As far as they’re concerned, I’m a manifestation of the building. Not a person.
Sometimes I wonder if they’re right.
Maybe it’s my fault for never giving them a reason to believe otherwise.
“Librarian.”
I jerk back, falling through the shelf behind me in shock.
Galileo is crouched on my left, and likely has been for some time, but I didn’t even notice. I’ve heard him speak once or twice, but not enough to recognise his voice. Gathering my composure, I float back through the bookcase so I’m standing beside him.
“Sorry, I—Yes? Did you need something, Mr Ó Rinn?”
He uncurls his body so he’s standing, and another spark of annoyance flares as I realise that he, too, looms over me.
What is it with arcanists and being so stupidly tall? I’ve half a mind to add low hanging beams to every room in the Arcanaeum. This close, I can pick out the deep ruby hints in the dark mass of his hair and the ice blue shards in his irises as he stares down at me.
He says nothing, simply stares and points a single finger at the ceiling.
One of my favourite features of this room is the ceiling. A magical mural of the celestial heavens above shows the exact positions of the stars at all times. But when I look up, there are no glimmers of light, only deep, mournful grey clouds.
Damn.
I wave a hand at the clouds, willing them to disappear, only to freeze as I hear familiar voices at the stairs.
“Up here’s where Galileo normally hangs,” Lambert explains. “It’s a bit of a useless room, really, but the ceiling is awesome.”
My spine stiffens further as North replies dryly, “It looks like it’s going to rain on us.”
“I doubt the boss lady would let that happen,” Lambert says confidently. “Even when she opens the botany room”—if I could, I’d grind my teeth together—“not a drop of rain gets on her precious books.”
He pauses, and I feel the wooden spiral staircase creak as they continue to climb. “No one else comes up here, and he basically lives in the Arcanaeum. If anyone besides the Librarian can find what your father wants?—”
“That man isnotmy father,” Northcliff grunts.
“If anyone can find what Ackland wants,” Lambert corrects himself. “Then it would be Leo.” He shortens the quiet arcanist’s name to just the last syllable—Lay-oh—with an easy familiarity that makes me bristle.
I cannot be expected to bear this twice in one day. Without waiting for them to appear and spot me, I will myself into non-existence.
To anyone watching, I vanish, but in reality, I’m still here, just…part of the furniture. Literally. I allow my awareness to seep into the Arcanaeum, and my ghostly form ceases to exist.
Sometimes this feels like resting—the closest I can get to sleep—but not now. Now it feels like spying.
I’m fine with that.
While I can’t bring myself to talk to either of them again, I can’t just allow them to wander around now that I know that they’re working for Ackland.
The two of them finally round the bookcase, spotting Ó Rinn hovering awkwardly by my messy pile of index cards.
“North, this is Galileo Ó Rinn,” Lambert introduces, slapping him on the back. “Leo, this is Northcliff Ackland.”
“North,” Ackland corrects.
Galileo is frozen in place, and his eyes widen as he finds himself caught off guard. “I haven’t met you before.”
It takes a while for me to get over savouring the rough edges of his accent—a tribute to his family’s ancestral home in Whiteabbey—and focus on the words themselves. He and North don’t know one another? In our world, that’s a rarity, especially given how powerful they are.
“He’s a liminal,” Lambert explains. “Josef’s half-dull bastard. Old Ackland took him in out of desperation.”
