I gulp more coffee instead, wishing it were stronger.
If I look at him, he’ll read the strain in my gaze. My mother’s spellwork is strong, and she always adds an exhaustion ensorcellment at the end. So, not only am I battered and healing, but the process is harder than it should be because I can’t even sleep.
Hopefully, it will wear off by the end of the day.
My grandfather stops unexpectedly, and I almost crash into him. It’s a calculated move, one that forces me to look up to check his expression for signs that he’s okay.
Instead, I catch his mouth going slack in dismay.
“I know you didn’t want me to ask you again,” he says. “But you only need to say the word, and I?—”
“We should be talking about Kyrith.”
If he offers to get me out of that house one more time, I might break down and agree. My position as a spy is useful—critical, even—but stars, I’m so close to snapping.
I won’t quit while I can still be helpful, but privately, I wonder how much more I can take.
There’s a beat where the force of his concerned stare drills into me, before he resumes walking. “I’m glad you’re on a first-name basis with the Librarian. How are your tutoring sessions going? Are you enjoying them?”
“She’s insufferable,” I blurt without thinking. “Iwent to all of that trouble to show her what we’re up against, and the next day, she just continued on like nothing had changed. Then, when I confronted her about it, she brushed off the matter like she was unconcerned. She started questioningmymotives.”
“You think she's short-sighted?”
“I think she’s smug and overconfident,” I correct, rolling my left shoulder to ease the spiking pain running through it. “She thinks because she banished Mathias that she’s safe, and she can just leave the rest of us to?—”
“I highly doubt that. The Librarian is a doyenne of arcanist history. She recognised the threat for what it was and chose the next logical step.” He waves a hand between the two of us. “Alliances.”
My mouth twists as I consider it, then dismiss the notion. He didn’t see how calm and unruffled she was. Nothing about her seemed threatened.
“She needs us,” Benny continues. “We have something she doesn’t.”
Knowledge. An inside eye. Not that I can reveal much.
My mother trusts me, but after hearing that I swore a covenant to the Librarian, that faith is fragile. I’d be surprised if she weren’t considering demanding the same of both of her children. The second she so much as catches a whiff of disobedience, she’ll stomp it out.
“We’ve done more to thwart him in the last five years than she has in the last five hundred,” I add.
“Your frustration is understandable, but she didn’t know he still walked the earth until you stole that pendant and showed her.”
“She’s the Librarian.” I sneer the title. “The all-knowing repository of knowledge.”
“And yet…still mortal.”
I miss a step, head jerking around to check he just saidwhat I thought he did. We’re approaching the public lavatories, and soon the moment to ask will be lost.
“Mortal? She’s a ghost.”
One that’s somehow gained physical form, probably via some quirk of the necromancy used to create her. But that’s her secret, and unless I want to activate the covenant, I can’t tell my grandfather.
“Is she?” Benny cocks his head, a delighted smile on his face. “I can’t wait to find out. Can you?”
Closing my eyes briefly, my nostrils flare on a deep inhale.
Patience. He’s a parriarch, for all that he gave up the title. Questioning him when he’s obviously being purposefully ambiguous will get me nowhere.
“Josef’s murder has made her assistance more vital than ever.” My grandfather strokes his chin thoughtfully. “He was a fool to trust his own people. Especially with young Northcliff’s ascension having ruffled so many feathers.”
And now, Mathias can make the play he’s always wanted to. My jaw clenches just thinking of the news I was forced to celebrate last night. I imagine Northcliff and his clueless twin will be learning the identity of their new vicegerent right about now.
