Hopkinson freezes, eyes lighting up. “It isn’t?”
“No. It isn’t.” My eyes flicker over to North, only to recoil when I find him staring at me. “Continue, magister. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, please do! This is fascinating.”
“Hopkinson’s got a hard-on for the Librarian,” someone mutters on the far side of the room.
Without thinking, I summon her card to my hand, tutting when I see a strike there already.
“Librarian, please,” Hopkinson interjects. “And, Maddy, that isquiteenough. Do you not realise the learning potential we have here? The Librarian is a primary source.”
“Whatisthe criteria for entry then?” North asks. “If it’s not bloodlines.”
Sighing as I allow Maddy’s card to dissipate, I stare him in the eye and answer as evenly as I can. “The Arcanaeum judges an arcanist by their worth. Not practising necromancy is a good start, as your family appears to have finally discovered.”
His hand fists on the table, but Lambert cuts in, defending him, “That’s just a rumour.”
I have to remind myself that laughing at him would be unprofessional, even if the evidence of those ‘rumours’ is right in front of him.
“Anyway,” Hopkinson continues. “The library was built alongside the university?—”
“It was built before the university,” I correct. “After the purges. It was intended as a stronghold in case history repeated itself and arcandom was under threat again. The university was established later, as a safe place to educate the recovering population.”
Hopkinson is enthralled, but I honestly can’t believe he’s getting so much of the history of the Arcanaeum wrong. How many generations have been misinformed like this when the answers are right here in the history section? The lack of critical thinking in modern academia is painful.
In response to my thoughts, the Arcanaeum perks up, creating a display of relevant texts in the foyer.
“Fascinating. And at what point did you become Librarian, if I might ask?” Hopkinson says. “Were you created with the building? Or installed later on?”
If I had breath, it would hiss between my teeth at the assumption that I was some magically conjured creature to be installed like a light fixture. But the foundations of the building sag a little as I realise that he genuinely doesn’t know. None of them do.
Even Galileo, who must’ve read a good portion of the collection in the relatively short time since he became a patron, is waiting expectantly for my answer.
They’ve never known an Arcanaeum without a Librarian, and I can hardly imagine Rector Carlton and the others were quickto admit to sacrificing a young woman, and the true reason why they ‘lost’ their precious repository.
“I was born in the year 1486,” I reply evenly. “A liminal with no idea of her arcanist parentage until I was found by a divinator. In those days, your numbers were so low that those with ‘incredible magical potential’ were sought out and inducted into the University to prevent inbreeding.”
“You were human?” Trust Lambert to blurt out the obvious. He twists on his pouffe, trapping me in an earnest blue-green stare.
“Once,” I admit, softly. “But that is all I will say on the matter.”
“If you were human, what’s your name?” he presses, seemingly forgetting that there’s an entire class surrounding us. “I bet it’s something pretty.”
“Lambert, that’s hardly appropriate,” Hopkinson stutters. “Anyway, as fascinating as this really is, we should move on. Now, the first arcanists who were readmitted were liminals…”
I break the eye contact, fixing my gaze on the projector again. Hopkinson doesn’t know—can’t possibly understand—that the reason I’ve frozen isn’t because of some perceived insult, but rather because for the first time in hundreds of years…someonecares.
And it’sLambert, of all people.
“If she was born in 1486,” North grumbles, interrupting Hopkinson’s next slide—a copy of a letter detailing a firsthand account of one of my early patrons. “That made her old enough to be a student here at the time the building disappeared.”
So, for all his muscles, he can do basic maths. Should I give him a sticker? I glance at him—mistake—and his golden gaze pins me in place until I look back at the board.
Hopkinson is stalling, fiddling with his beard, clearly torn. For all that he’s meant to be teaching this class, I’m almostcertain he would rather be sitting on a cushion with the other students, allowing me to take over.
A self-righteous part of me wants to do just that—to teach them exactly what the rector and the magisters chose to hide from their histories—and yet…
If they know the Arcanaeum is the product of forbidden magic, many arcanists would argue for the building’s destruction. Formydestruction.
