Page 51 of Librarian

My grimoire is already resting in one of the stone holders, ready to crush the cars the second they get close enough. If only Leo could be dealt with so easily.

The pages flick in response to my aggravation. In a burst of power, the Ó Rinn heir soars backwards, shoved off the parapet by my unseen hand.

“Feck!” he bellows.

The corner of my lip twitches.

Tossing him off a thirty-foot wall was more satisfying than I hoped it would be.

Unfortunately, he manages a bouncing spell before he hits the grass below. Shame. He rebounds, landing in a crouch beside me. I brace for some kind of retaliation, but it doesn’t come. His grimoire lands in the holder beside mine with a heavy thud, and his fingers caress the pages, landing on a runeform I don’t recognise.

I tense, but his attention is on the four DBXs in the distance. The incantation he’s using is part of the school of divination, but I don’t know exactly what it does.

“Isidora’s in the second car,” he mumbles under his breath. “Well, it’s either her or someone else with enough power to knock out the entire island.”

“Not Mathias?”

He shrugs. “If he’s with them, he’s hiding his magical signature.”

So fifty-fifty odds. Mathias is definitely knowledgeable enough to hide if he wanted to, but would he bother coming here?

I can only imagine Isidora is fuming at being treated like a lapdog, sent to bark at the clan until they give in. It’s exactly the kind of job she would’ve given to her own children before she lost both.

“The clan is casting muddling wards,” Leo notes, his focus dropping to the arcanists below.

“Hiding Kyrith.”

There’s no disguising her power, but with enough spells, we can confuse anyone searching for her into thinking that it’s coming from multiple different people.

“Smart.”

I roll my eyes. “Are you bothering me for a reason? I thought you’d be down there, laying out the red carpet for your necromancer buddies.”

It’s a low blow, and it hits its mark.

“I’m here to thank your fecking Talcott ass,” he grouches. “For breaking the curse, even when I didn’t deserve it.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

His shoulders drop an inch in my peripheral vision. “Yeah. You said.”

The silence falls flat, both of us refusing to look anywhere other than the line of silver vehicles in the distance. The city cars hit a savage pothole with a visible jolt. Good. I hope Isidora felt that.

“I was brought up to hate you,” Leo says. “Every single time my parents’ deaths were mentioned, it was always ‘thanks to the bleeding Talcotts’. And you were the worst of them, destructive, with no respect for the parriarchy.”

“You think I give a damn?”

People have been saying shit like that since I was a teenager. Leo buying into that bullshit is no great surprise.

“I’m trying to say I was wrong, okay? I should’ve trusted Kyrith when she said you weren’t like that. I knew, logically, that you had nothing to do with the curse or their deaths. I’m sorry I didn’t judge you fairly and used you as an excuse for my own shite behaviour.” He pauses. “And I’m sorry that I asked you to kill me. That was unfair.”

Yes. It was. He didn’t give two shits about what his death would do to Kyrith, or how I’d even face her with his blood on my hands.

It’s part of the reason why I haven’t unleashed any of the anger swirling inside me. Not really.

Because hurting him hurts her, even when she pretends it doesn’t. And unlike some people, I’d rather die than do that.

Another ward rises. The magic smothers the fortress so thickly that it’s like looking out through frosted glass until it settles, turning transparent.