29. Tobin
Tobin
“It’s not gone far,” I say, because the residue is still in the air, thin and strange and brushing across my skin in a way ordinary library magic never does. “It jumped.”
Asha looks up. “To where?”
“If I knew that, I’d be insufferable about it already.”
“You’re already insufferable.”
“True.” I look at the empty pedestal. “But not triumphant.”
Hale shifts closer to her, eyes moving over the aisle. “Can you track it?”
“Maybe.” I crouch and press my fingers to the base of the pedestal. Old wood. New magic. The pulse left behind is wrong for SilverGate. Wrong in the exact way I’m starting to find useful. “Give me a second.”
Leith goes still near the end of the aisle, listening. “Make it quick.”
I don’t ask why. The answer comes a moment later. Footsteps on the staircase below.
“Staff,” Hale mutters.
“Or worse,” Asha says.
I let my magic slip from my palm in a narrow silver thread and feed it into the residue clinging to the pedestal. It catches, resists, then opens by a fraction. “Left on the archive side.”
I pull the thread back into my hand before anyone in this library notices I’m using the wrong sort of magic in public.
Asha is already moving. Hale goes with her, close enough to catch her if her body gives out again.
Leith falls into step on my other side, silent and watchful.
It means someone is about to regret existing.
We cut out of the deities section just as two members of staff appear at the top of the main staircase.
We duck behind the stacks out of sight and wait until they pass, moving away from us.
One of them is Professor Straz. The other I’ve never seen before and carries a silver detection rod that pulses every few steps.
Asha watches it with narrowed eyes.
“That thing will find me,” she whispers.
“It’ll find the gate residue on all of us,” I reply.
Hale glances towards the nearest exit. “Then we move.”
The staff members stop.
Straz’s voice carries through the shelves. “The disturbance originated on this floor.”
The witch raises the rod. Silver light travels along its length before bleeding into purple at the tip.
Asha’s hand closes on my sleeve.
The reaction is small. It still hits me harder than it should. She reached for me rather than Hale or Leith.
“They know,” she murmurs.
“They suspect,” I correct. “Knowing requires competence.”
Straz says something too quiet to catch. The rod flares again.
Leith points towards a narrow back staircase that leads to a mezzanine level.
We take it without discussion.
The stairs are steep and barely wide enough for one person. Leith goes first. Asha follows, still gripping my sleeve, and I stay close behind her while Hale brings up the rear.
Leith reaches the mezzanine and turns right into a row of archival stacks. The shelves react to him, sliding apart to grant passage before closing behind us.
“This is new,” I murmur.
“But helpful,” he replies as we make our escape before the professors can find us.
The shelves seal tight enough to shut out the silver light from the detection rod.
For three seconds, we stand in darkness until I finally bring an orb of silver light to my palm. “Dampeners,” I murmur. “Water magic is strong here.”
“Dampeners?” Asha asks. “As in magic dampeners?”
“It would appear so. I haven’t come across this before at SilverGate. It’s unusual.”
“It’s vaguely threatening,” Hale states.
“Lead us out of here,” Asha says. “I do not want to be caught by Straz and that other professor and dragged to Blackridge looking like a wraith tried to gut me.”
“Wise,” I murmur and push to the front, leading the way with the orb flickering wildly.
“So the book vanished, the staff are tracking it, or you, or possibly the gate we discovered, Blackridge is suspiciously nowhere to be found, and we are in the middle of a passageway that dampens magic. I haven’t had this much fun since I arrived here four years ago. ”
“Glad you’re having a party,” Asha says.
I raise the silver orb higher and study the passage ahead. Moisture runs down the black stone, feeding narrow channels carved along the base of each wall. The water carries a suppression spell strong enough to make my current feel sluggish.
Not absent, though.
That matters.
“This was built to stop magic,” I say.
Hale’s expression turns grim. “Why? And how come you can still use it?”
“I’m above shit like this.”
Asha makes a quiet sound of disgust. “Of course you are.”
Leith shoves past me and touches the wall. His eyes lose focus for a moment. “Something died here.”
“Recently?” Hale asks.
“No. Repeatedly.”
That answer settles over us with an unpleasant weight.
I send the orb forward. It drifts several feet, flickers hard, then darts left without instruction.
“Well,” I murmur. “That’s rude.”
The light vanishes around a corner.
We follow and find it hovering over a recess in the wall. A narrow doorway waits there, sealed by rusted silver bands and a lock with no key.
Suddenly, the floor drops out from under us.
I drop hard, stomach pitching as darkness swallows the passage. Asha’s hand tears away from my sleeve. I throw magic out on instinct, but the dampening current crushes it to a weak silver flare that reveals falling bodies, black walls, and Hale twisting through the air towards her.
Then we hit water.
The impact punches every thought out of my head. Cold closes over me, as the current drags me sideways.
I kick upwards and break the surface with a curse.
“Asha!”
“Here,” she chokes out somewhere to my right.
My orb has survived. Barely. It hangs over the water, stuttering weak light across a circular chamber while the current carries us around the edge.
Hale has one arm locked around Asha’s waist, keeping her head above water.
Leith surfaces near the opposite wall, dark hair plastered to his forehead and murder in his eyes.
“This place is starting to piss me off,” Hale growls.
“Starting?” Asha snaps, coughing.
I swim towards them, fighting the pull beneath the surface. “Get to the wall.”
“There’s no ledge,” Hale says.
“Dammit!” The chamber walls rise straight from the water, black stone threaded with silver channels. Every channel feeds the suppression spell. The current strengthens, dragging us in a slow circle towards the centre.
Leith reaches the wall first and plants his palm against it. Cold black magic flickers under his hand, then dies.
Or rather, he snuffs it out.
“What?” I ask, but I’m not sure I want to know the answer.
“Death. Everywhere,” he says in a voice so low I barely hear him over the rushing water.
“Ah!”
Asha’s cry is choked off as she is dragged under the surface.
“Death,” Leith says again and dives.
Hale dives after them.
I drag in a breath and follow.
The current catches me at once, wrenching me down into black water threaded with dead silver light. My magic presses uselessly against my skin. I force my eyes open and find Asha below us, blonde hair streaming above her while pale hands grip her ankles.
Dozens of the dead cover the bottom of the chamber. Their bodies have fused into the stone beneath the water, arms reaching upwards, empty eyes lit by the suppression current. More hands claw at Hale as he fights towards Asha. They catch his clothes, his legs, his wrists.
He burns under the water.
Hellfire flashes across his skin and dies instantly, leaving him with nothing but strength and rage.
Leith reaches her first.
His hand closes around her wrist. The dead release her immediately.
The bodies below recoil from him, arms snapping back against the stone. The current changes direction with enough force to throw me into Hale. His elbow catches my ribs. I grab his shirt before we get dragged apart and point upwards.
We kick for the surface.
Leith pulls Asha with him, but her body hangs slack in his grip. We break the surface together.
Leith drags Asha up against his chest, but her head drops back, and she doesn’t breathe.
“No.” Hale surges towards them, fighting the current.
Leith ignores him and hooks an arm under Asha’s shoulders, keeping her face clear of the water. His other hand presses against her chest. Black power flickers through his fingers and vanishes into the suppression spell.
“She drowned,” he says, far too calmly.
“Then fix it,” Hale roars.
“I can’t while the water is feeding on my current.”
I reach them and put two fingers against Asha’s throat. Nothing. Panic hits me, violent enough to obliterate thought for one dangerous second.
I shove it down.
This is a mechanism. Mechanisms have weaknesses.
The silver channels run from the walls into the water. The dead are part of the system. Leith made them recoil, which means the suppression spell recognises his current and reacts to it. The current changed direction when they released Asha.
It took her.
“It wants her at the bottom,” I say.
Hale’s eyes burn. “I don’t give a fuck what it wants.”
“Neither do I. Stop shouting and keep her above water.”
The current pulls harder towards the centre. Hale takes Asha from Leith, braces her against his chest, then tips her face upwards. He forces air into her lungs.
Nothing happens.
Leith reaches for her, but the moment his hand touches her shoulder, the water around us goes unnaturally still.
Every silver channel in the chamber flares.
The dead rise.
Hundreds of pale impressions push free of the stone below, bodies uncoiling from the floor in silence. Empty eyes ignite silver. Their hands reach for Leith.
He understands before I do. His expression turns viciously calm as the water drags the dead towards him.
“They’re bound to death-current,” he says.
“And you’ve just rung the dinner bell,” Hale growls before forcing another breath into Asha.
Her body remains limp.
My panic tries to come back. I crush it again and scan the chamber. The silver channels burn brighter with every dead body that rises. The suppression spell isn’t powered by the water. The water distributes it. The dead power it.
“Leith, command them.”
His eyes cut to me. “They’re not mine.”