Page 64 of Librarian

He’s not wrong.

Kyrith’s desk is just as cramped, but it’s girly. She’s replaced the provided wooden chair with a cosy wingback complete with cushions and blankets and shit. There’s a glass reading lamp, a potted plant…

My heart sinks.

I’m no Lambert, but even I can tell Kyrith’s trying to recreate the atmosphere of the Arcanaeum.

She’s stopped cursing out the technology and is wandering the shelves, reading the numbers on the edges. When she returns, book in hand, she rolls her eyes at me. Still, I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten away with it as she takes her seat, summons a second chair into being beside hers, and gets back to work.

At least until she asks dryly, “Is it not enough that Pierce gave me panic earrings and Galileo has marked my door frame with threshold alarm spells? Now I’m to have two of you shadowing me while I work?”

Threshold alarms, huh? I need to learn how to cast those. Eddy being kidnapped has made me paranoid to the point where she’s getting frustrated with me. I get it. No grown ass woman wants her big brother hovering around her all the time.

But if I can do it with magic, she’d never need to know.

“You have to admit it’s necessary.”

“I do,” she says, still not looking up or betraying any kind of emotion beyond studious resolve. “But you’ll be very bored sitting with me. You’d be better off going back and bothering Leo.”

“You two would probably work faster if you sat together,” I point out, bracing myself for a bollocking.

Kyrith just hums under her breath. “We’re working on separate runeforms, so I doubt it.”

“How long has he been watching you?”

“Two hours. Is there a point to this line of inquiry?”

“Nope. Just curious.”

We left him out when we were deciding who would watch her and when, but if she’s comfortable with him here, we could use an extra pair of eyes. Dakari and Jasper are dealing with the ball-ache that comes with being a new parriarch. Yeah, Pierce, Lambert, and I should be enough, but honestly, I don’t trust myself to be able to protect her as well as Leo could. I’ve only been learning this shit for a few months. Having two of us with her would be safer.

On the other hand, if Kyrith doesn’t trust Leo, then I’m not about to guilt her into it.

She finally looks up from her books, and I study her hard.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” I admit, as her parchment-coloured eyes flick between me and the table behind me. I miss the soft brown they were before, but I prefer her alive with a few quirks rather than dead. “So I’m not sure how you want us to act. Everyone is willing to tell him to go to hell if that’s what you want, but you’re giving mixed signals, Ice Queen.”

Her eyes dart to the scorch mark on the floor, and I raise my eyebrows. “Exactly. You burned his apology gift, but you’re working on his family ensorcellments beneath that.” I point a single finger at the faint illusion of silver stars that she’s cast across the ceiling.

“That’s for reference.”

I’m going to spank her ass for lying to me later. “You’re giving him the cold shoulder, while eye-fucking him the same way you do the rest of us. Hell, you’re even working facing his table. You’re using this”—I tap the runeform in her open grimoire—“to watch him.”

Her eyes narrow, flicking between me and the spell. “You haven’t learned divination yet.”

“Lucky guess.” One she just confirmed, and her scowl tells me she hates me for it. “What’s the goal? Do you want him around or not?”

Kyrith huffs out a long sigh, running a hand through the loose strands of her hair that have escaped her braid. “I don’t know.” Then she glares at me,reallyglares. “It’s not a crime to be conflicted, and it’s none of your business, anyway.”

Fuck it.

“Isn’t it? He’s probably the smartest person here, yourself excluded. If we shut him out completely, we’re losing someone who could protect you. And it’s not like he isn’t trying. He’s even going around apologising to us all, one by one.”

Kyrith raises a single eyebrow. “He is?”

“Yeah. Properly and shit. If Eddy hadn’t warned me it was coming, I would’ve run for the hills.”

Her voice gets smaller. “He talked to Eddy?”