Page 104 of Liminal

“So if you’re sad…you don’t…” She’s starting to get it now; I can hear the strained realisation.

“I experience the mental aspects, but my throat doesn’t close over, and my chest doesn’t feel like it’s crushing me. In the beginning, I thought I did, but it was just a memory. Like my mind was supplying what sensations should be there. Now it’s like watching life through this glass window where everything that makes itlifeis gone. Death would’ve been preferable.”

It’s part of why I think I’m taking the cracking so well. Now that the initial shock has passed, I realise that finally meeting my end is still better than this half-life.

Eddy’s tone softens, becoming cautious and threaded with pity. “Hey, have you…tried talking to someone?”

I snort. I just can’t help it. “Therapy? For ghosts? It took five centuries to find one person interested in learning my name.” I pause, sighing. “I’m not depressed, just…tired.”

“So you can’t…fall in love?”

“Intellectually, I could, I suppose. But the butterflies? The breathlessness? I don’t get that.”

I’m glad, really. Because the heartbreak that Edmund caused isn’t something I ever want to feel again.

A sad breath whooshes out of her. “That really sucks. I thought being paralysed was bad, but I still knew what loving someone felt like.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I decide to stop the conversation before the pity in her tone grows any stronger.

“Get some sleep. You’re still recovering.”

A long pause follows, but her breathing doesn’t deepen again, so I know she’s not taking my advice. A second later, she proves it when the covers rustle again.

“Hey, Kyrith?”

I roll back over, finding her head propped up on her hand as she offers me a more serious look than any she’s given me so far.

“Do you think North can give it up now? The magic, I mean?”

Both of my brows shoot into my hairline. “He wants to give it up?” She doesn’t answer, and I stare at the mechanism above me as I consider my response. “He can shun it, but no, he can’t give it up. Even those criminals whose grimoires are burned are still arcanists. The magic is there, though he can choose not to use it.”

She lets out a sad breath.

“You know,” I continue. “Just because you’re here and healed, doesn’t mean that Josef will let North go, right? He’s still the Ackland heir. That isn’t something you can escape.”

Not unless someone more powerful from the same family steps up, and even then, North is the first Ackland to get into the Arcanaeum in living memory.

“He hurts him.” Eddy’s eyes are wet with unshed tears. “I know he does. He calls it training, but he comes back with casts and bandages and—” Her words hiccough to a halt.

My mouth twists into a grimace, but I know I can’t do anything. I’ve been teaching North how to use his magic, but there’s no way for me to protect him unless he claims sanctuary for himself, which he would never ever do.

I’m not sure I would’ve granted it before now, even if he had. I’m still hesitant, given that I caught him inside the Vault, even though it’s painfully clear that Josef was using Eddy to manipulate him into it.

“North will be fine,” I promise her blandly. “Josef would never hurt his heir. You have no idea how much your twin is worth to your father.”

“He’s not our father,” Eddy grumbles. “Our father’s name was Alex.”

Alex. Interesting. North has never mentioned their family, so I always assumed the twins were orphans. I open my mouth to ask more about them, but apparently, she’s finally tired enough to sleep, because she flops over to give me her back.

Thirty

Kyrith

From the moment the doors open and the first patron catches sight of me, the whispers start. I should’ve known it wouldn’t stop there, but perhaps I underestimated my own importance, because one moment I’m alone at my desk, and the next Rector Talcott, Isidora Carlton, and Artemius Ó Rinn are staring me down from the other side.

The patrons peer nosily up from their books, and Magister Hopkinson is lingering in the wings, like he wants to be included, but won’t risk being reprimanded by the triad of power in front of me.

Three parriarchs at once. That’s halfway to six already. The very idea of it makes me tense.