“Ad Arcanaeum!” Anthea’s voice echoes through the room. “Sanctuary!Ad Arc?—”
It’s a trick. It’s got to be.
The wards are holding. The Library is locked down. There’s no reason for the skitter of worry across my nape.
The books rustle soothingly, and I drop my fingers to the carpet, using the soft pile to ground myself.
Still, I cast my attention through the Arcanaeum, checking for anything amiss. Lambert is jogging along the upper floors, working out the frustration from being benched from the next magiball games. North is throwing magic around in the Solarium and calling it practice, and Jasper is reading in the Restoration Tower.
All normal. All fine. Except… “Where’s Eddy?”
She was supposed to be resting after her headache from yesterday turned into a migraine, but now I can’t feel her anywhere.
Cold panic laces up my spine, and I pop into existence right in the middle of her room.
Her bed is neat—no sign that she’s even slept in it recently. The turned-down quilt is a lone bastion of order in her untidy room.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her make the bed.
No one has left the Arcanaeum since Dakari and Pierce went to that dinner. Yet, she’s not here.
That either requires spellwork far beyond her capability, or…
I pop into being beside North, only to duck as a blade of ice cuts through the space between us. He’s been practising hard. The mats on the floor are covered in puddles, but I’m too nervous to appreciate his progress.
North’s golden eyes widen as he takes me in. “What is it?”
I search the Solarium but find nothing. “Have you seen Eddy?”
His face falls. “Eddy? She’s in her room. She texted to say she was sleeping off hermigraine.”
“She’s not there. I can’t sense her anywhere in the building.”
“Could she have…left?”
“No I—” I stumble, my knees giving out as a pulse of magic shivers through the fabric of the Arcanaeum. It knocks me out of my ghost form, then back into it.
“Kyrith?” North drops to his haunches, apparently unaffected.
I reach for the building again, but all I get in return is static. The glass around us trembles. The mats on the floor rearrange themselves, spelling a single word.
‘FLEE.’
A burst of clarity hits a second later, only to vanish.
Someone—no,something—is in the vault. The presence is faint, and I’m not sure it’s even human. There’s no heartbeat. No breath. Just…a presence.
No.
Panic cuts into me, then fades. I’m forced between states.
“Something is wrong. The wards?—”
I claw my way back to my physical form, but it hurts. Stars, ithurts.
“Where’s my sister?” North demands as I grab his hand and drag him towards the stained-glass door.
He’s vital for the survival of Ackland House.
