Page 122 of Librarian

And if this time I join the other librarians as part of the spectral consciousness…is that a price I’m willing to pay?

I don’t want to. Stars, I don’t know if I could bear it….

“Mathias won’t be a problem forever,” Pierce says gently. “We have his phylactery now.”

“Yes, but the spell he used to break your mother’s was complicated. It’ll take time to engineer a runeform from the incantation we heard.”

Time we might not have.

As much as I wish we could just stab the thing and be done with it, it isn’t that simple. Even when Isidora’s soul vessel was broken, she didn’t die. We have to assume Mathias won’t either.

We’ll have to kill him.

Lambert’s sunshine voice breaks through the chill suffusing my organs. “We’re done! Boss, come on. You’re gonna love this.”

His warm hand wraps around my arm, pulling me towards Botanical Hall.

“We couldn’t find the plants,” he rambles. “But we put the pots back, and Dakari reckons he can find replacements for most of them. Oh, and I grabbed some of our stuff from Fort McKinley too—and Westley. If we missed anything, you can tell us, and we’ll fix it. So, what do you think?”

I can’t answer him.

“If you hate it, it was Leo’s idea,” North says. “But if you love it, then Eddy and I did most of the work.”

“Feck you.” Leo’s curse holds zero heat.

Eddy just beams. “Thanks for recognising my contribution.”

“Well, you were instrumental in… What did you do again?” North frowns like he genuinely can’t remember.

“I carried the mental load, asshole!”

“She conjured that tiny pot on the windowsill, I think?” Lambert adds.

Eddy makes a noise of disbelief. “Traitor.”

“We’ve probably got some stuff wrong,” Jasper admits. “I’m sure the rug over there wasnae green…”

“But we did our best,” Leo finishes. “Look, I’ve got to head out but—shite. She’s crying. Lambert, you said she’d love it.”

I reach up, wiping away the lone tear as I try for a watery smile.

They’ve done it or nearly done it.

Botanical Hall is almost exactly as I remember it. Sure, there are tiny differences, changes to the patterns in the stained-glass windows, tiny flourishes to the scrollwork on the bookcases that weren’t there before. Meaningless deviations from the original that mean less than nothing because there’s Westley, purring as he stretches out across a reading desk, as if he never left.

That’s the final straw for my beleaguered heart, which crumples in gratitude. More hot tears well in a silent and humiliating flood that I try to stem with my sleeves.

“We only managed this half of the hall,” Dakari murmurs, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind. “But we can work on the other side and the Rotunda, or one of the other halls next. Just say the word.”

I shake my head, then nod. “What…ahem. What prompted this?”

Because I’m leaning back to kiss his jaw, I catch the moue of distaste on Dakari’s face a second before he wipes it away. “I woke up, and Leo was missing.”

The man in question, already edging towards a brand-new door, freezes at the guilty words. “You thought I was?—”

“Obviously you weren’t.” Dakari’s arms tense around me. “When I found you in here, transmuting all of the windows, I figured it was a halfway decent idea. North was on watch, but we couldn’t remember what the banisters looked like and then…”

“It snowballed.” Lambert offers me a smile. “Wait. Where are you off to?” He aims the question at Leo, who swallows.