Prologue

Kyrith - 1507

M agister Ackland strides through the gates of the university, leaving me to stumble along in his wake. His deep purple damask robes billow around his ankles, making him appear to be an apparition drawn forth from the shadows themselves.

“Keep up,” he tuts, ignoring the beauty of the stars and full moon above us as he crosses the cobbled quadrangle, then takes an abrupt left turn.

“Sorry, Magister,” I stammer, hiking my skirts higher and doubling my pace.

The cosy glow of magical lamps illuminates our way as we near our destination. He’s walking so fast I can barely keep up, let alone catch my breath and ask what we’re doing. How can a man his age move so quickly while carrying his enormous grimoire? He makes it look easy.

He turned up to the start of term ball and dragged me away without warning. Even from this distance, I can still hear the music pouring out of the banquet hall, reminding me of what I’m missing out on. I was really hoping to make friends with someone my own age to soothe my nerves about walking into class tomorrow, but I barely managed to introduce myself before he arrived.

Then again, I’ve been assisting him with his research in the Arcanaeum for a few months now, and this is hardly the strangest thing he’s done.

I can’t complain. No one expected him to take someone like me—a liminal with no esteemed magical heritage—under his wing. If he wants to summon me in the late hours of the night, that’s a small price to pay for his sponsorship.

Rector Carlton is waiting for us outside his cottage—if the imposing sandstone manor adjoining the college can really be called such. Like Magister Ackland, he’s dressed in dark, flowing robes, and his silver beard has been neatly trimmed into a pointed goatee that makes him look older than his fifty-eight years.

Unlike the magister, who prefers to carry his grimoire in his arms, the rector’s tome is hung from his belt in a well-worn leather holster. It thumps against his thigh as he strides towards us.

Should I have brought mine? I didn’t think I’d need it for the party, and besides, I’ve barely had a chance to do more to it than inscribe my name.

“Mathias,” the rector greets him warmly, jolting me from my fretting. “And you brought the liminal, excellent.”

I bob a curtsy, hardly daring to look up.

The two men are both patriarchs of their respective families. There are only four other people in the world who can make such a claim.

“You’re quite sure Edmund chose correctly?” the rector asks, ignoring me as he sweeps the magister on with a wave of his arm, falling into step beside him.

The magister pops out his chest like a peacock. “Kyrith has the greatest magical potential I’ve ever seen. Her abilities, once trained, could be stronger than our own.”

I glow under his praise, cheeks heating even though they’re not addressing me directly.

Since I arrived, Magister Ackland has been so complimentary of my strength. I may not have been born to a magical family, like most arcanists, but with his tutelage and the Arcanaeum at my disposal, I intend to catch up with the rest of the students at the university quickly. The academic term starts tomorrow, and I’ve already carefully plotted my routes to my first classes.

“And Edmund has the rest of what we need?” The rector sounds almost nervous. No. Impatient? It’s hard to tell when they’re both walking so quickly.

“He’s waiting in the Arcanaeum, with the other parriarchs.”

Dear God, Edmund is here ? I smooth my hands down my dress, checking surreptitiously for crumbs. The blue velvet ensemble is on loan from Mistress Ruby, the housekeeper who looks after my new lodgings. She inherited it from her sister, who in turn was gifted it by the lady of the estate where she works as a maid. Given its age, it's a little out of fashion, but still grander than anything I’ve ever owned before. Will he like it?

I shouldn’t care so much, but this is Edmund. A few months ago, I was just another maid, working in a household in London. If he hadn’t crashed into me at the market, it’s unlikely I would ever have known about this world.

Fortunately, Edmund’s job is to go out among the inepts and search for people like me. The moment he saw me, he knew that I was a liminal—an arcanist bastard born to a non-magical family.

Of course, I now know his flirting was just an excuse to get me alone and explain. That doesn’t stop butterflies erupting in my stomach at the thought of seeing him again. He’s an Ackland, too, which is how I met the magister—his grandfather—on my very first day.

The Arcanaeum looms over us, a beautiful Gothic cathedral built to worship knowledge. My eyes drift up to the impressive slate-covered dome, flanked on both sides by two octagonal towers. It may as well be a castle, a fortress of books. The sheer enormity of it is matched only by the skill that went into crafting it.

The red sandstone has been carved liberally with grotesques, and they scream down at us as we pass through the unlocked doors and into the foyer.

As has become my habit, I draw in a deep breath as I cross the threshold. I’m not sure what it is about the Arcanaeum that smells so good, but I love it. When I first entered, I expected the place to be dusty and the air stale. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Arcanaeum smells of fresh, crisp paper. Like someone bottled bibliosmia and unleashed it within the walls.

Across the floor, the building’s motto gleams in gilt silver script.

Veritas Absoluta Periculosior Est Quam Potestas Absoluta

I don’t yet know what it means, but I’m committed to finding out.

“Keep up, Kyrith,” Magister Ackland scolds. “We shan’t be late on account of you.”

As if to punctuate his words, the clock tower above begins to chime. Midnight. I shudder and double my pace, rushing to follow them across the mosaic-laid floors as they hasten down the southern hall, ignoring the hundreds of shelves and the gallery above in favour of taking a direct path to the Rotunda.

The library’s heart.

I’ve never been here after hours before. The darkness adds a hushed layer of reverence to the atmosphere, making it at once both eerie and peaceful.

“Ah, they’re already here,” the rector announces upon reaching the circular hall.

I wonder how he can tell, but then I realise the rug which usually covers the entrance to the Vault has been drawn back, and the brass grate below unlocked and left open.

The magister and the rector don’t hesitate, but I do. Beneath the Arcanaeum is a centuries-old crypt, supposedly full to the brim with forbidden and restricted texts. Only magisters are permitted down there. Rumours say the library summons arcanist grimoires to the Vault after their owners die, preventing them from falling into inept hands.

But rumours also say that liminals are halfwits, barely better at magic than their inept parent. Still, a sliver of dread worms through my gut as I peer down into the darkness below.

“Kyrith!” Magister Ackland calls, and I jerk as I realise I’ve stopped with my foot on the top step of the narrow stairs.

Taking a deep breath, I shrug off my misgivings and begin my descent. It doesn’t take long for me to catch up to the parriarchs, who are now illuminated by several conjured wisplights, which twirl around their raised hands.

Scurrying after them, I pull a scrap—a single-use spell written on a small piece of paper—from my pocket, then draw power down from the well in my chest and through my fingers into it, like Magister Ackland taught me. The paper dissolves away, and my own wisplight flares to life in my palm, making me smile at the comforting glow.

Instead of looking proud, the magister frowns.

“No need to waste your magic,” he says, continuing down the stairs. “You’ll need it soon enough.”

Frowning, I release the spell and hasten after him.

“If I may, magister,” I begin. “Why are we here? It’s so late, and the banquet is still…”

He stiffens, embarrassed, glances at the rector, and then hisses, “Not now , Kyrith.”

Oh , I duck my head in silent apology.

I never meant to speak out of turn. Normally, he’s quite happy to answer my questions, but I suppose the rector’s presence changes things.

“It’s quite all right,” Rector Carlton assures him. “We’ve a way to go yet, and the girl may as well learn something.” He pauses, regarding me fully for the first time. “Tell me, what has Mathias taught you about the Arcanaeum?”

I fidget under his attention, fussing with my skirts. Do I look as nervous as I feel? Probably. I force my hands to stop fidgeting with the material and brush a stray strand of hair out of my face. Mistress Ruby was very thorough when she pinned my braid into a neat bun at my nape, but some of the shorter wisps just won’t stay put.

“It was built after the purges,” I answer, looking at Magister Ackland for confirmation, but he’s resumed walking and is paying no attention to me. “As a safeguard for our knowledge.”

Only six families survived the purges. They did it by splitting up and hiding until the worst had passed and the inepts had begun to doubt magic even existed.

“The idea was that, should history repeat itself, the Arcanaeum would be a self-sustaining fortress, in which their heirs would be protected, with the combined knowledge of all their forebears at their disposal.”

And knowledge is power. Especially when the arcanists’ spells rely on the funnelling of magic through complicated runic diagrams using incantations. The more difficult the spell, the more intricate the runeform.

“Correct,” the rector announces. “Mathias taught you well. The university was a natural development, a place of learning attached to the repository of knowledge.”

It’s odd to hear someone use the magister’s given name. I don’t think I even knew it until this evening, but I forget all about it as the stairwell finally opens out, revealing a vast dark atrium encircled by over a dozen floors, each crammed with shelves of books.

The stairs follow the curve of the Rotunda above in a spiral that descends around the edge of the atrium, pausing on every level. The low, thin decorative metal railing between me and the drop, combined with the narrowness of the steps, make my stomach flutter nervously.

Every inch of this grand vault is crammed with books and scrolls which haven’t seen daylight for a thousand years. The place is lit by purple flames which crackle coldly in stone braziers, and the shadows they cast seem to dance across the shelves.

Creepy. My earlier scepticism evaporates. Now that I’m here, I can easily believe that this is a grimoire repository. Just the thought of how much magical knowledge is down here makes me shiver, or perhaps that’s just the chill permeating the place.

In the centre of the atrium, a gleaming inverted spire stretches down into darkness. It’s thin—impossibly so—like a twisted blade of black granite and pure gold.

“ Our ancestors.” There’s no missing the haughty emphasis the rector places on the first word. “Infused the building with so much magic that many arcanists have remarked that it sometimes appears sentient. Generations of adepts have devoted time and magic to its upkeep, and now we, as caretakers of this”—he gestures around him—“must do the same.”

So we’re here to perform some kind of care-taking duty? My eyes go wide as I consider the implications.

Am I about to witness some kind of rare, powerful magic? Is this Magister Ackland’s way of thanking me for my help over the summer?

We descend for several minutes more in silence. I don’t dare voice any more questions, for fear of further embarrassing my sponsor. Instead, I marvel at the scope of the Vault, ignoring the growing burning in my calves in favour of gaping in open-mouthed wonder at every inch of this place. We descend past at least ten floors, though I may have miscounted, and I have a nagging suspicion each level may be just as vast as the ones above ground, if not more so.

The circular space at the bottom mirrors the Rotunda above, except where the public area of the Arcanaeum is light, airy, and filled with reading desks; this seems cold, dark, and oppressive. There are no rugs or intricate mosaics, just polished grey flagstones that gleam with reflected purple flames.

And shadows, cast by the immense bookcases that seem to go on infinitely in every direction.

“Ah, Rector Carlton, Magister Ackland. We were beginning to worry you’d lost your way,” a woman with a high-pitched voice says, drawing my attention away from the shelves and across the room.

Magister Winthrop is a renowned master of the school of transmutation. Her skin is covered in the runeforms that allow her to change her shape and appearance at will, and I stare open-mouthed at the evidence of her power.

She must be one of the strongest arcanists alive if she can really use so many complex spells…

Four other people are gathered on the edge of the room, though she stands deliberately apart from them, leaning against the shelves as they mutter quietly amongst themselves. One I recognise as Edmund, and he moves closer to me with a wink as soon as he catches sight of us. The rest must be the other parriarchs, given their expensive robes and enormous grimoires.

“Never fear, Magister Winthrop,” the rector replies. “We’re right on time. Is everything ready?”

“Everything except the offering,” she says curtly, ignoring my curtsy.

Winthrop is a large family now, and their parriarch is rumoured to have a notoriously short temper. Beside her must be the magisters McKinley, ó Rinn, and Talcott. Their portraits hang in the university’s main hall, but I’ve never met them in person before. All of them are old, but ó Rinn is ridiculously so. His papery white skin is so frail that even from here I can pick out the veins spidering beneath it. A stiff breeze would blow him over, and I find myself surreptitiously searching for a chair to offer him.

That’s how my eyes come to rest on the strange monument in the centre of the room. It’s hewn of black and gold granite and carved with runic scrollwork that’s too complex for me to even begin to decipher. The inverted spire I noted earlier reaches all the way down to stop barely three feet above the centre of the monument, which is flat, almost like…an altar?

“Edmund.” Magister Ackland clicks his fingers impatiently. “On with it.”

Before I can turn to find where Edmund has gone, my arms are wrestled behind me. My mouth falls open, words of confused protest ready on the tip of my tongue. But it’s as if someone has stolen my voice.

That quickly, I realise someone has .

While I was distractedly gawping at everything, the rector snapped open his grimoire and laid his hand flat on one of the pages, lips moving almost soundlessly.

I can’t speak, and I’m not advanced enough to cast a counter-spell. Even if I could, I have no grimoire. I’ve only been learning magic for a few months. What could I possibly do against arcanists who’ve been practising since they were infants?

I search for Magister Ackland’s kind eyes, only to flinch as I find them narrowed in contempt.

Fear, the likes of which I’ve rarely felt before, trickles down my spine. Every hair on my body rises with the urge to flee.

But there’s no escape.

“Please,” I mouth. “What’s going on? Magister!”

It is an altar, I realise, nausea burning in my gut. An altar made for an offering.

I just stupidly failed to realise until now that their offering is me.

Wordless I may be, but I still struggle as Edmund wrestles me forward. I thrash so hard that my braid falls free of the pins, sending them skittering across the floor.

It makes no difference.

Driving the heel of my boot down, I try my hardest to stomp on his toes. I pour every ounce of my strength into the strike, but my foot slides against the smooth floor. I missed completely.

Edmund’s grip may as well be iron as he forces me over the altar, barely avoiding spearing me with the wickedly sharp tip of the spire above as he hefts me onto the stone surface.

More hands grab my ankles. Ignoring my kicking, they force my shoes off and press my heels into grooves.

I didn’t see the shackles before, but I feel them now, solid and cold through my stockings. Worse still, Magister Ackland flicks back his robes and draws a golden dagger from an inner pocket, laying it on the stone beside me.

No. No. No, no, no, no. It can’t end like this.

Please, God, don’t let it end like this.

“Edmund!” I scream—barely realising that the silencing spell has been abandoned in favour of chaining me. “Edmund, please! You promised this would be my new start! My chance to finally do something with my life!”

But he steps back, his part done. Damn him. He looks bored .

They cuff my wrists above my head next. Tight, unfeeling metal cuts into my limbs, almost as icy as the look in their eyes.

Somewhere in the back of my frozen mind, I realise that this is necromancy, the eleventh and most forbidden school of magic. The terror pulsing in my veins ratchets up. My heart is racing like a wild thing, and my blood hammers in my ears.

The six parriarchs crowd me, carefully pressing their grimoires into rests carved into the stone. The tomes fly open, landing on six identical pages, each displaying the most complex runeform I’ve ever seen. It’s quickly obscured as they cover it with one hand and grab whichever part of me they can reach with the other.

Their hands are nauseatingly warm, and I flinch at the contrast.

“Don’t touch me! Please. Don’t do this. Magister? Magister, please!”

“Does everyone remember the incantation?” Magister Talcott asks, purple shadows flickering demonically over her face.

“We’re not students,” Ackland chides, ignoring my begging. “I’ve been practising this school of magic since before you wrote your first thesis, Cynthia.”

The rector dismisses their byplay. “Quickly now. Once we’re done here, we can retire to my parlour. I had my butler bring up a bottle of Commandaria from the cellar. We can enjoy a glass before you all return home.”

My body freezes as they begin to chant, and not just because of fear.

My panicked breaths mist in the air above me as the temperature plummets further. I’m shivering so hard that my teeth are starting to chatter.

They’re doing this.

They’re sacrificing me to the Arcanaeum. Using a liminal, so they don’t waste any of their precious adept family bloodlines.

I was always meant for this.

I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.

They searched me out, fed me, housed me, and now they’re slaughtering me like a pig for market before they go home and drink wine.

A scream, born of pure, unadulterated fury, finally breaks free of my throat. The animal noise pierces through their chant, echoing around us as the Vault’s acoustics magnify the sound tenfold.

My head bashes against the stone, forced back by one of them as they continue their icy magic. Above me, the gold spire gleams and pulses wickedly with bright white light. Hypnotic.

My eyes slide closed, and I cling desperately to that pool of warmth in the centre of my chest where my magic spikes fiercely, desperate to protect me.

But without a grimoire—without training—what can I do?

A searing punch of pain between my breasts hits as the chant reaches a crescendo. I try to scream again, but my indrawn breath sends fire streaking through my ribcage, cutting off the sound before I can make it. The cold is fading, replaced by the sensation of being pulled taut until…

Snap .

One second, I’m heavy. The next… I’m not.

Everything has stopped. The frantic rush of breath in and out of my lungs, the boom-boom-boom of my heartbeat in my ears. All of it is just…gone.

Even the chanting cuts off, although the echo of their voices lingers in the air.

“Done.” Ackland sighs, snapping his grimoire shut. “ Ritarn Humi .”

The two-word incantation is all he needs to send the book right back to his study. It’s a trick I’ve seen him do a hundred times before, and he sounds just as unaffected now as he did on all those other occasions.

“She put up a fight,” the rector comments, amused. “You sure can pick them, old friend.”

My one-time mentor groans. “She was just a means to an end. Now, about that wine.”

I’m not dead. Or am I? I have no idea what I am, but their words make me bristle.

“Next time, pick someone a little less wriggly,” Talcott jokes. “She almost kicked me in the nose. And poor Edmund will have a black eye in the morning.”

My senses feel like they’re expanding. Blending. I’m aware of so much more than just myself. I perceive a whisper of a draught three floors above me, and the groan of a shelf under too much weight by the door. I can tell that one of the shutters on the cupola is damaged, but…

I can’t feel my own toes. Nor the brush of my hair against my nape, nor the weight of my eyelids.

It takes me an embarrassingly long time to put the pieces together. I’m dead—yet not—and somehow, whatever ritual they’ve done has left me with a deeper connection to the Arcanaeum than I ever thought possible.

“Liminals.” The rector sighs the word, strapping his grimoire back into its holster. “They’re barely better than the dulls.”

The casual slur disgusts me, but no one comments or corrects him.

“Did anyone ever figure out her line?” McKinley asks. “It would be good to see if we can tap it again next time.”

“No,” Talcott replies. “For all we know, it may have been a grandparent or even further back. Not many of our kind willingly dally with dulls nowadays.”

“Edmund, dispose of the body,” Ackland commands lazily.

“Yes, Grandfather.” The sick bastard just helped murder me and yet, by his tone, he could be talking about the weather.

My eyes snap open, and I come face to face with… myself.

My own corpse stares sightlessly back at me, and when I turn my head to the left, I catch Winthrop embracing Rector Carlton in a one-armed celebratory hug.

Smiling. Relaxed. All of them are downright cheerful.

Precisely seventeen floors above us, the trapdoor slams shut. The clang of metal-on-metal echoes down the stairwell and into the Vault, silencing them.

One by one, they turn back towards the altar.

One by one, their skin pales and their eyes go wide.

“Kyrith,” Ackland breathes.

I’m floating, drawing closer to them without the aid of my legs. My lips part, but my breath no longer whispers over them as I speak.

“You are all banished from the Arcanaeum,” I say, in a voice gone hoarse with rage. “As are your children, and your children’s children. From now on, the Arcanaeum will judge those who wish to enter these halls by merit, not by birth.”

I have no idea what I’m saying, but it feels right . I get the sense I’m not really responsible at all, but rather that the Arcanaeum itself is responding to my pain and rage the only way it knows how.

Pain and rage that seem tempered—broken—without the burning in my blood that should accompany them.

“You can’t?—”

I’m right in front of Ackland now, and I reach forward, pressing my transparent finger against his chest.

“Your card is revoked.”

In the air between us, a cream-coloured card appears, stamped with hundreds of dates. A complete record of every single book he’s ever withdrawn from the Arcanaeum. There must be more here than most arcanists read in their lifetimes, the length of it trailing along the floor.

A burning red ‘X’ spreads out from where my ghostly finger pierces it.

Far above us, a shelf adjusts to make room for the three books he has on loan as they reappear in the Arcanaeum—summoned back from his home. One has been on loan for years.

Magic, how do I know that?

Ackland gapes like he’s lost his voice. He clearly has no idea how this has happened, which makes two of us.

“Kyrith, I—” His words are cut off with a screech as his body is wrenched out of the Vault and deposited beyond the boundaries.

The others try to run, but they’re old, and the Arcanaeum has sealed them in. Their barrier spells don’t work on me, now that I am whatever I am. One by one, the process repeats. Their cards are revoked, their loans are returned, and they’re evicted.

Only Edmund has the gumption to fight back, but his conjured lightning passes through me as if I’m not even here. It singes a shelf behind me, and the Arcanaeum rattles with anger. It won’t tolerate damage to its charges.

I can’t help the tear that escapes my eyes as I summarily banish him from the Arcanaeum.

It’s done.

Only it’s not.

Now that they’re gone, I can feel the building tensing. Straining.

Something is happening. I press hard against my sternum as if that can alleviate the sudden discomfort swelling behind it—the first thing I’ve truly felt since I revived.

My hand passes straight through my chest.

The unexpected shock is enough to distract me from the odd pull, until it disappears entirely, replaced by something…else.

I can only describe the new sensation as rootlessness. And it’s not my sensation at all. It’s as if whatever tethered the Arcanaeum to the university—to the very ground itself—is gone.

We’re adrift.

Far from scaring me, it feels safe.

If the building isn’t there, they can’t force their way back in.

I float back towards the altar without meaning to until I’m standing beside my own still-warm corpse. My dark eyes are closed, but my face is twisted, caught forever in an expression of terrified agony. The untameable wisps of my hair now lie limp, and without the pins to hold it in place, my long braid has fallen over my shoulder. My new ghostly hands brush over the tip of my nose, then down to the soft pink of my parted lips—already turning blue.

A sob tears free, but it brings no catharsis. Even crying feels empty.

A breeze drifts through the shelves, spectral but warm, as if the Arcanaeum itself is trying to offer comfort. From the tip of the inverted spire, a single drop of some glimmering pale liquid falls, splashing onto the handle of the golden dagger still embedded between my breasts. It’s vaguely reminiscent of the white light from earlier, and I watch as the mysterious substance slides down the blade, across the slope of my chest, only to defy gravity and roll up my chin, straight into my mouth.

Minutes later, the colour begins to leech from my corpse. It’s the strangest thing, as if I’m watching myself turn to glass. My body remains, but soon it’s entirely translucent and hard like a diamond.

A memorial, as I believed this place was earlier.

Only it’s a memorial to me… and to the others who must have died here.

Around me, the building sighs with sadness and regret, and I get the sense that it’s mourning with me.