33. Midnight
Midnight
T he Celestial Library is so bright inside it feels like a spring morning. Bastien, Lucy and I reluctantly leave Lex to rest with Mortem keeping an eye on her and using his odd ghost spittle to lessen the bleeding. We spread out, searching down aisles and racks of parchment and scrolls.
It smells a little musty and a layer of dust covers everything.
Such a waste. There’s so much knowledge in here, I can’t bear the thought of it going unused, unexplored, unknown.
My fingers trail the spines of several texts.
They burn with the need to steal, to pilfer the knowledge buried within the pages and words trapped in this shining vault.
I have spent my life believing that fate is predetermined, that no matter what I do, I fucked up when I signed a contract.
But walking these aisles, the number of Architect moths still fluttering inside here, despite four decades of entrapment, gives me hope.
Hope that maybe there is a way out. If this library holds a way out of the prison Lucy’s father created for her, maybe there’s a way out of the one I created for myself.
Gods.
Hope is such an insidious emotion. I want to quash it. To shove it somewhere where it can’t threaten me. But this library is filled with possibility. What if a method for breaking my contract lies in here?
I lose Bastien and Lucy for a while, only to stumble upon them back in the central aisle.
“Any luck?” I ask.
They both shake their heads.
“This place is enormous,” I say. “We need to be more strategic before Lex bleeds out.”
Bastien touches Lucy’s arm. “Would your runes help…?”
I frown at him. “You can’t be serious?” I bury my head in my hands, heat rising up my neck.
“What can’t he be serious about?” Lucy says.
He shrugs. “This place is massive, and we’re running out of time. I’d put money on your runes calling to their source, or maybe helping like a map. I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot if it saves Lex…”
“In here? It’s the Celestial Library…” Lucy dances from foot to foot, but I’m out of ideas too, and Bastien has a point.
“Do you have a better idea?” he asks.
Neither of us come up with anything.
He smirks and flicks his tongue like a snake. “Be quick. No pressure, Midnight, but now would be a good time to work your magic. I’ll check on Lex.”
He vanishes and the pair of us face each other awkwardly.
“Listen. We don’t—” Lucy starts, but I place my finger over her lips, shutting her up.
“You need to stop.”
“Buthhh,” she mumbles against my finger and then sags when she realises she won’t be able to get her words out.
I brush a lock of hair behind her ear. “When are you going to realise that I love every moment of being with you?”
I stiffen, realising I shouldn’t have used the L word, not in any context.
“What I meant to say?—”
This time, she cuts me off, pulling my hand away from her mouth.
She holds my gaze, our eyes lingering on each other, hungry, exchanging so many unspoken words. Things that our bodies have come to accept but our minds cannot. Things that we wish we could whisper but admitting them would mean… I can’t even think about what it would mean.
How is it we’ve ended up here? How is it that our promise to make it all about the contracts has become a lie to protect our hearts? To protect her power.
I can’t have her. There are too many obstacles in our path.
I’m meant to reap her. She is forbidden from loving a mortal. I am mortal and she isn’t. I’ll die, she won’t. Her father hates me and loves her. We were never meant to be.
But that doesn’t stop me sliding my hand behind her head and pulling her mouth to mine. When I kiss her, it’s not with the urgency I should feel. It’s not with the cocky lust I felt in the graveyard.
And it’s not with the heavy weight of knowledge that one day soon, this will end.
My lips move as if nothing else exists.
As if the angels have stopped time just for us, and I can finally believe we control our own fates.
As if this single kiss will save us both.
She tastes like heaven. Like a thousand different caresses under a thousand different skies. Like dreams and hopes and all the wishes I’ve ever had. But what terrifies me most is that she tastes like every forever I’ve ever ached for.
She must feel it too because she steps us back, down an aisle, our hands ravishing each other. This isn’t fucking anymore. This isn’t a quickie. It’s not sex for the sake of contracts and runes.
This is something else, something more.
We practically trip and fall out the other side of an aisle into an open space.
We break apart long enough to find a fountain at its centre, dark and glistening like a waterfall of stars.
Architect moths flutter in and out of the flowing liquid, their wings making new sprays and flows as they drift around the fountain.
In a corner is what I assume to be a reading area, filled with pillows, blankets and seating. I tug Lucy towards it, and we collapse on top of them. A puff of dust billows up and makes both of us laugh and cough.
She slides her hand into mine. “What happens when this is all over?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Every answer to that question has a consequence, Lucy. How can I tell you the truth when I don’t even know if I’ll be here after?”
She brings her thumb to my lower lip, pulling it down. “Then lie to me with your body, your mouth, your tongue. Lie well enough I believe we’ll be okay.”
So that’s what I do.
I slide down her inch by inch, adorning her exposed skin with kisses and pecks and nibbles. My teeth graze her, inciting a mesmerising display of goosebumps. She arches her back as I tug her trousers down, exposing her neat pussy to the air.
I part her legs, gazing upon her glistening flesh. My chest aches at the sight of her, my mouth watering at what I know will be an exquisite feast.
I lower my mouth to her clit and suck it fully into my mouth. She is divine tonight, a little sweet with an edge of something deeper. I lick and slide my tongue over her clit. Each flick a prayer and a plea to the angels still listening.
Let me have a little longer with her.
Please?
I lap at her pussy, drawing my tongue up and down in long lavish strokes, trying and failing to memorise the taste of her, the feeling of her hard little bud against my tongue, the shape of her folds and the heat in her core.
I never want to forget. No matter whether I save my soul or end up in the underworld, she is the memory I want to take with me.
I place a finger at her entrance and slowly tease my way in. Her back lifts off the pillows. She’s soaking in a way she’s never been before, hungrily accepting me inside.
“Two fingers,” she pleads.
I oblige, adding a second and curling them into the shape I know drives her wild. I drag my hand in and out, drawing every ounce of pleasure I can from her.
She pants and moans and begs me for more.
I lap at her clit. The more sounds she makes, the more wetness clings to my boxers.
She does this to me.
My clit pulses between my legs in time with her panting, and I swear that I could come from the sound of her melting under my touch.
I glance up at her neck and see her runes are already visible. They glow so bright I almost stop fucking her. I gasp against her clit; my fingers bear down, and she cries out.
“Midnight,” she cries out as her pussy clenches around my fingers and her body falls over the edge.
But I’m left staring at her throat, wondering why the runes appeared before she came.
“I felt them,” she whispers.
I help her pull on her trousers.
“They appeared early, didn’t they?” she says.
I nod. “Probably just because we’re in here, right? The whole celestial meets celestial thing.”
“Yeah, potentially,” she says but neither of us are looking at each other.
And I’d bet good money on the fact she doesn’t believe that any more than I do. Something has changed. Shifted between us in a way that can’t be taken back.
We always thought the runes appeared because I was making her come. But what if it was never that? What if it was always because of how I made her feel?
That is not something either of us can address.
She clutches her chest.
“What’s wrong?” I ask as she stumbles her way through the library. She moves with purpose as if she’s leading me now.
“Yeah. No. I… my heart… it’s. Doesn’t matter.” She takes a deep breath, her shoulders tilt away from me, her back rigid, distant. She charges forward and doesn’t wait for me.
Something is wrong.
We pass through three aisles before she slows her pace. And then she halts suddenly, rifling through a rack of parchment.
Her fingers still.
“It’s here.”
She brushes the contract. There’s an almighty crack.
The ground shudders.
“A Veil tear? Shit. I thought we’d be okay in here. We need to get out. Now,” I scream.
Lucy grabs the contract, and we run back to Bastien and Lex.
“You’re going to have to make the cuts by yourself, Midnight,” Bastien says.
Lex glances up at me from the ground, but she’s barely conscious and Bastien is covered in her blood where he’s applying pressure to her wound. He’s right. If he releases the pressure on her, she’ll bleed out.
“I’m sorry,” Lex mumbles, her eyes rolling open and closed.
“You stay with us, Lex, or I swear to the archdemon… Mortem?” I say.
He materialises, chewing on a translucent tail. I scrunch my face up as the ground judders again, the violent shaking making Bastien slip and have to readjust his position on Lex.
“Is that a— You know what, never mind, I need you to get the door open for us,” I say.
He does that thing with his mouth that looks like pouting.
“Or would you like to die in here,” I growl.
“Already dead,” he purrs.
“And yet you could still be fed to a wraith,” Bastien jabs at him.
He sighs. “Fine.”
It’s ugly. The fizzing in my chest doesn’t help my focus, nor the fact that we’re celestial-side, so calling the campus’s magic in a realm I’ve not worked in is significantly harder.
I manage to call one ribbon of magic from the walls, but I need two—I can’t do this at half tilt. A headache sears through my temples as I refocus, concentrate on the campus, and coax more from the walls.
The ground trembles harder.
“Come on, Midnight, faster,” Lucy breathes.
She and Bastien have Lex standing and secured under her arms. I draw my fingers in slicing motions so familiar muscle memory moves them now.
But it’s messy, and the Veil parts more than I intended.
The scent of stale coffee and boiled flesh envelopes me.
“Wraith!” Bastien screams as a skeletal arm punches through the gap I’ve made in the Veil.
I throw my fist up, scythe in hand, and sever the limb. The wraith screeches so shrill and piercing I slam my hands over my ears.
“Hurry,” Lucy says, pulling my hands back down.
I refocus and reach out to draw as much magic as I can from the building, sucking in every ounce. It swells and builds inside me until I feel like I’m going to burst or throw up or maybe a bit of both.
Dizzy, I make the second cut, but it too is haphazard and I don’t quite manage to sever all the threads, so I have to cut again.
It’s too much.
My nose bursts, a searing stab cuts through my mind. The kind of pounding headache that makes my vision cloud red. Not good.
I can barely see through one eye as I grab Bastien’s arm and help shove the three of them through.
Mortem materialises in the room as I reverse the magic and seal us back on campus.
But it’s not clean, the fabric is frayed and the stitching uneven, which, given I only have one working eye, was the best I could do.
And the wraith must sense the weakness. The air around the piss-poor stitching bulges in rhythmic thumps as the wraith attempts to shove his way through.
My vision smatters with grey dots, but I manage to stay conscious.
Lex, however, does not.
“Move,” Bastien says, and the three of us lift her and run all the way to the medical wing.