Chapter 8

Eight

Kyrith

I spend the entirety of the next day thinking about those final moments with Galileo, cursing when I catch myself, then forcing my thoughts back to finding a solution for Lambert.

Cradling the syllabus like a sacred scripture, I wander between shelves in the Botanical Hall as if the books there will miraculously shout an answer if I stay long enough, then give up and merge into the Arcanaeum.

Perhaps drifting will solve the problem.

Wrong. All it does is give me more time to obsess over the intense stares of the heirs. That title, as much as I hate it, is another piece of the puzzle that is the nature of their friendship. I have no doubt that North—as the first Ackland to enter the Arcanaeum—is currently on Josef’s shortlist for a successor.

Three heirs, playing at alliances already.

A united group of parriarchs is a dangerous thing. In recent years, they’ve been squabbling amongst themselves, but if that changes…

By the time Lambert and Galileo return, my paranoia has grown until I imagine the sensation of ice running down the length of my spine.

This time, the Arcanaeum summons them through a door in the biography section and I sigh as I realise someone has put the books back wrong again. Honestly, if they’re too lazy to put them back correctly, why not just leave them on one of the carts so they can be sorted properly?

Grumbling, because I’ve been having the same silent moan for literally the last five hundred years, I straighten my spine and face down the arcanists striding casually through the round green door.

“Boss!” Lambert calls. “I’m back!”

Oh, magic, he looks too enthusiastic. I can just sense another hug coming my way. At least Galileo, trailing behind him, is more subdued.

“I even brought you something!” he adds, brandishing a book at me with a flourish.

Paranoia? What paranoia? His smile and the eager way he hands me the publication disarms me all over again.

Frowning, I take it and flip it until I can read the cover. It’s a thin book, with one of those matte covers that are so prone to peeling. The lettering on the spine is misaligned in a way that’s making my eye twitchy.

Modern printing, I shudder.

“ A History of Magiball in a Hundred Great Players ?” My eyebrows inch higher as I read the title aloud.

The Arcanaeum has no standards and gleefully ruffles through the glossy pages, accepting it into the collection despite my protests. Looking at the shirtless player on the front wearing only white shorts emblazoned with his surname along the side seams, I realise yet again how much the world has changed. The floating metal balls buzzing around him are the same, but different. Alongside him are other pictures, clearly taken across the years as they progress backwards to black and white and then to sketches.

In my day, they wore loose undershirts covering them from wrist to neck. Grimacing, I catch sight of a small photograph of an oil painting in the corner… I think that might be from my era. Magic, why does everything about them make me feel so old ?

“ Risturi ,” I mumble, letting the Arcanaeum’s magic repair the cracks in the spine.

Lambert has probably learnt more about history from this well-read magazine than he has from Hopkinson’s class.

And that’s when it hits me.

The reason I can’t teach Lambert about alchemy is because he has no interest. The only reason he cares at all is because he needs to pass this year. Magiball is clearly what motivates him. So, to make alchemy interesting, I need to somehow relate it to that damned suicidal sport.

My jaw drops.

“Most people say thank you.” Lambert smirks, reaching forward as if to shut my mouth.

I dodge. Barely.

“No touching!” My voice is snappy, and if it wasn’t already silent, my heart would’ve stopped.

“You float through patrons all the time.” Damn Galileo for noticing.

I ignore him and turn. Even without my predicament, Lambert could do with learning a few things about boundaries. “Come. I’ve had an idea.”

Holding my hand—the uncracked one—out, I summon a new book from the depths of the biography section, then another before floating them across the space between Lambert and me.

“ Anna Carlton and the Birth of Alchemy-centric Magiball Strategy ?” Lambert’s tone turns awed towards the end of the title. “ Alchemical Bombs and Their Role in Magiball Sabotage Plays. ”

“You don’t want to be a magister,” I mutter under my breath. “You just want your name on that stupid cup. So why should I bother trying to teach you academically? Come.”

“What Lambert wants is immaterial.” Galileo lengthens his stride to catch up with me. “He’s the strongest Winthrop alive today. He will become a parriarch. Therefore, he must become a magister.”

And to do that, he needs to master an advanced school, on top of the foundation schools. It’s a difficult path, full of the rigorous tests that academia so delights in. I can’t see it, and when I glance at the blond, bouncing nightmare, there’s a hint of tension at the corners of his eyes.

“There are many paths to enlightenment.” I sweep over the edge of the gallery, floating down to the ground floor of Botanical Hall. I expected them to take the stairs, giving me a moment to collect my thoughts, but Lambert doesn’t. He leaps the distance with a flip, landing solidly on the parquet flooring.

Only it’s not as solid as it was a second ago. Somewhere in the nanosecond between him hopping the banister and tumbling to break his fool neck, the Arcanaeum transforms solid wood into something spongy.

Lambert bounces, soaring back into the air with a joyous shout. Magic, if he goes any higher, he’ll knock himself out on the hammer beams.

“Fuck yes!” he crows, the sound echoing loudly until my fingers twitch with the urge to banish him for causing a ruckus.

The shelves rattle and creak with laughter, but I tug at them in reprimand. Biting my lip, I suppress a wince as the idiot narrowly misses tangling himself in the befuddling ferns hanging over the edge of a pot suspended from the ceiling.

Okay, that settles it. The last thing I need is him wandering aimlessly around the shelves in a state of confusion for the next several hours.

Drifting to a corner, I yank hard on the fabric of the building. The floor absorbs him on his next landing, swallowing him up entirely before it springs back, solid, with a grinning, messy-haired arcanist splayed out in the middle. Then, as an afterthought, the banister above peels away, forming a set of improvised steps for Galileo to descend and join us.

“That was epic.” Lambert rolls his weight onto his shoulders, then springs back to his feet in a practised motion. “Can you do that all the time? Imagine how much better the place would be as a trampoline hall?—”

I summon his card into my hand, and his mouth snaps shut.

“I mean, there’s no way you could possibly improve the Arcanaeum, boss lady. It’s the best building in the world.”

His puppy eyes are seriously unfair. The card disappears, strikeless.

I’m getting soft.

“Pick something from the book you think would help you on the court.” I wave him towards the corner alcove I set up for tonight, clearing away everything on the table except the syllabus. “From memory, there are at least three bombs and a handful of elixirs that contain herbs from your required learning.”

Lambert spreads open the first book, cracking the spine without care, and I swear Galileo and I both stiffen in actual pain at his carelessness.

“Oh my god,” he grins, oblivious. “This one!”

Frowning, because he’s only looked at one page, I float over his shoulder and sigh at the recipe for acidic immobilisation bombs.

The damage he could do to his opponents with that one makes the pens on my desk roll around with anticipatory remorse. Not only do magiball players have to concentrate on the three heavily enchanted and deadly balls, sabotaging the opposite team is highly encouraged and apparently part of the fun.

“Oh.” This is…complex. “Perhaps you should start with something simpler. Besides, there’s only one herb from the syllabus in this bomb.”

“Nope.” He pops the ‘p’. “Can you imagine the looks on their faces when they’re stuck to the floor, feet burning, and can’t even jump? I want to learn this one.”

The savage glint in his eyes makes me wish I hadn’t suggested anything.

“We can start making it today.” It’ll take longer to brew, however. “The Arcanaeum has most of the ingredients growing either in this hall or in the gardens.”

“Gardens?” Galileo’s head snaps towards me. “What gardens?”

I swallow, cursing myself for the slip. This is why I don’t talk to patrons. Some things should remain private.

“They’re not for public use. You would both do well to forget you ever heard about them.”

If I had arcanists begging me to raid the Arcanaeum’s gardens, there would be nothing left. As it is, I’ve had to strike more than one entitled idiot who thought to prune a few leaves from the plants in the Botanical Hall.

Don’t take what doesn’t belong to you. Why is that so hard to understand? Besides, the mist in the gardens might not hurt the plants, but arcanists who come into contact with it for long periods of time tend to fare badly.

“Are there more places like that?” Galileo presses, apparently not about to let the subject drop. “Places scholars can’t go beyond the restricted section for magisters?”

There it is, a crack in his calm, studious demeanour. Almost…desperate. In my life—or unlife—I’ve come to learn that there are few things as dangerous as a desperate man.

For the first time, I summon his card into my hand.

He shuts down, forcing himself to relax back into his seat with a stiffness that fools no one. “Apologies, Librarian. I was merely curious.”

“Hey, boss. Why does this call for ‘lion’s tooth’?”

Lambert’s innocent question distracts me, ending the staring contest that we’re stuck in.

“It’s a plant,” I say. “An old name for a dandelion.”

“Oh, good. I didn’t want to hurt a defenceless animal.”

Magic, please tell me he wasn’t considering wrestling an actual lion?

Galileo raises a brow. “Yet here we are, learning to construct a bomb that might cause a magiball player to lose their life.”

Lambert shrugs. “The game is vicious, but we choose to take the risk. The lion didn’t. Besides, anything’s worth it for the greatest game on Earth.” His mouth splits into one of those sun-bright smiles. “I’m going to rule the court with these things on my belt.”

“Stay here.” I sigh, dismissing his cocky optimism. “I’ll return with what you need.”

In the space of a second, I pop into the western courtyard. When I return with a bunch of carefully gathered herbs floating above my cupped palms, they’ve got their heads together, whispering.

“You can’t just demand to go everywhere. This is her home, dude.” Lambert is rapidly growing in my estimations. “Besides, you’re pushing too far, too fast. She has no reason to help you.”

“Help him with what?” I ask, depositing my bundle on the desk gently and stepping back.

Galileo shakes his head instead of answering, so I drop the matter for now.

“Come.” I wave a hand at two shelves, and they part, revealing a basic alembic and a retort stand, along with shelves loaded with casings and vials. “Will this be sufficient?”

Lambert cocks his head. “Wow, this stuff is ancient.” Galileo elbows him this time. “I mean, yep, boss. If I can learn with this, I can definitely manage it in the alchemy classrooms.”

I tug at my sleeve and pace. “I’m not outdated.”

“Not at all… But… Where’s the induction plate? How are we supposed to heat it?”

Induction what ? “Surely you have scraps for heat?”

Galileo snorts. “Lambert only has scraps for magiball.”

My groan echoes down the hall. “You didn’t?—”

“Well…no. Most labs have plumbing and electricity.”

Electricity again . My head rolls back. “I really need to modernise… I shouldn’t be surprised how much arcanists have come to rely on inept technologies, but somehow, I always am.”

I summon a pile of palm-sized papers to the table and wave a pen across them, drawing the runeforms for heat in neat swift strokes.

“You can start chopping your ingredients,” I say absently, smoothing my skirts as I step back. “Next time, bring your own scraps.”

Lambert is already staring at the one I’ve presented him like it’s some puzzle he can’t work out. The Arcanaeum, perhaps sensing my misgivings, provides assistance in the form of protection, and Lambert drops the scrap as the frilly green apron wraps itself around his body, followed by a pair of matching heat-proof mittens.

He raises a brow at me, and I swallow, unsure how I can possibly pass this off as my own doing. Aside from the incident with Dakari, the library rarely outs itself as sentient, allowing the arcanists to believe I’m the one entirely in control. I think we both prefer it that way.

“Safety first,” I eventually mutter.

Lambert grins and whoops. “She cares!”

“It’s common sense!” I stutter, backing away because it looks like he’s—yup. I float into the bookcase to avoid the hug. “No. Hugging!”