Chapter 22

Twenty-Two

Pierce

M y mother’s slap rings in my ears as I rotate my jaw and force myself to meet her eyes. Isidora Carlton’s office glows in the evening light; the sun streams through four narrow windows behind her, highlighting shelves full of books I often wonder if she’s bothered to read. She’s never seemed the bookish type, unlike the Librarian, who drifts between shelves with her nose glued to the pages.

Despite my certainty that the jewels in her ring have split open my skin, the pain is negligible, especially compared to the throbbing bruise across my abdomen that Winthrop decided to grace me with earlier. Still, the shame burns hotter.

“You promised to convince her,” Isidora rants.

“And I will.”

Anthea, of course, cannot resist adding, “He’s not ready for the position of heir.”

My sister shouldn’t have drawn attention to herself, because our mother rounds on her next. “Shut up. You ruined your chance. Be grateful I’m not considering the ó Rinn parriarch’s offer of marriage for you and leaving you for Artemius to deal with.”

Anthea swallows down her protest, and deep inside I can’t help but feel a little bit sorry for her. I may have gained my new position as a result of her failure, but that doesn’t mean I don’t pity her new options.

If Mother has her way, Anthea will be married off to secure our family’s influence over another noble house. If it’s the ó Rinn heir, she stands a very good chance of dying as a result—although she’s so prickly, I suppose her odds are better than most.

Even if it’s not him, the other heirs aren’t much better. At least ó Rinn has the money to keep her in the luxury to which she’s become accustomed, and he’s not a social pariah like that muscled delinquent, Dakari.

Her only chance to get out of this is to pivot like crazy and try to make herself useful in some other capacity, but so far, she’s failing miserably. Besides, it’s not as if she hasn’t known this was coming for years.

Her anger is heavy in the air as she snaps her jaw closed and bows her head silently, her eyes fixed on the black-and-white tiled floor. My sister’s temper has been leashed for now, but that won’t last long. I have to keep my head about me, because her revenge for this will be deadly—even though her downfall wasn’t my doing.

Damn her, I didn’t even want this. Of course, that only makes her hate me more.

She’s been training her whole life to be the next Carlton parriarch, despite being constantly overshadowed by the fact that I’m naturally stronger than her. Now she’s lost that, lost everything, and that makes her dangerous.

“If you cannot return the McKinley heir, we’ve lost both our leverage and our reputation, not to mention the damage this whole debacle has done to an alliance that has been in place since before the Librarian was born.”

Silently, I curse that stubborn old ghost. I knew she was going to be a pain in my ass from the second she turned those pretty doe eyes on me, but throwing away what little remains of her life for the sake of someone she barely knows? The Arcanaeum could’ve remained a neutral body—mostly ignored for a little while longer—but her interference changes things.

“I’m taking care of it, Mother,” I promise again.

“How reassuring.” His voice, cold and raspy, makes every hair on my neck stand up in warning. “You’ve sent a child to retrieve the healer? Honestly, Anthea, are you even taking this seriously?”

Some men are naturally patronising. Some are intimidating.

Mathias Ackland is both.

Even my mother, who I’ve never seen cowed by anyone else, is silent as he sweeps into the room.

He’s old, but he hasn’t changed since I was a boy. The suit with navy pinstripes and his long beard makes him look like some kind of GQ Santa, but when he stares at you—like he’s looking at my mother now—it’s like gazing into the eyes of a walking corpse.

I’m not surprised when she stands. There’s no one on Earth who could remain sitting when faced with that man.

“Pierce has received exactly the same training as his sister,” she bravely protests, though I wish she wouldn’t. No part of me wants any of Ackland’s attention.

“The same?” Mathias interrupts, brows rising. “You have wasted my time training a protégé who can’t even fulfil her purpose. Now you intend to assure me that an arcanist whose talents lie in the school of destruction will be a fitting replacement?”

My fists clench at my sides. I’m not jealous that Anthea got the ‘training’ he’s talking about. Truth be told, I was relieved every time she bragged about it when we were teens. That relief quickly soured into concern when she stopped bragging and started withdrawing into herself.

Unfortunately for her, that prompted my mother to take an interest.

As heir, she couldn’t be a recluse, even if she wanted to be.

Image is everything to Isidora.

And now Anthea is…who she is. A perfect black diamond poised to shatter at the slightest provocation.

And my future doesn’t look much different.

“What are your plans for retrieving him?” He turns on me.

Somehow, I know telling him I tried to ask the Librarian nicely won’t help my cause. Nor will telling him that facing up against her is now a hundred times worse because that bumbling idiot Lambert is infatuated with her.

“She’s too stubborn and convinced of her own invincibility to respond to intimidation, so I was going to stay behind after closing and retrieve him myself.”

“You’re that confident of your skills?” Ackland tuts under his breath and shakes his head. “You need a better plan. The Librarian is tied to the fabric of the building. You can’t take a step inside without her knowing.”

“And we need to work on it fast,” Isidora adds. “The ensorcellments on the McKinley heir will wear off soon enough. When his memories return, we lose the element of surprise.”

“If your new heir is better equipped to hold his temper than his half-wit sister, then that won’t be an issue, will it?” The danger in his voice is silken, threading around me until my teeth grind together, and I drop my eyes.

Even if I manage to hold my temper, there’s no way to get past the Librarian. Even if I manage that, she’s got Winthrop, Ackland, and Talcott all salivating after her. Even ó Rinn is invested.

“The Librarian angle is a waste of time,” Isidora concedes. “But McKinley himself is a bleeding heart. What about the younger McKinley? Can we leverage her?”

“Hazel?” My head snaps up. “She’s just a kid. She won’t even know who he is.”

She must’ve been a toddler when he was locked in the basement. Now she’s more sheltered than any other child I know. She has two bodyguards, for pity’s sake.

When one of the closest-knit families in our community lost their golden child, their protectiveness of their other children was dialled up to the max.

“He’ll remember her,” Isidora corrects. “Forget the Librarian. She’s running out of time, anyway. Focus on luring McKinley’s heir back here. Use the child as bait if you have to.”

My head jerks down of its own accord. “I’ll leave at once.”

I have to, otherwise I might vomit on my mother’s polished floor.

None of them stop me as I flee the office, though I keep my steps measured until I’m in my room, where I sink against the door and let out a noisy breath.

I have no intention of threatening a child to secure a man who didn’t deserve to be used by a creepy necromancer in the first place. Unfortunately, I’m toeing a fine line between incompetence and obedience.

Crossing to the nightstand, I grab the hand mirror there and take a second to check my split cheek before spreading my grimoire open on the thousand-count-white sheets and flicking to the runeform that’s so used that the page has come loose from the binding.

“ Peor tu githir, vosoun e suand. ” The words come easily, the power a drop in the ocean, despite the complexity of the spell and my less-than-masterful command of the school of transmutation.

And then I wait.

He doesn’t take long to answer, and I hate the way my shoulders sag a little at the sight of him.

My grandfather is a relatively young man by arcanist standards, for all that he doesn’t look it. The streaks of white in his hair weren’t there before my birth, and nor were the constant frown lines between his dove-grey eyes. Somewhere in the background, I can hear people conversing in something that might be Hindi, along with the clink of glassware and the lyrical hum of Bollywood music, but I don’t look or listen too closely.

Better that I don’t know anything that might be used to find him. The fact that I’ve already narrowed his location down to Southern Asia is dangerous.

“Pierce!” He grins, but the expression quickly sours when he notices I’m not smiling back. “What did she do now?”

God, am I so transparent?

“Jasper escaped, and she wants me to use his kid sister to get him back.”

My grandfather goes quiet and pensive in the way he often does when I’ve presented him with a problem.

“And she didn’t let you claim Sanctuary?”

That was his plan, but I didn’t even bother to try.

“She’ll see my claiming Sanctuary as another scheme to get to him, and if she refuses me, and one of Isidora’s spies catches wind of what’s happening…”

My mother will be less than pleased, and that’s an understatement. I’ll be lucky if I don’t end up sealed in the basement next, even though I have less skill in restoration than she does.

The last great Carlton healer is on the other side of the mirror, still frowning at the bottle of beer in his hand. Our family has had a vested interest in refusing to nurture any burgeoning talent in that school. If the other five lines knew about Mathias Ackland, they’d be doing the same thing.

As it is, I’m sure it won’t be long until he finds a replacement.

“The Librarian is impartial?—”

“She’s defending Jasper,” I mutter. “I don’t blame her.”

But with the tracker ensorcelled into the base of my spine, there’s nowhere else I can run from my mother. I know it concerns my grandfather, because he doesn’t let the subject drop.

“Request a meeting?—”

“I’ve threatened her,” I admit, rubbing the back of my neck. “It was on the parriarch’s orders, but she doesn’t know that. She’s not going to let me within five feet of her, let alone grant me a private audience.”

Grandfather strokes his grey moustache with a grimace. “And there’s no chance that Anthea will?—”

“She’s going to be married off,” I interrupt. “I’m heir now. Mother already filed the paperwork. There’s no escaping it.” I pause, shoulders slumping. “Even if I could get the Librarian to offer me Sanctuary, the Arcanaeum is doomed. She’s… cracking. The building has gone too long without a power infusion. It’s running out of magic.”

“That’s a nice way to say ‘sacrifice,’” Grandfather notes. “But it’s odd…If the Arcanaeum were running out of power, I would expect the effects to show in the building first. There are no cracks, and just this morning the Lineage Room was redecorated.”

I shrug, wondering where he gets his information from when he’s supposed to be in hiding. “Perhaps the Librarian is untethering herself to save the building. Either way, she’s cracking, and she’s trying to hide it.”

The moment Ackland heard of it, he went very quiet in a way that made the hair on the back of my neck rise in warning.

Grandfather takes a long swig from his beer and drops the bottle to the table. The thunk of glass is like a warning bell, punctuating the dark look he shoots into the distance.

“This is serious. Things are happening that can’t be left to chance.”

“I’ll handle it,” I promise, through the dread pressing down on my chest. “I can?—”

He cuts me off with a calm look. “You have handled enough in your short life, Pierce. I have no doubt you will handle this, too, but you won’t be doing it alone.”

“Grandfather.”

He can’t mean…

“I’m returning to Richmond.”