Page 108 of Librarian

Because this is it.Thisis how to destroy a phylactery.

I can recreate a runeform from this incantation if I must.

Without meaning to, my eyes find Isidora. Her face is stricken, but there’s no surprise there. She always expected this, although I suppose she hoped their roles would be reversed.

That was never a possibility. Mathias is vastly more experienced than she is. Too powerful, even for another lich, especially a baby one.

The sound of a page turning above us barely penetrates. I don’t even notice that anything is different until the incantation changes.

He’s switched spells.

I barely have time to recognise the new chant before my consciousness is yanked violently from my body.

No twinkling stars. No dizziness. Perhaps my closeness to the dagger hastens my transfer from body to blade. Perhaps it’s simply the amount of magic in the air that’s responsible.

But here I am. Back in the dagger, and this time…all I feel is pain as I’m driven down into the shattered remnants of the black gem on the table.

It’s too much. Magic rushes through me in one great, straining burst. My atoms vibrate with the wrongness of it.

The tip of me hits the desk and stays there, splintering away from the rest of my body—the dagger’s body. Cracks are embedding themselves in my bones, winding up through the gold and into the handle.

Mathias doesn’t notice. I don’t think he even knows that he’s forcing me into the role of an involuntary observer, or surely he would’ve gloated about it by now. He’s turned to watch Isidora, letting me see as he drains every last ounce of her soul from the phylactery and funnels it straight through me, into the void.

Black streaks out from her chest, the delicate tracery of her veins turning to black vines beneath her skin. She screeches, agony twisting her features into something unrecognisable.

And yet she doesn’t die.

No. He destroyed the source of her immortality. Her body and mind are still there, kept alive by all the magic she stole.

Now he points me at her, and the incantation begins anew.

My head echoes with screams—Isidora’s blending with my own—because thishurts. The blade throbs with every word. I’m splitting apart. Power rushes through me in a flood that makes what came out of her soul vessel look like a trickle. Stars only know how much power she must’ve taken to be this strong. She must have stripped countless sacrificed souls of their magic and hoarded it. All of that is flooding toward the Arcanaeum.

The cracks deepen.

I can’t even close my eyes to hide from the pain. I see everything: the sallowing of her cheeks, the growing shadows around her eye sockets. Her nose withers, collapsing in on itself.

Her flesh is retreating. Mummifying. Her skin starts to turn a horrid purplish black.

Dead.

My stomach threatens to revolt.

Something clicks.

A yawn. A faint trickle of familiar consciousness.

No. He can’t have done it. He can’t.

But he has.

Isidora was the final sacrifice Mathias needed, and from his pleased hum, he knows it too. My vision starts to dim, the spell finally over.

No. I can’t be unconscious here. Not now. The others?—

“As a revenant, you’ll make a far more reliable mouthpiece,”he tells Isidora’s corpse as he draws the blade back and notes my missing tip with a frown.“No matter. I can create a new heart now that my Arcanaeum is reopened.”

He traces a finger over the sharp edge, but his words are distant, like I’m underwater. In the back of my mind, the Arcanaeum is slowly flooding with power. Doors are unlocking.