’s a trick. It’s got to be.
The wards are holding. The Library is locked down. There’s no reason for the skitter of worry across my nape.
The books rustle soothingly, and I drop my fingers to the carpet, using the soft pile to ground myself.
Still, I cast my attention through the Arcanaeum, checking for anything amiss.
Lambert is jogging along the upper floors, working out the frustration from being benched from the next magiball games.
North is throwing magic around in the Solarium and calling it practice, and Jasper is reading in the Restoration Tower.
All normal. All fine. Except… “Where’s Eddy?”
She was supposed to be resting after her headache from yesterday turned into a migraine, but now I can’t feel her anywhere.
Cold panic laces up my spine, and I pop into existence right in the middle of her room.
Her bed is neat—no sign that she’s even slept in it recently. The turned-down quilt is a lone bastion of order in her untidy room.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her make the bed.
No one has left the Arcanaeum since Dakari and Pierce went to that dinner. Yet, she’s not here.
That either requires spellwork far beyond her capability, or…
I pop into being beside North, only to duck as a blade of ice cuts through the space between us. He’s been practising hard. The mats on the floor are covered in puddles, but I’m too nervous to appreciate his progress.
North’s golden eyes widen as he takes me in. “What is it?”
I search the Solarium but find nothing. “Have you seen Eddy?”
His face falls. “Eddy? She’s in her room. She texted to say she was sleeping off her migraine.”
“She’s not there. I can’t sense her anywhere in the building.”
“Could she have…left?”
“No I—” I stumble, my knees giving out as a pulse of magic shivers through the fabric of the Arcanaeum. It knocks me out of my ghost form, then back into it.
“Kyrith?” North drops to his haunches, apparently unaffected.
I reach for the building again, but all I get in return is static. The glass around us trembles. The mats on the floor rearrange themselves, spelling a single word.
‘FLEE.’
A burst of clarity hits a second later, only to vanish.
Someone—no, something—is in the vault. The presence is faint, and I’m not sure it’s even human. There’s no heartbeat. No breath. Just…a presence.
No.
Panic cuts into me, then fades. I’m forced between states.
“Something is wrong. The wards—”
I claw my way back to my physical form, but it hurts. Stars, it hurts.
“Where’s my sister?” North demands as I grab his hand and drag him towards the stained-glass door.
He’s vital for the survival of Ackland House.
I turn the handle, knocking on it at the same time. “Fort McKinley!”
The portal opens, and I shove North through without warning, slamming the door in his face.
“Jasper.” I try to merge with the building so I can reappear beside him, but I can’t. Another wave of magic surges through me, forcing me back to my ghost form.
Fine. I can run.
I dash through the garden, raising my hands as I pass back into the Arcanaeum proper.
“Ubscari,” I yell, activating the confusticating spell for the ground floor as I drag myself back to my physical form again.
Normally, magic flows through me like water, but now it might as well be tar.
Someone else is fighting for control of the Arcanaeum.
Cold terror clamps down on my heart. The frantic beat of my shoes on the wooden floor doubles.
“Ubscari.” This time the incantation is a scream aimed at the ceiling above me, as I stumble, falling back into my ghost form with a gasp.
I think it worked on the books on the first floor. I hope it did.
The Library is still silent. Its urgency vibrates in every brick.
What’s happening to us?
“Boss?” Lambert asks, and I fall into his arms, crying out as the contact forces me solid. “What’s going on? The Library said—”
“You need to leave.” I cut him off brutally. “It’s not safe. I need to find Jasper.”
“Leave? No. No way.”
“Lambert, we’re under attack. Something is inside the wards!”
“Then I’m staying to help!”
Despite his hold on me, I lose my physical form for a critical second. I breeze through his body, heading for the foyer. Solid. Ghost. Solid. Ghost. I slip between forms, the pain building each time until I’m clutching at my abdomen as I run.
“Why are you glitching?” Lambert asks, keeping pace easily.
“Someone is trying to control the Arcanaeum’s magical well—”
“Which means they’d control you.”
The Library is fighting. Its determination is a fierce thing in the back of my mind. “Yes. And we need you and Jasper to leave.”
As if in answer to my prayers, the door to the Restoration Tower opens as I reach it, my Scot bursting through, only to freeze as he catches sight of us. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Someone’s attacking the Arcanaeum, and they’re in the Vault, right?” Lambert assumes, running a hand over runeform on his arm that turns his skin to stone. “We got this.”
“No, you don’t!” I protest, but he’s already racing down the Botanical Hall, Jasper hot on his heels. “Please. Go to Kirkwall. North’s already there—”
“You think we’d leave you?” Jasper pants, drawing his grimoire. “We’re not going to run away while you’re in danger.”
“This isn’t the time for heroics!” I object as they reach the Rotunda.
“The two of you can’t go up against a centuries-old lich who has at least partial control of my power!
I need you out of here before I—” My words cut out as I’m forced back to physical form unexpectedly, and then trip.
I sprawl forward onto my hands, narrowly catching myself before my face smacks into the tiled floor.
I grimace as I look back, finding the unconscious, shirtless arcanist I just fell over. He’s on his front; head tilted towards us and lips parted on a grimace.
“Leo,” Lambert snarls, dropping to one knee to help me back up. “Did he do this?”
His granite skin is cold and hard beneath my fingers, but I flicker back to a ghost not a half second later and the sensation is lost. I can’t feel the books anymore. Nor the shelves.
For a heartbeat, I’m completely numb.
When it’s over, all that remains is fear.
“Mathias said he’d break his curse, but he must’ve used him to break through the wards instead.”
“He did this,” Lambert surmises, and the three words drip with contempt.
I can’t focus on him. The trapdoor is open.
The tar in my veins becomes scorching, making me cry out. At the same time, a door flies open to my left. One last chance.
“Go!” I screech, forcing magic to my fingertips.
With a shove of my power, Lambert and Jasper are forced away from me, and through the portal.
“No!”
“Lass! Don’t—”
It slams in their faces, cutting off their protests.
Safe. They’re safe.
Leo lets out a shallow groan. He’s waking up, though the dazed expression on his face says he’s still a little out of it. Pain turns my breath to shallow gasps as I stand there, staring mutely at the man who might have cost us everything.
This is new. I’ve never been able to feel as a ghost, but now…agony is racing from my heart, radiating out to my extremities like fire. I clench my jaw until it passes.
“Kyrie…” His eyes drift shut, delirium slurring his words. “I’m sorry.”
He’s sorry? Now he’s sorry? If not for him, this all might’ve been avoided. He handed the Arcanaeum to Mathias, and now—
Agony wells again, but this time it’s partly my heart being suffocated in my chest that’s to blame.
“I will never forgive you for this,” I utter, catching myself against a reading chair as my body sways. “Now leave. It’s not safe.”
Unfortunately, he’s in no state to go anywhere. Whatever Mathias did to him has left him pale and weak. Maybe it was necessary for whatever spell the lich used, or perhaps Leo had the guts to put up a fight. It doesn’t matter now.
I try to open another door, to banish him like the others, but I can’t reach the Arcanaeum. I can’t feel anything in the building, nor the tiles beneath me.
No. I need to finish protecting the rest of the books. I need to save the Library.
Leo flops onto his back, the red of the runeform on his chest blindingly bright in the darkness. He makes a strangled noise, hands fluttering in the air above it.
Resignation shines in his panicked eyes as the scarlet glow consumes him entirely, then recedes.
His ensorcellment must be hours away from triggering, but there’s nothing I can do.
Even if all of this weren’t happening, I have no grimoire.
The door Jasper and Lambert were forced through opens again, and Leo’s fingers claw at the floor as an unseen hand drags him through.
For a gleaming instant, the building and I are connected again, and I gasp under the strain as the Arcanaeum wastes precious resources to summon a book from the Restoration Tower. It flutters through the air after him, smacking him in the forehead as it chases him through the portal.
I don’t have time to question the Library about it. I’m too busy making use of this surge of magic to snatch the letters from my desk and send them after him as well. They soar through the door like paper aeroplanes.
I may not have the strength to protect the Library, but I may as well protect the heirs. Protect him and the innocent ó Rinns. Even if he doesn’t deserve it.
Now. The books—Wait. Where’s the cat?
“Westley—”
The numbness returns, stealing my magic and all sense of the Arcanaeum from me. Shooting pain ricochets through my head, and something in my gut twists violently and yanks.