“He shouldn’t be alive.” I just can’t get my head around it. “It’s been five hundred years.” Already I’m whirring through the possibilities. Without meaning to, I stand, pacing away from Jasper, then back. “He knows more about the Arcanaeum than anyone else. He’s a master necromancer.”
And the Library…isn’t shocked. It reacted to my fear by locking the doors, yes, but there’s a wary resignation to the way the books shuffle on the shelves.
“His grimoire was never in the Vault…” I whisper.
The Arcanaeum must’ve suspected something was amiss and wanted proof. If Dakari had found it, then it would’veconfirmed Mathias’s death. Josef demanded North search for it…which means he likely suspected the same thing.
Was that why he was killed? Was he complicit, like the Carltons? Or was he out of the loop?
Who has that book? Mathias himself? I glance at the blank screen, almost wishing the projector would repair itself so I can answer that pressing question.
And Pierce…
What’s his place in all of this? Why show us this? Is it a play against his mother? A bid to take her place as parriarch? Or a calculated move to ingratiate himself with me? What about Benny?
“Kyrie,” Leo snaps, putting himself bodily before me. “What’s going on?”
“Shh,” I say, stepping around him. “I’m thinking.”
Mathias is alive. Mathias has been alive for five hundred years—presumably—which begs the question, what has he been doing all this time? Why ally with the Carltons now, and how long have they been working together?
And why did it take the Arcanaeum so long to suspect something?
A pair of arms wrap around me, dragging me back to physical form. I didn’t even realise I’d fallen out of it again. Lambert’s hug is bone-crushing, and I blink up at him.
“It’s okay if you’re scared, boss. We won’t let him anywhere near you.”
Those two sentences, said with such earnest kindness, ground me. I will never admit to it, but for a second, I feel…safe.
Which is, of course, ridiculous. Lambert Winthrop may be good at magiball, but he wouldn’t stand a chance against the magister. None of them would.
I bite my lip and soak in the illusion a little longer, though. Just because.
“Mathias Ackland is alive,” Leo says. “And he’s chosen to ally himself with the Carltons? What for?”
I don’t know. Worse, I don’t know who I can trust. Any one of the six families could be working for him. Isidora mentioned Abe Talcott, the rector. If Mathias has the ear of the leader of our people, this could be worse than I feared.
What options do I have?
Close the Arcanaeum. Hide.A tiny inner voice insists, but I banish it.
“I need to speak to Pierce,” I say, instead of speaking my fears aloud. “It’s clear that I’ve been blind to this for too long. I believed he had died ages ago.”
Whatever my feelings about the Carlton heir, he chose to show us this. Discussing it with him might grant me some insight into his motives.
Jasper’s low moan pulls me from Lambert’s embrace, and I crouch beside him, murmuring a divination spell under my breath that reveals nothing.
In this instance, that’s a good thing. No trace of magic is left on him. He’ll probably have an awful headache, but he should recover.
His eyelids flutter, reality returning slowly as his hands battle the blanket, coming up to cradle his temples.
“Aww…fuck,” he groans.
“Slowly,” I caution, as his brows scrunch together. “Ten years of memories are about to flood you. It will go easier if you relax.”
Despite the sternness of my tone, I don’t expect him to do as I ask. Older and wiser arcanists have struggled with the onslaught. I’ve read that it feels like your brain swelling inside your skull—a frightening thought for anyone.
And yet Jasper just nods once, reaching out and grabbing for…my hand? His fingers thread with mine as the corners of his eyes crinkle even more, and he grunts. Without thinking too hard about it, I reach out like I have so many times with my magic, pushing those unruly strands of his hair out of his face, only to freeze when he leans into my fingers.
