Page 15 of Liminal

“Librarian.” Somehow, he manages to make that single title convey a hundred different things. Concern. Confusion. Demand. Even…protectiveness?

Surely, that last one is wishful thinking on my part.

No one else seems to have seen. Did they not hear that? Is the Arcanaeum okay?

Flinching back, I struggle to think past the panic that’s consuming me. Is someone attacking the library? The crack. Where is the crack?

Abandoning Dakari and his silent questions, I ghost down to the one place in the Arcanaeum I avoid as much as possible: the Vault.

The spire is still there, as is the altar. And, of course, my crystalline corpse remains frozen in time, hands still chained above my head. Only now, the flawless diamond of my left arm isfractured. Broken. As if someone has taken a chisel to my hand. I want to blame an accident—an earthquake—anything. But the altar is fine, completely undamaged.

What is this?

Is this the end of whatever accident of magic is keeping me alive—in a fashion? Did touching Dakari create this?

What am I saying? Of course it did.

That tingle wasn’t some benign magical quirk. It was a warning.

I stagger on thin air, reaching out to catch myself on the altar, only to fall through it and land on my ass.

I sit there on the floor for far too long, hugging my legs in search of the comfort such an action might’ve brought were I still alive. My eyes keep returning to the crack, waiting to see if it will spread until it forks over the rest of my body. What is it about Dakari—and I must assume the other four as well, since they elicit the same reaction—that could do this? Is it intentional?

No. Dakari looked as confused as I felt.

My immediate reaction is to ban them. All of them. They’re clearly a threat. But I’m also well aware that the ban might not stick.

Lambert is immune to my strikes. It’s reasonable to assume that the others might be as well. The only way to tell will be if North’s card is blemish-free tomorrow.

Ifhe turns up tomorrow.

Four

Kyrith

“Librarian? I’m sorry, Librarian?”

I blink, coming back to myself slowly. It takes me far longer than it should to pull my consciousness from the fabric of the building and focus on the magister in front of me.

He’s old—it’s practically a requisite for teaching at the University—though I remember when he was just a shy student silently hiding away in a corner of the history section on the first floor. He was far slimmer back then, but age and an academic’s comfortable salary have gifted him a wide gut that overflows his belt and a neck that’s almost as wide as his skull. His grey hair is thinning atop his head, but the condition doesn’t appear to affect the bushy moustache on his upper lip. His face is lined with the echoes of a hundred past laughs, and his thin spectacles are wonky on his crooked nose.

All these things combined give the impression of a large walrus.

“Magister Hopkinson,” I acknowledge, congratulating myself for remembering the name.

He’s from a liminal offshoot of the Winthrop family, if I remember rightly. One of their daughters eloped with an inept some… Gosh, it must be a hundred years ago, now.

Feeling ancient, I turn to regard him, only to find him staring at me expectantly. Damn. He asked me a question, didn’t he? My focus has been atrocious since yesterday when Dakari cracked me, but I can’t decide if that’s a symptom of my condition or simply a side effect of my understandable fretting.

“I’m sorry, magister,” I mumble. “I have much on my mind.”

He nods, understanding. “It is a huge task you have, keeping this place so well organised.”

The Arcanaeum does most of that by itself, but I don’t correct him. Better to let them all believe that the building is controlled by me than risk someone finding the truth.

At the reminder, I adjust the pile of books between us again.

“I was just saying that, as this is the first year in recorded history that every student in a year group has been admitted to the Arcanaeum, it would be lovely to hold my class in one of the study areas. If you’ll permit it, of course.”