Page 23 of Liminal

Lambert:Relax, I’ll keep her so distracted she won’t even know you’re there.

It won’t even bea hardship. I’ve always been fascinated by Kyrith, and the more we talk, the more interesting she becomes. Plus, she’s probably the only person capable of helping me pass this year. This plan is genius.

Leo:This is a stupid idea. If I get banned, I can’t continue my research.

North:You can blame me. I don’t give a shit.

Of course,he’s happy to be banished because he never wanted to be admitted in the first place. He must be the only Ackland who doesn’t give three flying fucks about entering the holy grail of arcandom.

Lambert:How’s Eddy? My favourite cousin still kicking your ass?

No reply,and I groan, instantly regretting the question. That usually means Edlynn’s having a bad day or Josef’s being more of an ass than usual. Sometimes both.

“Bertie!” my dad calls through the thin ass walls, and I stuff the phone into my pocket with a grimace. “Is that you, kid? I ordered pizza, if you want some.”

Only my father gets to call me Bertie, but each time he does it, I pray that he’ll stop.

“Coming!” I yell back with a grin.

Six

Kyrith

I’m not sure why I’m here again, listening in on Hopkinson’s lecture as he bounds around the room like an excitable pinniped. Well, that’s not true. Several hundred years has given me plenty of time to know my own mind, I simply don’t want toadmitthat a small part of me, which was so excited to attend the University for the Arcane Arts, is desperate to claim this tiny taste of what my life could’ve been like.

Because it’s pathetic.

I haven’t sat in on any since the first. It was clearly too distracting for Hopkinson and his students. But it’s a new week, and the metaphorical itch that accompanies being left out has burrowed beneath my skin. So here I am, hovering inside a bookcase, watching unseen from the shadows of the darkened room as he lifts a scrap and sends magic into it, burning it to ashes in order to conjure the next slide onto the projector.

A symmetrical tree stretches faded branches and roots across the image, with eleven swirling vortexes of power and six triangular symbols arranged across it.

The Tree of Life. I already know about this. It’s literally the most basic lesson he could be teaching.

Still, I don’t leave.

“Of course, you’re all familiar with the five fundamental schools of magic.” Hopkinson waves at the centre of the tree where the vortex representing the school of conjuration sits, surrounded on all sides by the schools of illusion, alchemy, ensorcellment, and nullification. The symbols for the four classical elements sit at the corners, joining the five schools together in a rectangle.

“This is where the majority of Arcanists spend their time and energy. I’m sure your families and tutors have already exposed you to certain prejudices, especially when it comes to alchemy, which is woefully underestimated.”

I love alchemy. It had been the subject I’d been most excited to study when I joined the university. It’s precisely why I rearranged the Arcanaeum to give Botanical Hall the best light and space—aside from the Rotunda. A melancholy sadness hits me, and I blink through it—though blinking really loses its impact when you can still ‘see’ through your eyelids.

Tilting my head, I summon twenty copies of my favourite book on the subject from storage. They’re thick tomes, but I’ve painstakingly restored all of them, so they appear as new as the day they were stitched as I drop them in the laps of Hopkinson’s students.

“Thank you, Librarian!” Hopkinson yells at the ceiling, as if I’m lurking up there. “Yes, this is anexcellenttome on the practical uses of alchemy and the basic botanical herbs. In fact, I’d like to make it required reading for the year.”

There are grumbles, and more than one glare is shot at the ceiling rose, as if they’re cursing me silently. What is with everyone thinking I’m floating in the eaves?

Besides, I finished that book in two weeks. A year is plenty of time.

“Who can tell me why alchemy is looked down on by many arcanists?” Hopkinson continues, pointing into the far corner and selecting the gorgeous girl with her hair in a long braid who’s practically trying to wiggle her way onto Lambert’s lap. “Larissa, give it a shot.”

“Because most of it is just crushing herbs and stuff,” she says, shrugging. “It uses so little magic that even a dull could?—”

A book flies out and smacks her around the back of the head before she can finish.

“Anineptcould not do alchemy because there are still incantations required,” Hopkinson corrects, gentler in his rebuke than I am. “Please remember, in times past, that word was a slur.”

“But it’s not anymore,” Larissa argues, staring him down. “Why are you letting that creepy old ghost assault your students over nothing?”