Her body slumps to the ground at our feet.
No. No. She can’t be dead. That’s not?—
It’s not Eddy.
The illusion covering her peels away, revealing someone else entirely. An old woman, already decomposing beneath an unmistakable pink and yellow cardigan.
A revenant.
Mathias must’ve used this corpse to spy on us.
But how did he fool the Arcanaeum?
I struggle with the question until my gaze lands on her hip, where a familiar scarlet grimoire is holstered. Clever. The Library identifies people by magical signature, and anarcanist’s spellbook is loaded with their power. That book, along with the hundreds of scarlet runeforms carved across her skin, would’ve done the trick.
Was the poor woman dead before he carved her up like that? One can only hope. The wounds have wept blood across the fabric of her clothes.
We never watched ourselves around her. Why would we? She was Eddy.
So where is North’s twin? How long has she been gone?
“I can see you trying to work it out.” Mathias shakes his head. “But you see, dear Edlynn has been under my command, in one way or another, for some time now. If you hadn’t been playing house with all of those dashing young men, you might’ve noticed.”
“Where is she?” I grate out, hands fisting against the stone. “Let her go. She’s nothing to you.”
Mathias shrugs. “The good thing about worthless liminals is that they make wonderful sacrifices.”
I want to throw up, a feeling that only redoubles as he crouches down to my level and pinches my chin between his fingers. Our eyes meet, and his narrow, like he’s searching for something.
“You know, I always wondered what it was about you that allowed the ritual to go awry. Now, I’ll never know. A pity, really.”
“Is this really necessary?” Pierce drawls. “She’s beaten. You have the Library. You may as well keep her as an assistant or something.”
Mathias drops my chin, but I can’t raise my head. It’s too heavy. The best I can manage is to roll it to one side to meet Pierce’s dispassionate stare.
His mother’s hand leaves his shoulder, landing in the pages of her own hovering grimoire.
“Ingaesh,” she growls.
Pierce’s spine goes ramrod straight, his eyes watering under the torture spell. His jaw is clenched, but he doesn’t make a sound. How is he still standing? He doesn’t even look surprised.
“Forgive my son’s impertinence,” Isidora says. “He’s apparently lost his manners while he was gallivanting around with the half-dull heirs.”
Mathias’s congenial smile returns. “It’s perfectly all right. I don’t mind answering him.”
The lich points the blade at me, then raises the tip. I’m forced up like a puppet, the agony increasing tenfold.
“Liminals need to be put in their place, or they get ideas above their station. Did you like playing at being something better than you were, Kyrith? Five hundred years of pretending someone like you could be worthy of shepherding this great repository of knowledge?”
I try to open my mouth, reaching once again for power that should be there, only to be rebuffed.
I’m paralysed.
“No, you won’t be doing that,” Mathias chides. “We’re here to correct a mistake, you see.”
He turns the tip of the blade to point at the altar, and my body glides along the same path.
No. Not again. Not like this.
