Page 202 of Librarian

I’m pretty sure all of us are blinking back tears at this point. Even Dakari is misty eyed as he scans the room, searching for her.

Our girl is alive—in a manner of speaking.

But there are no other signs. No messages.

Shite. Did she exhaust herself doing that? If her life force is connected to the Arcanaeum, and she uses up what little magic it has, will it kill her?

She can’t take that chance.

“Don’t push yourself, Kyrie,” I mutter. “We’ve got this.”

She’s saved our arses so many times. Now it’s our turn.

Fifty-Seven

Kyrith

Hitting North with a book took all the power I’d regained and sent me straight back to the Vault. Now I’m waking up with no idea how much time has passed,again.

This is beyond frustrating.

The Library is bustling above me, but I lie there a little longer, summoning the energy to move.

They know I’m here.

I wasn’t going to interfere. I’d consigned myself to letting them go, but then Pierce’s experiment happened, and I did the most selfish thing I’ve ever done in my life.

I decided to answer Lambert.

The Winthrop heir had been talking to the ceiling for over a week before Pierce’s power experiment. Most of it was banal, filling the silence with commentary on Westley’s behaviour, or his magiball training—which resumed when UAA reopened to liminals—but on one memorable occasion he started rambling about our wedding. I twist the ring on my finger as I fight a sad smile. Lambert insisted I’d walk down the aisle to the six of themin suits on a beach in Hawai’i, with a door in the audience so that the Library could attend.

I never answered him. Even when I felt I might be able to lift a sheet of paper.

If I were trapped like this, forever, then it would be cruel to lead him on. I fell back into old thought patterns, assuming that therewasno future for us. I would never get to see that beach, or those suits, so what was the use in replying?

A clean break would’ve been best, no matter how much I hated it.

Ghosts shouldn’t really be able to cry, but even trapped in this void, I wanted to weep at every word of the future he sketched out.

But if there’s a chance? Even a fraction of one?

I’m fighting for it.

I want more magiball tournaments in the courtyard. More kisses hidden between the stacks when the patrons aren’t looking. More lazy mornings and evenings snuggled up between as many of them as I can fit in my bed. More pizza. More cups of tea snuggled in my blankets with a good book. More screaming orgasms. More threesomes. Moresomes.

So I blew out that candle and thwacked North with a book, like I’ve wanted to do for days.

Now all I can do is pray that they manage this without me, because I don’t have the power to lift a pen, much less draw a runeform.

With a sigh, I force myself away from the altar, floating up to the Rotunda. Hopkinson is teaching in the room to my left. Good. That much hasn’t changed.

Without meaning to, I drift into his class, finding North and Lambert in their usual place at the back. Eddy has abandoned both of them and is sitting at a table of McKinleys in the middle of the room. Every now and again, her eyes leave the imagebeing projected onto the wall and linger on Lydia McKinley in the seat opposite her.

I’m so amused by my friend’s obvious crush that it takes me a second to realise someone is missing.

Where’s Jasper?

Is he sick? Concern furrows my brows, and I wrench myself up to the Clock Tower.