His granite skin is cold and hard beneath my fingers, but I flicker back to a ghost not a half second later and the sensation is lost. I can’t feel the books anymore. Nor the shelves.
For a heartbeat, I’m completely numb.
When it’s over, all that remains is fear.
“Mathias said he’d break his curse, but he must’ve used him to break through the wards instead.”
“He did this,” Lambert surmises, and the three words drip with contempt.
I can’t focus on him. The trapdoor is open.
The tar in my veins becomes scorching, making me cry out. At the same time, a door flies open to my left. One last chance.
“Go!” I screech, forcing magic to my fingertips.
With a shove of my power, Lambert and Jasper are forced away from me, and through the portal.
“No!”
“Lass! Don’t?—”
It slams in their faces, cutting off their protests.
Safe. They’re safe.
Leo lets out a shallow groan. He’s waking up, though the dazed expression on his face says he’s still a little out of it. Pain turns my breath to shallow gasps as I stand there, staring mutely at the man who might have cost us everything.
This is new. I’ve never been able to feel as a ghost, but now…agony is racing from my heart, radiating out to my extremities like fire. I clench my jaw until it passes.
“Kyrie…” His eyes drift shut, delirium slurring his words. “I’m sorry.”
He’s sorry?Nowhe’s sorry? If not for him, this all might’ve been avoided. He handed the Arcanaeum to Mathias, and now?—
Agony wells again, but this time it’s partly my heart being suffocated in my chest that’s to blame.
“I will never forgive you for this,” I utter, catching myself against a reading chair as my body sways. “Nowleave. It’s not safe.”
Unfortunately, he’s in no state to go anywhere. Whatever Mathias did to him has left him pale and weak. Maybe it was necessary for whatever spell the lich used, or perhaps Leo had the guts to put up a fight. It doesn’t matter now.
Itry to open another door, to banish him like the others, but I can’t reach the Arcanaeum. I can’t feel anything in the building, nor the tiles beneath me.
No. I need to finish protecting the rest of the books. I need to save the Library.
Leo flops onto his back, the red of the runeform on his chest blindingly bright in the darkness. He makes a strangled noise, hands fluttering in the air above it.
Resignation shines in his panicked eyes as the scarlet glow consumes him entirely, then recedes. His ensorcellment must be hours away from triggering, but there’s nothing I can do. Even if all of this weren’t happening, I have no grimoire. The door Jasper and Lambert were forced through opens again, and Leo’s fingers claw at the floor as an unseen hand drags him through.
For a gleaming instant, the building and I are connected again, and I gasp under the strain as the Arcanaeum wastes precious resources to summon a book from the Restoration Tower. It flutters through the air after him, smacking him in the forehead as it chases him through the portal.
I don’t have time to question the Library about it. I’m too busy making use of this surge of magic to snatch the letters from my desk and send them after him as well. They soar through the door like paper aeroplanes.
I may not have the strength to protect the Library, but I may as well protect the heirs. Protect him and the innocent Ó Rinns. Even if he doesn’t deserve it.
Now. The books—Wait. Where’s the cat?
“Westley—”
The numbness returns, stealing my magic and all sense of the Arcanaeum from me. Shooting pain ricochets through my head, and something in my gut twists violently andyanks.
