Page 66 of Librarian

“Did you do that to get rid of him?” I ask.

The Librarian doesn’t say anything as she continues to study his work. Her eyes flash as she pulls a scrap from her pocket and mutters something under her breath. Mute, she lifts a black book from Leo’s desk that I didn’t see earlier.

It’s ancient, and the reverence with which she lifts each page makes my lip quirk.

She treats books with more gentleness than she shows most people.

“What is it?” I finally prompt.

“A book on necromancy,” she mumbles. “One that isn’t in the Arcanaeum’s collection.”

My gut sinks, but she doesn’t look concerned. “It was written by a lich named Koshchei the Deathless. He was killed hundreds of years before I was born. It’s a journal, of sorts, about his journey to immortality.”

“How did they destroy his phylactery?” I pause, grimacing. “Heisdead, right?”

The last thing we need is another lich running around.

Kyrith makes a small noise of distress under her breath. “I’m reading.”

“Do you think Leo…”

She bites her lip. “No. If Leo were trying to become a lich, he would’ve hidden the book better. The page was open on the creation of a phylactery, but it stands to reason that in order tounmake something, one must first understand how it was made. I also…” She swallows. “For all his faults, I don’t believe Leo is capable of murdering an infant. It’s distressing that Isidora managed it.”

I want to throw up. “What?”

“The spell calls for an impressionable soul and the removal of the lich’s heart. They’re combined and transmuted into a gem or other object. The lich lives on, literally heartless, kept alive and empowered by the magic they absorb from their victims.” She puts the book down. “Which likely means that the only way to break a phylactery is to be able to manipulate souls.”

“Necromancy to kill a necromancer.”

“Exactly.”

“Shit.”

She nods sadly. “Please refrain from using profanity in libraries.”

I open my mouth, about to argue—it’s not like this is a church—but she raises a brow, and I shut it. She’s been doing really well at adapting to life outside her comfort zone. I can cut her some slack.

She keeps reading, and I keep hovering, until Leo reappears in the doorway, catches sight of what she’s doing, and pales.

“It isn’t what it looks like,” he swears, hurrying to her side. “I’m not trying to?—”

“Learn necromancy in order to destroy Mathias’s phylactery as a way of earning my forgiveness?” Kyrith shuts the book with a gentleness that belies the frost in her tone. “Because it seems like that’s exactly what you were trying to do. May I take this?”

Leo looks completely lost. “I promised to get the Arcanaeum back for you.”

She shakes her head. “Learning necromancy is not the answer. Far from it. It’s probably the one thing that could make me trust you less. Besides, you won’t have time to read this. Watching me is a full-time job.”

His jaw drops, but she’s not paying attention to him anymore. Instead, she’s sweeping back to her own desk, taking the book with her.

Leo looks at me like I have some clue what’s going on in her pretty head, but fucked if I know.

“Bring the rest of your family’s runeforms,” Kyrith commands, settling back in her seat, laying a hand on her grimoire, and summoning his table so it sits directly opposite hers. “I think I understand the pattern now. It makes more sense for you to work on the simple ones while I focus on the worst mutations.”

The insult is subtle, but Leo doesn’t react. I think he’s just grateful she’s talking to him, even if her tone is frigid enough to make his balls shrivel up.

“I didn’t mean you had to decide right now,” I mutter under my breath as he retreats to grab his work.

Kyrith sighs. “If I leave him alone, he might do something ridiculous in the name of winning me back. I’d rather not wake up one morning to discover he’s gone after Mathias on his own, with a half-baked theory on how to destroy a phylactery.”