Page 93 of Librarian

On the screen, Isidora begins to rationalise the decision away, droning on about how educating weaker arcanists is a waste of resources that could be put towards the crusade against necromancy. I don’t hear the rest of it because Lambert stands and pitches his phone across the room so hard that it shatters against the wall.

“It won’t last,” Leo says. “People won’t stand for it.”

“Just like they didn’t stand for it when they saw footage of her killing enforcement officers outside Fort McKinley?” Dakari grumbles. “Or when Benny sent proof of her necromancy to their highest-ranking officers? Anyone with the power to do shit about this is in her pocket, and the majority of people will keep their heads down in case they end up in an enforcement cell. At best, they’ll start sending letters to their parriarchs demanding we do something about it.”

Yes. For all the good that will accomplish. Dakari alone can’t do much. Artemius’s fate is still unknown, as is Halinor’s. There’s no vicegerent for Winthrop yet.

It would take a united council of parriarchs to go against Isidora now, but we don’t have that. The opposition is scattered and weak. A bunch of elderly arcanists and a handful of untrained heirs.

The media is on her side. The population is living in fear of the imaginary threat she’s conjured. Whatever enforcement allies Benny had are apparently imprisoned or useless.

Mathias waited so long to do this for precisely that reason. He needed everything in place, and now he has that. Crushing what little resistance remains is a simple matter of time. The final piece is the Library. If it remains closed…

I don’t even notice I’m pacing until I look up and find all of them still on the other side of the room. Pierce is staring at me so intently that it makes my heart sink.

Dawn isn’t enough time to plan a rescue mission, let alone two.

That’s undoubtedly their plan: rush us so we make mistakes.

“What do we do?” Lambert asks. “How do we stop her?”

Taking a deep breath, I steel my shoulders. “First, we rescue Jasper and Benny. Then we take back the Arcanaeum and organise some kind of resistance.”

One step at a time.

Twenty-Seven

Jasper

“You awake yet?” I ask, but Benny gives me no answer.

I’ve checked over his wounds, but my grimoire is nowhere to be seen and honestly, there’s not much I can do without it. I’m in better shape, but barely. My clothes did a pretty good job of protecting me from the net, and the burns I did get will heal, even if they currently sting like a bitch.

I was expecting to be returned to my old cell in the Carltons’ basement, but no. We’re in the corner of a grey-painted room, separated from the rest of the minimalist office furniture by thick, runeform covered bars. The geometric LED light hanging from the ceiling is punishingly bright, making my splitting headache worse.

Doesnae take a genius to realise we’re probably in Mathias’s study.

Locked up in the lich’s lair. Fuck.

The door opens.

Old habits rear their ugly heads, and before I realise what I’m doing, I flop back against the wall.

Faking sleep or weakness has spared me more times than I care to admit. What would Kyrith think if she learned I spent most of my time in captivity trying to be as small and unobtrusive as possible?

Probably wouldnae care, I reassure myself. She knows what Mathias is like. She’d understand.

Kyrith and the others will come. She’s got a tracker on my baws after all, and no one seems to have taken that off, thank the stars. I just have to keep myself alive—which might be easier said than done if Mathias is murdering powerful arcanists.

“Your speech was well done,” Mathias says, and I peek through my lashes to watch as he sweeps over to his desk, Isidora a half-step behind him. “Certainly enough to put to bed the rumours started by those upstarts. But you shouldn’t have announced Benjamin’s execution. The last thing we want is to find ourselves fending off his would-be rescuers.”

“They won’t find us here.” Isidora brushes off his concern with an airy wave of her hand. “Even Pierce was never trusted with the location of your home. And the wards are strong enough to keep the Librarian out… I’m more concerned about the loose end you left in Belfast.”

“I don’t remember inviting you to criticise my decisions.” Mathias’s hand drops to the dagger at his waist.

For a second, I imagine she’ll challenge him on it, but no, she folds. “I was merely thinking aloud. We need to give the press a reasonable explanation for the attempt on the Ó Rinn parriarch’s life.”

“Spin it however you like,” Mathias dismisses. “That’s your job, after all. My focus must remain on the Arcanaeum.”