Chapter 31

Thirty-One

Kyrith

“ S o it’s like volleyball?” Eddy asks, hugging a bowl of popcorn to her chest as she sits cross-legged on the end of the sectional. “But with magic?”

“Near enough,” I say, but Lambert interrupts.

“How can you compare it to an inept sport where the balls have no acid, no spikes, and never turn invisible?” His flabbergasted expression is teasing and light.

My irrational jealousy is still there, prickling at the edges of my consciousness, and it lends sharpness to my tone as I ask, “Shouldn’t you be going?”

“Boss lady, you wound me.” He presses his free hand over his heart theatrically.

Dakari folds his arms over his chest, like he senses my lack of amusement and is ready to step in if Lambert makes me uncomfortable, or worse, tries to hug me. He does neither, adjusting the black, white, and gold jacket across his arm, and I catch sight of his name and number embroidered onto the back.

Ah. An American inept tradition that’s recently made its way into magiball games. Of course. Poppy will no doubt look like the perfect reaper’s girlfriend wearing that jacket. She can paint her cheeks with the team colours and cheer from a court-side seat. If not her, then there are others.

That’s a good thing. Lambert’s attempts to snuggle showed exactly how bad an idea pursuing anything between us is. He should be with living girls, girls who hug and…

Nothing I’m thinking is wrong, so why does it grate so badly? Maybe it’s because his offer to stay with me as I relived my death still haunts me.

“What if I need a little motivation to win?” he asks, bouncing on his feet.

“If you’re attempting to secure a repeat performance, I’m sure Poppy will be happy to take my place.” I stiffly take a seat between Eddy and Jasper.

The others freeze. I’m pretty sure Jasper’s face falls a little, but that might just be my imagination. In the corner armchair, Leo sits with his brows creased like he’s trying to discern what exactly Lambert and I have gotten up to. He’s still trying to pretend that he’s focused on the book in his lap, but he hasn’t turned a page in ten minutes.

The Winthrop heir rests his arms on the back of the sofa, leaning down until our faces are almost touching, as the jacket lies forgotten between us.

“Is this about the cracks?” he guesses, crestfallen. “Because I don’t care, boss. You’re still god-damned beautiful.”

The compliment might’ve once made flutters explode in my gut, but right now, all they do is fan the flames of my annoyance. How dare he… And why weren’t the cracks responsible for my insecurities? I was more concerned with my clothes.

Probably because Lambert’s never looked at me as less for being a ghost or for the shattering marks along my limbs. To the Winthrop heir, I’m simply Kyrith.

“He’s right,” Jasper murmurs. “The cracks aren’t that bad.”

“It’s not about the cracks.” I turn away, fixing my gaze determinedly on the empty screen. “I had fun, but that was all it was. Good luck with your game.”

“Boss…” Lambert struggles for words. “It’s not like that. I… You know Poppy means nothing, right?”

Fortunately, Eddy has my back.

“Of course not,” she says, her smile charming and patronising. “No one ever does, right, Lambert?”

It figures North’s one redeeming quality would be his sister. She’s been here less than a week, and she’s sticking up for me with gumption, even though I’ve not told her anything about what happened. Then again, she’s also a good roommate, for all that she’s been decorating her corner of my clock tower room with a questionable number of fairy lights and fluffy blankets.

“Are you coming?” North asks Lambert, striding into the room. “You’re already cutting it fine—” He stops in place, taking in my stiff posture and Eddy’s too-kind smile. “Did I miss something?”

“Nothing at all,” I lie, turning to face him. “Have a good time. Try not to sit behind anyone tall so Eddy can get a good view.”

Lambert holds out the jacket to me like he’s only just remembered it’s there. “I thought maybe you could wear this? For luck? Or do I get a hug for winning?”

“Absolutely not,” Dakari and Leo answer at the same time.

Their defence relaxes my shoulders but only incrementally.

Watching Lambert’s brows furrow in confusion is comical. He takes in Dakari’s posture, then Leo’s, and the way Jasper is leaning in, invested. Hell, even North seems to be edging closer. The veil of civility between the men in the room is sheer enough that the wrong word will tear it to shreds.

All over a ghost’s happiness. How ridiculous…and oddly sweet.

Resignation wars with annoyance in my expression as I eye the jacket like it’s a gilded serpent. Lambert’s friendship means something to me. My own hurt feelings are irrational and misplaced, formed out of the wilful blindness to the fact that Lambert is alive, and I am not. He will have living girlfriends, a living wife, a living family. They all will.

And I will be here, watching them grow old and die. Just like everyone else.

But until that moment, his friendship means something to me, and I’m selfish enough to cling to it.

“Leave it here,” I murmur. “But if I lose focus, it will just fall off. And no. There will be no hugging.”

There’s a familiar terseness to the final sentence, and Lambert’s posture eases, a grin tugging at his cheeks. “One day, boss!”

“Get going already!” Eddy shifts closer to me and shoves more popcorn into her mouth. “I’m excited to see you crush them.”

Lambert grins, ruffling the other girl’s pixie cut hair affectionately, then bounces after North with a mock salute.

I barely catch Ackland saying, “you idiot,” before the door closes behind them.

North has the poor sense to not put the necklace on until he’s out of the changing room this time, and I stifle my disappointment as we wait for him to reach the box. I’m too dead to do anything about shirtless magiball players, anyway.

“Are you okay?” Eddy asks quietly, leaning in until our shoulders touch, despite my chill.

“What exactly did he do?” Galileo asks, finally turning to the next page in his book. “Whatever it was, surely you know Lambert is incapable of intentionally hurting you?”

“It’s personal.” My face scrunches with concentration as I slip into the oversized jacket.

It doesn’t really work. My elbows keep slipping through the fabric, and my hair falls through it and disappears. Still, I snuggle down into it, pretending I can feel the warmth and the way it drowns my slighter frame. If only?—

No. I jerk my attention back to the screen.

The VIP box is just as full as before, with arcanists schmoozing up to one another over crystal glasses of alcohol. The game has yet to start, and North pulls out his phone, flicking away a notification that there are twenty missed calls from someone called ‘the Wankstain,’ then changes his settings to silent.

A throat clears loudly beside him, the noise barely audible over all of the chatter, but when North’s eyes flick up, everyone tenses.

Pierce Carlton stands over him. “Is this seat taken?”

Ackland is silent for a beat too long, and Pierce chooses that moment to slip into the spot.

It’s unfair how pretty he is, really. I can only imagine being caught between the two of them, one all dark and coarse and the other kingly and smooth.

“What do you want?” North asks the question we’re all thinking with the bluntness of a rusty knife.

“To marvel at Winthrop's one and only talent, obviously,” Pierce says dryly. “Does your daddy know you’re here, polluting polite society without a babysitter?”

“Piss off,” North grunts. “Game’s about to start.”

He turns his focus back to the pitch, where the green-and-blue-clad opposing team has just taken their places. Lambert looks distracted, which is unusual. He keeps shooting looks up to the VIP box even as the referee finishes laying out the balls.

The familiar clang echoes through the stadium, the board above lighting up to display two perfect scores of one hundred.

This time, North’s footage of the game is interspersed with sideways glances at Carlton. At one point, he misses the moment that Lambert is almost hit from behind by the alpha ball while its poisonous spikes are out. Only the commentator’s description lets us know what’s going on.

I’m ashamed to admit that I lose my hold on the jacket at that moment. The whole room is tense, all of us shifting uncomfortably as the heaviest ball drops to the floor.

“What just happened?” Eddy asks, softly. “They didn’t lose any points?”

Leo answers, since I’m too engrossed. “The alpha doesn’t cost points. It’s the slowest, and if it hits the floor, the other two balls speed up. That’s why the player assigned to it is called the timekeeper. They can strategically speed up the balls if they think it’ll give their scorers and reapers an edge.”

“And the others are worth five points?” Eddy guesses as the scoreboard flashes into view again.

65-50 to UAA. That’s awful compared to the last match. I’m not sure they’ve seen scores lower than eighty since Lambert joined.

Still, Eddy is wrong. They’ve only dropped the beta so far, and Lambert has yet to send the gamma over in one of his textbook kicks.

“No. Gamma is worth a hundred.” Leo closes his book, settling into the role of teacher almost as easily as Hopkinson does. He’s more talkative with Eddy than he is with the rest of us, I’ve noticed.

She frowns. “But the game starts at a hundred.”

“Exactly, which is why most teams allocate three of their six players as reapers, who focus on that ball.”

“But UAA doesn’t?”

“Lambert is so good that they only need two. Their sixth teammate plays as a third scorer, which gives them an advantage with the beta.” Leo leans back, sensing her questions are at an end.

“Oh, I’m sure that doesn’t hurt his ego at all,” Eddy mutters under her breath, shooting another look at me.

“I’ve not known him long,” Jasper mutters. “But I’m fairly certain there’s very little that can do that.”

Dakari scoffs his agreement, and I discreetly pick up the jacket again and work on forcing my arms back into the holes. Eddy is quizzing Leo about how it’s not against the rules for teams to have unequal numbers of scorers, but I have to tune the discussion out to focus.

It’s a waste of power, given the immense amount of manipulation magic to pull it off.

“That’s an interesting necklace,” Pierce remarks.

North, who had finally started reliably watching the game, turns to face the man who’s currently looking down his nose at the pendant with eyes narrowed with judgement.

“Are you deaf or just so up your own ass you can’t tell when you’re unwanted?”

Pierce blinks at him like he’s never been spoken to thus in his life. It even works for a few minutes, allowing us to watch Lambert make a half-hearted attempt to score, which misses.

“Get your head in the game, Lambert,” Leo mutters under his breath, belying the rapt focus with which he’s once again pretending to read his book. “You need to win this one.”

The same can’t be said for Jasper. His head has fallen back, lips parted on soft, deep sleeping breaths.

The poor man is perpetually exhausted while his magical well is still healing, and I summon a fleece blanket to cover him. Only, the Arcanaeum sends a little extra magic into the spell, and it turns out patterned with tiny hearts and rainbows. Dakari notices, shooting me a silent questioning look, but I keep my eyes furiously focused on the screen.

Eddy chews her lip as she considers something. A second later she asks, “If the balls are named in Greek, does that mean?—”

Leo silences her with a hand. “No. Arcanists aren’t Greek. The balls used to be called dull, liminal, and arcanist, but the terms were derogatory because they inferred that only adepts were arcanists and that inepts were slow and worthless. Eventually they were renamed, though it took longer than it should—Oh, come on , Lambert!”

He thrusts both hands into his hair as the Winthrop heir misses what should’ve been an easy shot, sending the gamma straight into the hands of one of the opposing team’s reapers.

Leo’s right. What’s wrong with him today?

Galileo’s exasperation bleeds from every pore, and he snaps his book closed, casting a sharp look at me. Somehow, I’ve ended up on the edge of my seat with my hands poking through Lambert’s sleeves in strange places as I cover my mouth with my hands.

Shoot. I’m more invested than I thought.

“I’ll be back,” he mutters, heading for the nearest door, a plain brown one with a rusty handle—and knocking on it harshly. “UAA Arena.”

I’m so invested that I barely even notice his absence.

“You’d think a newcomer would be more interested in making friends.” Pierce crosses one ankle over the other as he stretches out.

North grunts. “I’m not interested in making friends with posh wankers like you.”

“I’m offering you an alliance, you half-dull idiot.”

“And I’m telling you to—What the fuck?”

North’s tone changes from hostile to incredulous, and I quickly realise why as he focuses on the scoreboard. The numbers, which were neck and neck, have been replaced by an illusion of me , cuddled in Lambert’s jumper, hands over my face.

It's an exact snapshot of me as I was when Leo left, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared.

“What is he doing ?” My tone is tight with mortification as the jacket drops from my form to the seat.

Eddy chuckles, and I momentarily debate banishing her. “Giving Lambert some inspiration.”

North must realise the same thing, because he switches focus to the pitch where Lambert’s eyes have been caught by the momentary illusion. His grin dials up three notches even as his skin morphs into granite to protect him from the lightning currently shooting from the gamma ball.

What happens next is pure dumb luck. I refuse to believe there’s any other explanation.

The gamma is teleporting all over the place. Any minute now, it’ll explode and send shrapnel across the court. Lambert dodges a strike, then leaps into the air in a flip that somehow lands with his heel colliding with the bronze orb.

“Show off,” Dakari grumbles, as the ball soars down over the net, exploding just as all six players on the opposing team dive for it.

The poor players get hot shrapnel to the face for their efforts, and the deafening siren that announces the match is over adds insult to injury.

“They won?” Eddy jumps up, clapping, and streamers in black and gold fall from the ceiling like glittery rain.

The Arcanaeum is celebrating.

The commotion finally wakes Jasper, who yawns and surveys the room with sleepy eyes before smiling at Eddy’s enthusiasm.

“Go team,” he mumbles, pushing himself upright.

The cheering is so deafening that Dakari heads over to the projector and mumbles an incantation to mute it. I offer him a thankful nod. There’s no point listening to them lauding Lambert, who’s currently disappeared under a pile of his teammates.

“Did he score yet?” Leo strides back into the room, resting his hands on the back of the sofa as he stares intently at the screen and then nods in satisfaction when he spots Lambert being hefted into the arms of his teammate, another dumb little finger heart aimed up in our direction, followed by pleading eyes with his palms flat together.

Magic only knows what that’s about.

“Good. I gave him enough motivation.”

I, however, am less than pleased.

“Why would you do that? Who knows how many people saw?—”

“Give me some credit,” Leo interrupts. “I waited until the alpha was invisible and Lambert was checking the board. It was up for two seconds, max.”

“Still, I have a reputation to protect. I’m the Librarian, not some lovesick girl wishing him luck from the stands.”

Leo raises a single, disbelieving brow and runs a hand through his curls. “Does the Librarian typically wear players’ jerseys and sulk over their mostly platonic interactions with other women?”

He did not …

Eddy sinks back onto the sofa and stuffs another mouthful of popcorn into her mouth with a shit-eating grin on her face before offering the bucket to Jasper, who declines.

I summon Leo’s card—which is so long that it’s been concertinaed into a thick wedge to prevent it trailing to the floor—into my hand, and Leo shakes his head. “Don’t be rash.”

Rash? Me?!

There’s a fraught second where everyone holds their breath, and I run through all the reasons why banishing him is a bad idea twice-over.

“You’re lucky the Arcanaeum likes you, or I’d banish you for the insult.” I dismiss the glowing card and settle back into the sofa cushions. “Don’t do that again.”

“He needed to score high in this game or the team might not make it to the finals.”

I refuse to dignify that—or his assumption that my approval mattered enough to motivate Lambert—with an answer.

My eyes flick back to North just in time to watch him turn to face Pierce, then the footage cuts off.

He must’ve taken off the necklace. Suspicion narrows my eyes, but Eddy disrupts my chain of thought as she bounces up onto her feet, abandoning her popcorn with a smile.

“That’s my sign to head to bed. Night guys.”

Then, like a whirlwind, she’s gone. Leaving me surrounded by Jasper, Dakari, and Leo. I should make some excuse or demand they follow Eddy, but I don’t.

“I should head home,” Leo eventually says, collecting his coat and book from the chair.

My expression falls carefully blank as my eyes flick to the clock. Almost time. Part of me wishes that I’d accepted Lambert’s offer, even though I know I did the right thing in turning him down. He’d probably try to hug me to comfort me or something else that would only end badly.

Impulse control is not his strong suit.

I barely notice Jasper collecting the heart-and-rainbow-covered blanket and saying his goodnights or Leo leaving through the same door he used earlier. When I finally escape my doomed thoughts, only Dakari remains.

“We’ve known each other a long time, haven’t we?” His question is soft.

My answering nod is more a jerk of my chin.

Sure, most of those interactions have been mercenary in their swiftness, exchanging books for money, but it counts.

“You shouldn’t have to go through this alone. You have friends now.”

My eyes flash to his black ones, widening in shock. Did he and Lambert talk about this, or is this something else?

Of all the men cluttering up my Arcanaeum, Dakari is the quietest, keeping his thoughts close to his chest, and yet I trust him almost implicitly.

He came to me as a scrawny, angry boy, but he’s grown into so much more. There’s safety in familiarity, and he’s made every effort not to touch me since he realised what would happen if he did.

It’s obvious that he expects me to say no. It’s written in every stiff line of his body as he stands there with his muscled arms folded over his chest.

“Stay.” I can’t help staring at my feet, the words quieter than a confession. “Please. I…I can’t do it on my own tonight. I trust you, and I just… I can’t .”

It’s embarrassing how needy I sound. How pathetic. But he offered, and I’m grabbing onto that lifeline, because enduring this is somehow heavier than it used to be when I had no friends and I was the Librarian, not Kyrith.

Dakari’s at my side in the next moment. His hands hover awkwardly between us like he might bring comfort and not catastrophe with his touch.

Cursing, he backs off. Probably for the best. Otherwise, I might do something stupid like lean into him.

“You trust me to go into the Vault?” he grinds out. “If you don’t, I’ll wait on the Gallery.”

I straighten my shoulders and draw my focus back to the clock—ten minutes to go.

“I was terrified of what you would think, of how you’d judge me. But you know . You’ve known for ages, and you’ve never treated me differently.”

“Why would I?”

Scoffing with scorn, I answer, “Because I was a stupid girl who thought she was special. I was vain and na?ve and?—”

“You were young.”

So much forgiveness and understanding in those three words. As if someone a mere thirty years of age can possibly understand the difference between youth and maturity. But he does, because Dakari has the wisdom of someone far older.

“Youth has a way of leaving you feeling invulnerable, even when you’re anything but. I should know. Some of the shit I pulled back in my teens… Yeah. We’re never going to talk about that.”

I straighten, brushing imaginary lint off my skirts. “I won’t be able to talk to you when I go down there, but whatever you see, whatever you hear, you can’t interfere.”

“I’ll behave.” Solemnity has taken over his expression, and I grimace as I realise it’s the expression he might’ve worn to my funeral, had I ever been afforded one.

“You can’t touch me or them. There’s nothing you can do. Anything you try will make it worse.”

It’s no easy thing to stand by while someone suffers. But his being there is helping, even if it doesn’t feel that way to him.

“I get it. I promise, I won’t do anything.”