Chapter 29

Twenty-Nine

Kyrith

W hen I finally drag myself up to the clock tower in the early hours of the morning, it’s to find that Eddy has made herself right at home—or perhaps the Arcanaeum did that for her. Her bed is covered in a pink patchwork quilt, hair messy around her snoring face as she snoozes beneath the clock mechanism on the opposite side of the space. What bookshelves were there have been moved out of the way, creating her own small cubby that mirrors mine.

She’s fragile like this. Her frame is still a little too thin, despite the potions I gave her, and her breathing a little reedy. I hope she managed to finish the burrito after I left with Jasper. Tomorrow, I’ll work on something to shift the fluid build-up in her lungs a little faster.

The oddly protective thoughts circling my mind disturb me enough that I look away, staring blankly at the cream-coloured glass of the clock face.

Staring at her like a creepy ghost all night would be rude, I reason as I lie back against my sheets and stare into the darkness. But without her to distract me, my thoughts turn gloomy.

I now have to face the looks on the patrons’ faces as they see the new damage that’s been wrought across my body. Hiding it won’t work, at least not for long. I’ll just get distracted again, like I did last time.

I was only just getting used to the looks they were levelling at my arm.

“Hey, Kyrith?” Eddy ventures, and I turn over to find her awake and staring at me. “Are you…okay?”

Glancing down at myself quickly, I force my lips into a plastic smile. It’s no good to dwell on things I cannot change, and talking about it with someone I just met? Not happening, no matter how much I want to like her.

“What will you do now that you’re healed?” I ask her instead.

The bubbly girl gives me a knowing stare but doesn’t object to my change of subject. “I want to go out,” she decides. “It’s been ages since I was able to meet a pretty girl at a bar. Now that I’m a sexy sorceress, that’s got to improve my game.”

I shake my head with a chuckle. “Good answer.”

“You think?” Her grin turns megawatt bright. “I thought you’d disapprove.”

I aim a wry grin her way. “If I had a body and could leave this place, I’d join you. I just need to find a guy with enough talent to make it enjoyable…”

“You’ve thought about this a lot?”

I chuckle under my breath. “You have no idea.”

Her yellow eyes trace my body, and I reflexively shift to try to make my torso more difficult to see; only, she’s not focused on the cracks.

“I hate to break it to you, but you might need a makeover first.”

The harmless comment relaxes me.

“Oh, I know.” But I have a fantasy plan for that, too. “I saw this dress once… It was the most gorgeous shade of blue.” I drag on the Arcanaeum’s magic and cast the illusion into the space between us, where it spins slowly. “Covered in sequins. Completely impractical…”

I fill in the details. Everything from the midnight colour to the twinkling silver and pearl beads that made it look like the night sky.

“But it would’ve made your boobs look great,” Eddy whistles. “Where did you see this?”

“Some drunken demons from another realm fell into the Arcanaeum by mistake a few years ago,” I say. “They were hilarious, but I kicked them out because they were breaking almost every rule and talking about stealing the books.”

“Demons are real?” Eddy sits up.

“In other dimensions, yes. But not here. There are all sorts of worlds out there, with all sorts of races. Some aren’t so dissimilar to our own.” I turn my head back to look at the cogs above us. “I would’ve travelled to them all, if I could. After I tried pizza, of course.”

“Pizza?”

“That’s the list.” I nod sagely. “Sex, pizza, and travelling. In that order.” Sighing, I shove myself upward. “You should go to that bar. Lambert would take you.”

“Lambert is too much competition.” Eddy snorts. “He’d have all the good choices wrapped around his fingers before I could even stammer out hello.”

The reminder sits sourly in my gut. “Yes. I imagine he would.”

Eddy grimaces. “Uh oh. Tell me you didn’t…”

“Of course not.” I turn away to hide my face. “I’m a ghost, remember?”

It’s too easy to fall into camaraderie with this girl. Perhaps it’s because she’s acted like my friend from the second she entered the Arcanaeum, or maybe she’s just that likeable. Either way, I’m not about to divulge what happened in that shower. Or suffer her judgement for it.

In any case, I still haven’t allowed myself to think too hard about his offer. After seeing him with his hands so casually on that new girl…

“Lambert isn’t the type to settle on one girl,” Eddy murmurs. “Shame, given how pretty he is. But after what happened with his mum, I get it.”

“What happened?” I ask, before I can stop myself.

“She died, or at least, that’s what North told me. Apparently, his parents were devoted to each other, so his dad quit magic altogether after that. He refuses to practise it or hear anything about it. Made himself a real pariah in the community, too. The only exception is magiball.”

That…explains a lot, actually.

“So yeah, that’s why North reckons he doesn’t want to get into anything committed. But it’s just a guess, and honestly, the way Lambert babbles about you, I’d say he was already half in love.”

I scoff at her words and turn over.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t deter her. “What’s it like to be a ghost?”

Swallowing back my impatience, I think about it for a second. “Cruel,” I finally settle on.

Rather than accept the answer as a sign I don’t want to talk, she asks, “How so?”

I’m glad she can’t see my face as I huff out a breath. “You know how, when you feel an emotion, it collects in parts of your body?”

“Yeah.” It’s clear she doesn’t get where I’m going with this. “Like heartbreak.”

“Exactly. Except, I can’t feel. The emotion is there, but it’s muted. I can see and hear, but can’t touch, and that extends to sensations inside my body as well.”

“So if you’re sad…you don’t…” She’s starting to get it now; I can hear the strained realisation.

“I experience the mental aspects, but my throat doesn’t close over, and my chest doesn’t feel like it’s crushing me. In the beginning, I thought I did, but it was just a memory. Like my mind was supplying what sensations should be there. Now it’s like watching life through this glass window where everything that makes it life is gone. Death would’ve been preferable.”

It’s part of why I think I’m taking the cracking so well. Now that the initial shock has passed, I realise that finally meeting my end is still better than this half-life.

Eddy’s tone softens, becoming cautious and threaded with pity. “Hey, have you…tried talking to someone?”

I snort. I just can’t help it. “Therapy? For ghosts? It took five centuries to find one person interested in learning my name.” I pause, sighing. “I’m not depressed, just…tired.”

“So you can’t…fall in love?”

“Intellectually, I could, I suppose. But the butterflies? The breathlessness? I don’t get that.”

I’m glad, really. Because the heartbreak that Edmund caused isn’t something I ever want to feel again.

A sad breath whooshes out of her. “That really sucks. I thought being paralysed was bad, but I still knew what loving someone felt like.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I decide to stop the conversation before the pity in her tone grows any stronger.

“Get some sleep. You’re still recovering.”

A long pause follows, but her breathing doesn’t deepen again, so I know she’s not taking my advice. A second later, she proves it when the covers rustle again.

“Hey, Kyrith?”

I roll back over, finding her head propped up on her hand as she offers me a more serious look than any she’s given me so far.

“Do you think North can give it up now? The magic, I mean?”

Both of my brows shoot into my hairline. “He wants to give it up?” She doesn’t answer, and I stare at the mechanism above me as I consider my response. “He can shun it, but no, he can’t give it up. Even those criminals whose grimoires are burned are still arcanists. The magic is there, though he can choose not to use it.”

She lets out a sad breath.

“You know,” I continue. “Just because you’re here and healed, doesn’t mean that Josef will let North go, right? He’s still the Ackland heir. That isn’t something you can escape.”

Not unless someone more powerful from the same family steps up, and even then, North is the first Ackland to get into the Arcanaeum in living memory.

“He hurts him.” Eddy’s eyes are wet with unshed tears. “I know he does. He calls it training, but he comes back with casts and bandages and—” Her words hiccough to a halt.

My mouth twists into a grimace, but I know I can’t do anything. I’ve been teaching North how to use his magic, but there’s no way for me to protect him unless he claims sanctuary for himself, which he would never ever do.

I’m not sure I would’ve granted it before now, even if he had. I’m still hesitant, given that I caught him inside the Vault, even though it’s painfully clear that Josef was using Eddy to manipulate him into it.

“North will be fine,” I promise her blandly. “Josef would never hurt his heir. You have no idea how much your twin is worth to your father.”

“He’s not our father,” Eddy grumbles. “Our father’s name was Alex.”

Alex. Interesting. North has never mentioned their family, so I always assumed the twins were orphans. I open my mouth to ask more about them, but apparently, she’s finally tired enough to sleep, because she flops over to give me her back.