Chapter 7

Seven

Kyrith

H e’s early, bouncing on the threshold like an excited puppy. His grimoire, holstered at his hip, is tapping against his thigh with each rock from heel to toe, and his blonde hair is half up, with tiny braids littered in it like a Viking of old. I almost reveal myself, but stop when I catch sight of a second, slighter figure behind him.

“I didn’t agree to tutoring anyone else,” I say, and the words echo menacingly across the hall.

Lambert opens his mouth, but Galileo steps forward, a tome held up in offering and his face set in careful impassive lines. “I brought a new book for the Arcanaeum. One that isn’t in the catalogue already.”

That stops my anger in my tracks, and the pages of the books on the shelves rustle in interest. Without meaning to, I appear before them both, keeping careful distance between us as I inspect it.

“Are you bribing me?”

“Is it working?” Lambert asks, raising one brow.

Maybe. It depends what the book is. I hold out a hand wordlessly for the tome, grimacing at the amount of foxing on the pages as I levitate it in front of me.

“ Early Arcanist Efforts to Divine the Future ,” I murmur, translating the Latin title as I flip over the embossed cover. “An original hand illustrated edition… Where did you get this?”

This tome must be as old as I am, if not older. An impressive feat.

Galileo shrugs like it’s nothing. “It was on the shelf at home.”

My jaw locks at the casual reminder of the ó Rinn family’s wealth and their lack of care for precious tomes. I’m tempted to accept just to protect the poor book. Even without bonding it to the library, I can tell that a few of the pages are missing. The poor broken spine calls to me like a wounded child.

“Once I accept this, there is no taking it back,” I warn. “The Arcanaeum will always draw it home, even if you try to remove it.”

Already, it’s itching to begin making a translation for the collection. The original Latin script will be completely useless to most modern scholars.

He nods once. “Understood.”

The building doesn’t hesitate, snatching the book from my hands like an eager child.

I’m well aware I’ve just been successfully bribed to accept not just one dangerous arcanist but two into my Arcanaeum during the private hours I typically guard zealously. This is a mistake , some tiny voice in the back of my mind hisses.

Most days, I listen to that voice.

Unfortunately, today is not one of those days.

“Follow me.” I wish they’d take the weariness in my voice as a hint and leave. No such luck.

The building has allowed them entry via a pastel blue arched door that just happens to be perilously close to the stairs to the parapet and my clock tower. I don’t trust that one bit. So I lead them away from the Shrouded Hall, down to a cosy corner of the Ruinous Hall. The books here focus on destruction, but this study nook is one of my favourites.

“Sweet.” Lambert throws himself onto one of the chairs on the far side of the table, flicks open the leather straps at his hip, then drops his grimoire onto the table with a careless, dull thud.

It’s a deep saffron orange with a heavy dark buckle strapped around it to hold the many scraps poking out from between the pages in place.

“Right. Where are we starting?”

“Where are you struggling?” I reply, evenly.

“He failed every exam last year,” Galileo answers for him, perching smoothly on the edge of the table.

“Shut up.” There’s no heat in Lambert’s answering rude hand gesture. “We can’t all have doctorates, you know.”

“It’s an inept qualification. It barely counts.” Galileo opens the satchel at his hip and withdraws the textbook from before. “Lambert hates alchemy. He banjaxed three alembics last term alone.”

Note to self, supervise Winthrop constantly.

Lambert elbows him. “Hey, stop making out like I’m an idiot. I can boil plants and things. I’m good at crushing and mixing and stirring. It’s just like baking. I’m just shit at…” He shrugs. “Everything magical about it.”

Perhaps I have bitten off more than I can chew here.

“Well, we’ll start with memorising the basic plants.” I summon books from their shelves as I think, cocking my head when the Arcanaeum adds more of its own suggestions. “Then we’ll build up to creating the necessary spells in your grimoire.”

Lambert groans, and I raise one eyebrow. He hastily fixes his expression.

“I mean, yes! Let’s do it! I can’t wait to learn every plant in the book.” His enthusiasm, even clearly fake, is amusing, and my lower lip quirks.

Galileo rolls his eyes. “Fortunately for us all, you only need to know the one hundred plants in the syllabus.” He taps a tidy pile of papers.

I raise a brow. “Why limit the pursuit of knowledge?”

“I’m more concerned with his limited capacity to focus on anything other than tits and magiball,” Galileo replies dryly.

“That’s unfair!” Lambert protests.

Unfortunately, Galileo’s words are quickly proven true. Not only is Lambert an intolerable fidget, but he’s terribly distracted. More than once, I’m certain I catch him staring at the front of my bodice, at the point where my breasts are clasped together by my stays and exposed by the low neckline of the dress.

It doesn’t bother me. Though square necklines have fallen out of fashion in recent decades, in my time, showing this much of one’s decolletage was common.

However, I’m surprised he noticed. Is it because he still sees me as a person, or because he’s simply so horny that even my being a ghost doesn’t put him off? Probably the latter, even as I silently crave the former. Surely, if he was merely looking to fuck anyone, he’d seek out Larissa or Maddy. They seemed willing, and who wouldn’t be?

Lambert is a golden, laughing god, wrought from the fantasies of Raphael himself. You’d have to be a nun to ignore it, and I’m certainly not.

In life, I was no stranger to the decadent feel of a man between my thighs, and the intimacy of a lover’s caress. I missed both so much over my first decade of death that, eventually, it was safer to simply crush any kernel of desire just to stay sane. Yet here he is, reminding me.

I drag myself out of my musings to find his cheek resting heavily on one hand, as he leans over his book. His eyes still keep straying south of my collarbones every few minutes. Honestly, if I thought it would make him work faster, I’d unlace my stays and flash him.

“Lambert.” I snap my ghostly fingers in front of his face soundlessly. “Come on, you were telling me the properties of gorse flowers?—”

“Wait… I thought we were still on chicory?”

I almost drop through the floor. “That was eight plants ago!”

My failure as a tutor sinks deep into my ethereal bones. It’s my strongest belief that all people possess an aptitude for learning, if given the information in a way they can process. Unfortunately, that puts the onus on me to find a way to teach him this material.

“We’re going about this the wrong way,” I say, gliding away from him and then back. “This is enough for one evening. When you return, I will have a solution.”

“Tomorrow?” Lambert asks, back to bouncing now that the prospect of freedom is so close.

If only he had the enthusiasm for study that he seems to possess for almost everything else.

“Tomorrow.” I pause, looking over at Galileo. “You never said what you were here for. You don’t seem to struggle with Alchemy.”

He tilts his head enigmatically. “Lambert needs the help more than I do. Once he’s not at risk of expulsion, you can help me.”

His glacier blue eyes flick pointedly to my arm, which I must’ve forgotten to conceal at some point during the evening thanks to my frustration with Lambert. He’s always lowering my guard. It makes him more dangerous than Northcliff.

“Do I need to be concerned?” His smooth voice is soft, but there’s a thread of steely authority hidden beneath it that raises my hackles.

“I don’t see why you would be.” My defensive reply earns me an arched brow.

“Don’t play stupid, Librarian. It’s beneath you. As heirs to the parriarchy, the well-being of the Arcanaeum and its keeper are important to us.”

Heirs to the parriarchy? Both of them? The entire building seems to constrict, then sink a little heavier into the ground.

The hollow laugh that escapes me makes the corners of his eyes narrow. “Oh, yes, I imagine the parriarchs would just hate if I disappeared for good. It would be terrible for them.”

Still, my spine stiffens, and I sidle backwards incrementally, only to stop myself.

No. I refuse. I have had parriarchs in this Arcanaeum before. They have no power over me anymore.

Yet, when he looks at me, I feel like prey. Wounded prey. Staring down the eyes of a deadly falcon.

Sighing, I wave them towards the closest door, a narrow stained one with a crooked top, set randomly into a bookcase. “Until tomorrow.”

Lambert steps forward, arms rising as his megawatt grin levels with me. I dodge at the last second, flicking my fingers to thwack him on his cute ass with a book.

“We agreed. No. More. Hugging.” Especially from an heir. It seemed harmless before, but now I can’t help but wonder if it’s a trap. If he knows, somehow, that he’s the key to my ruination.

“Sorry, boss!” He blows me a kiss as he heads for the door. “I’ll bring my A-game tomorrow, I promise. We got this!”

I cover my eyes with my hands, only removing them when the door slams closed behind him. Finally, they’re gone. Now I can?—

Galileo is still here. His quiet, observant presence startles me.

Meeting his gaze evenly, I try to ignore the urge to hide. Parriarch heir or not, I’m in control here. This is my Arcanaeum.

So why are his piercing ice-shard eyes making me feel so… exposed?

“Good night, Mr ó Rinn.”

He shrugs his satchel over his shoulder and takes a last look at the study nook. “Goodnight, Librarian.”

Knocking on the door, he murmurs something too low to hear, and then steps through. I barely manage to catch a glimpse of the mist-drenched street beyond before it slams shut behind him.

“I don’t understand that man,” I whisper to the shelves, and they rustle in answer. “What does he want?”

But no one answers me.