Chapter 12

Twelve

Kyrith

T hey come back.

Day after day, they return. Taunting me with their presence. Attending Hopkinson’s lectures like they’re truly just students here to learn and not thieves searching for the next opportunity to strike. A small army of books has piled up on the desk, and to my shame, the Arcanaeum reaches for them constantly. The pages on the shelves itch with the desire to claim them for its own.

The collection of offerings appears to be split evenly between tatty magiball magazines and beautiful first edition manuscripts. I want to read the spines. Add them to the catalogue cards.

But I won’t.

Instead, I hide away in my tower, avoiding all inquiries. Though the patrons grumble a little at first, they soon adapt to my absence. It’s humbling, the reminder of how unnecessary I really am. If I die—a second time—the library will continue without me.

A fortnight after that ill-fated tutoring session, I’m floating above my bed, face buried in a brand-new copy of an inept romance novel that was left on my bedstand by the Arcanaeum this morning. The patrons are gone, have been for hours, and the library is quiet. I should be able to focus on reading, despite the late hour. It lies open on the pillow, and I wish, I just wish , I could smell the new book smell that must surely be wafting from its pages.

Thud. Thud. Thud. The banging at the door below jolts me so badly that I sink into the mattress before I can recover myself.

What the…?

No one bangs on my door. There are hundreds of doors in the Arcanaeum to choose from, and mine is well-hidden and never used—not least because I always choose to simply phase into the clock tower instead. I made the deliberate choice to keep this room—my haven—private.

My shock fades to annoyance as I focus on the presence, or rather, presences , beyond. Against my better judgement, I find myself drifting down the old, rickety stairwell, until my cheek is pressed against the other side of the wood.

“Look, if you’re going to harass us all until we come here, you can at least open the door.” North’s voice is clipped, hard with frustration.

“Could we have the wrong one?” Lambert asks, and I can hear him knocking on others.

“This is the only red door on the far side of the parapet.” Galileo’s voice is smooth. “Perhaps we should try the handle.”

Handle? What handle? My door doesn’t have a handle.

But it does. The Arcanaeum has changed things while I was distracted, and now an innocent little brass knob sits on one side.

No lock. And it’s turning.

Without thinking, I shove my head through the wood. “Don’t you dare.”

I’m careful not to let my neck—or any of my new wounds show—because while Galileo has seen, I don’t want to show weakness.

All three of them blink in astonishment, and I want to scoff. It’s not like they haven’t seen me before, and unlike my living counterparts, I don’t change. There’s no evidence of my low mood for them to pick up on. No red eyes or puffiness or slovenly clothing.

“Hey, are you okay?” Lambert looks troubled. “You haven’t been to the desk in ages, and we left you books, but…”

There are dark shadows under his eyes, I realise. His man bun is neat enough, but there are none of the cute little braids I’m used to seeing at his nape. North also looks worn out, and there are stress lines around the corners of his pouty lips. Unlike his friends, Galileo remains perfect as ever, his crisp white shirt a sharp contrast to the unruly locks of his hair, but he still wears a grim expression as he takes me in.

Those icebound eyes are too perceptive. He sees too much.

“I once again ask your forgiveness, Librarian,” he murmurs, silky voice soft. “Are you recovered?”

I start to withdraw, but Lambert is there, shoving past. “Wait! Don’t go! I missed you.”

His earnest eyes tricked me once, I remind myself. Whatever truth I convinced myself I saw in him was a lie. Whatever friendship I latched onto was just a fantasy.

But I still stop. Only my face is sticking out now, the rest of me hidden behind the door.

“My grades are down again,” he admits. “I can’t do this without you.”

I scoff at his selfish plea, and he shakes his head.

“No one else makes this stuff interesting. We fucked up, badly. Risking your friendship over some stupid old grimoire was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done—and I’ve done a lot of dumb shit, believe it or not.”

One of my brows rises without my conscious permission. Of course, Lambert—the most impulsive, happy, and ridiculous creature on this earth, and perhaps all the realms beyond—has made stupid decisions before. However, he’s yet to offer any real kind of apology.

North isn’t speaking, either. He stands behind the other two like Lucifer, pride etched into the set of his shoulders.

“Look, Kyrith…” Lambert drags my attention back to him again. “I’ll do anything you ask if you’ll agree to tutor me again. I’ll even clean the Arcanaeum toilets. You wanted electricity, right? I can figure out how to wire up some proper lights.”

I don’t need any of those things, and it must show in my face, because his expression falls.

“What do you want?” he presses. “Anything. Name it.”

I want the cracking to stop. I want to go to school like all the other arcanists. I want to erase five hundred years of loneliness and isolation. I want to eat rich food, drink sweet wine, and fuck gorgeous men again. I want the weight of a heavy book in my hands and the smell of petrichor in my nose.

“Unfortunately, nothing that’s within your power to give.” I withdraw completely.

The handle turns, and I panic. The Arcanaeum isn’t letting me close it. I’m having a battle of wills with the building, and I’m not winning.

“Omubolosi ,” I stutter.

It works—sort of. The door freezes, open halfway, and Lambert sticks his head through the crack. “Kyrith, I?—”

His eyes fall to my arm, and he lets out a ragged breath. “Shit.”

“Leave me be, Lambert.” I try to inject some strength into my tone, but it comes out wounded.

A second later, my spell fails, and the door swings the rest of the way. Two more probing stares linger on the cracks up my arm.

“This is my sanctuary.” I summon what dignity I have left and address the three of them. “My private sanctuary. It isn’t open for visitors. Especially not you three. Leave.”

“Come down to the desk,” Lambert says, ignoring me. “Or even just over there.” He hikes his thumb at a cosy nook with a sofa and an armchair just behind them. “We should talk about this. North still hasn’t apologised.”

“Neither have you.”

“Sorry!” He rushes to get the word out. “I don’t… I mean, the word is fairly meaningless, right? I figured actions would be better, but maybe I was wrong.” He frowns. “Was I wrong?”

“Librarian,” Galileo cuts in. “Lambert might be…brash, but he’s right. We’re deeply sorry for what we did. Please give us the chance to fix this mistake.”

I look past him to North, my jaw stiff.

He’s about as far from apologetic as he can get, and the hostility in the air becomes charged.

“If you’re hoping I’ll fall on my knees and grovel like these two—” he begins.

“Wouldn’t that be nice?” I reply, chillingly.

“I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, but I have to get that book. I don’t give a fuck if I broke your rules to do it.”

Is that the closest he can get to a true apology? Given the muscle ticking in his jaw, I think it might be.

“Well, it’s not here,” I retort. “And if I ever catch you in the Vault again?—”

“You won’t.” Lambert inserts himself between us, and I flinch back, unaware that I’d been slowly drifting closer. “I swear, boss. We’re all going to be model patrons. North won’t sneak anywhere again, because he needs tutoring, too. He knows less than I do.”

I wait for him to deny it. A vein throbs at his temple, but he says nothing, accepting the description.

“Josef basically yanked his liminal ass off the street and onto your doorstep,” Lambert continues. “He barely had a few months of magic lessons before he was enrolled.”

“Lambert.” North’s gold eyes are as hard as the metal they resemble, and bruised pride shines from his haughty gaze.

But I don’t care about that. A lack of education is nothing to be ashamed of. I’m more concerned with the news that Josef is yanking his bastards off the street and shoving them before the Arcanaeum to gain a foothold here. No. Not even a foothold. He wants the grimoire, and he believes I have it. Which means he doesn’t.

“He’s gotten so desperate,” I whisper to myself, breezing around them before I can think better of it.

Thankfully, the door to my tower swings shut behind me, blocking them out of my safe space. As a last reassurance, the handle disappears again, though I don’t trust it.

The Arcanaeum wants me to be around these men. It wants me to court disaster, and for the first time, I find myself wondering if it truly does have my best interests at heart.

I hover by the snug opposite my door, watching as they settle into chairs around the table.

“I’d like to propose a new deal,” Galileo says smoothly. “In exchange for resuming our tutoring sessions, the three of us will put our considerable resources towards finding answers about your condition.”

“What makes you think I don’t have answers?” I retort, carefully examining the wood grain of the tabletop.

He gives me a look. “You wouldn’t have let the issue fester if you were able to fix it.”

“This is beyond the three of you.” Two arcanists who can’t pass the first year without my help, and…whatever Galileo is. “There are no books in this building that explain the problem, and this is the most complete collection of knowledge in the world.”

“We’re super powerful,” Lambert interjects.

Of course they are, they’re heirs.

I roll my eyes and level him with an unimpressed stare. “If it were a matter of power, I would’ve dealt with it already.”

“Just how powerful are you?” North demands, suddenly.

A chill flits through the room, and gooseflesh sprouts on his arms. Those aren’t the words of someone who wants tutoring. Those are the words of someone who wants to use me. The last people who cared about how powerful I was sacrificed me.

“I don’t know why it matters. I don’t get involved in the affairs of arcanists.”

“But you are one,” he retorts, his defensiveness rising to match my own.

“I’m dead,” I correct. “My power level is irrelevant. I cannot leave this building, therefore, I’m effectively muzzled.”

“Didn’t feel like it when you slammed us?—”

“All the more reason to let us help you.” Galileo won’t let this drop. “We have access to our families’ private libraries.”

My mouth, already open to cast a spell that would show North what real power feels like, slams shut.

They won’t find anything. It’s a ridiculous notion. My death—and reanimation and subsequent decline—is the product of necromancy, and unless Galileo’s family leave tomes on that dark subject lying around, there’s nothing they can do.

So I wave off his suggestion.

“You can’t just refuse to help them,” North grumbles, molten steel in his tone. “Look, I convinced them to do it. Stop punishing them when they’re not to blame.”

Still not an apology.

My jaw clenches for a second time, but the action brings no relief. “You?—”

“Mathias Ackland was one of the parriarchs who murdered you?” Galileo guesses, and I curse myself for letting that detail slip in the anger of the moment. “Which means his grimoire might contain answers.”

There’s a knowing look in his eyes. It’s the glint of a falcon who’s spotted a mouse, and like prey, I freeze.

In the past few times we’ve spoken, I’ve admitted that Mathias was a necromancer. I’ve even spoken about my death at the hands of the parriarchs. Any smart person could put the two together and come to a logical conclusion.

Lambert is too distracted by his own problems, and North too out of the loop, for either of them to have made the jump, but I’m suddenly certain that Galileo has.

He knows . He knows that my existence is the product of necromancy—forbidden magic. Which means he must also have reasoned that the only way to ‘fix’ me is by using that same magic.

So either he wants the book as proof—to have me and the Arcanaeum condemned—or he’s willing to dabble in necromancy to ensure that he gets whatever it is that he wants from me.

“I already have a collector working on it.” I shut him down without confirming anything. “If you have no other?—”

“Could you just…do it for us?” Lambert asks, pleadingly. “I know there’s no reason why you should, but we need you, Kyrith.” A pause. “I promise I’ll make you smile every night.”

North snorts in disbelief, but Galileo is just staring at me with eyes full of unsettling knowledge. I glance at the shelf behind them, freezing when I realise the letters on the engraved brass shelf plates, which should spell out the subject of the books below, have rearranged themselves.

THE SIX ARE THE KEY

The six? What… The Arcanaeum can’t mean the men in front of me. There are only three of them. Six is a fairly commonplace number. Six families, six magical universities worldwide, six basic trigonometric functions…

The letters jump about, skipping until they spell a new message. A familiar one.

SAY YES

Still, I hesitate. The unshakeable trust between us has been rocked by the door handle and by all of these notes with no explanation. The building knows more than I do, and these cryptic little nudges it keeps giving me are beginning to sting.

They’re all staring at me. Lambert with his huge, tempest-coloured puppy eyes, North with mistrust, and Leo… Leo’s brows are lowered.

In that icy frown is the knowledge that he’d rather have me on his side, but silently promises retribution the likes of which I’ve never seen if I choose to be his enemy. I read the deadly seriousness with a grim resignation, because he knows , and that changes everything.

With a few words, the ó Rinn heir could inform the faculty about what I am—though they must suspect something, given the obvious nature of my condition. A few whispers into the right ears, and he could turn the other arcanists against me.

In a court of popular opinion, the ghost and her library bonded by dark magic will never win.

And on top of that, he knows that his touch caused the crack to spread. He’s a smart man. He’ll find a way to turn that to his advantage.

In return, what do I really have on him? The power to banish them can’t even protect me. Though they currently think I decided to give them a second chance, they’ll realise the truth when their second and third banishments don’t stick.

My breasts heave on a breath I can’t feel, and I look down at the table, squeezing my eyes closed.

“Fine. I will continue to tutor you.” I pause, staring at the window. “But only if Northcliff can properly apologise.”

I watch his reflection in the stained glass, catching the moment his lips set into a mulish line. It brings a sad, savage sort of satisfaction. Then, I remember his earlier words and add, “On his knees.”

Leo and Lambert are both staring at him intently, no doubt doing their best to compel him with their eyes—though their backs are to me. A silent conversation happens, which Leo succinctly ends by raising his forefinger and drawing it across his throat in a clear and silent threat.

North’s chair scrapes against the floor as he shoves it back and approaches me. I turn, readying myself for an attack, but he just stands there, looming.

“You better not get used to this,” he mutters. “Because it will never happen again.”

I lost the ability to feel whole body shivers a long time ago, but the dark, commanding look he shoots my way would almost certainly elicit one from anyone else. Even when he lowers himself, first to one knee, then the other, he keeps that eye contact.

His pose might be submissive, but the man? No. This man is dominant to the core.

“I’m sorry.”

Two little words. Each one torn from him with enough reluctance that I don’t press for more. I give him a jerky little nod, turning back to the window. The fog is thicker than usual tonight.

“Great!” Lambert says, as unfazed as ever by the tension in the room. “Now, can we get started? I know it’s late, but honestly, I got six percent in the last practical. Tutor away.”

It is late, I realise, whirling to face them with alarm. Too late. As if to mock me, a clock face appears on the surface of the table, the minute hand boldly inching towards its partner at the top.

“Not tonight.” Praying they don’t hear the snap of panic in my voice, I hesitate. “In fact, how are you even here? The Arcanaeum is closed.”

Even when I was tutoring Lambert and Leo, I never let them stay this late, for good reason. Why would the library let them in?

The three of them look at one another, then at me.

“You opened the doors for us?” Lambert says, but it comes out as a question. “I was just watching the game and my bedroom door opened…”

“Indeed,” Galileo confirms. “And then your instructions on the desk told us to find the red door across the parapet. Your books even chased us across.”

The building can do that?

Smoothing down the front of my dress to hide how this latest development has shaken me, I clear an imaginary blockage from my throat. “Well, it’s late. We’ll resume our sessions tomorrow at the usual time.”

If they find my dismissal sudden, they’re wise enough not to push it.