Page 26 of Liminal

Lambert elbows him. “Hey, stop making out like I’m an idiot. I can boil plants and things. I’m good at crushing and mixing and stirring. It’s just like baking. I’m just shit at…” He shrugs. “Everything magical about it.”

Perhaps Ihavebitten off more than I can chew here.

“Well, we’ll start with memorising the basic plants.” I summon books from their shelves as I think, cocking my head when the Arcanaeum adds more of its own suggestions. “Then we’ll build up to creating the necessary spells in your grimoire.”

Lambert groans, and I raise one eyebrow. He hastily fixes his expression.

“I mean, yes! Let’s do it! I can’t wait to learn every plant in the book.” His enthusiasm, even clearly fake, is amusing, and my lower lip quirks.

Galileo rolls his eyes. “Fortunately for us all, you only need to know the one hundred plants in the syllabus.” He taps a tidy pile of papers.

I raise a brow. “Why limit the pursuit of knowledge?”

“I’m more concerned with his limited capacity to focus on anything other than tits and magiball,” Galileo replies dryly.

“That’s unfair!” Lambert protests.

Unfortunately, Galileo’s words are quickly proven true. Not only is Lambert an intolerable fidget, but he’s terribly distracted. More than once, I’m certain I catch him staring at the front of my bodice, at the point where my breasts are clasped together by my stays and exposed by the low neckline of the dress.

It doesn’t bother me. Though square necklines have fallen out of fashion in recent decades, in my time, showing this much of one’s decolletage was common.

However, I’m surprised he noticed. Is it because he still sees me as a person, or because he’s simply so horny that even my being a ghost doesn’t put him off? Probably the latter, even as I silently crave the former. Surely, if he was merely looking to fuck anyone, he’d seek out Larissa or Maddy. They seemed willing, and who wouldn’t be?

Lambert is a golden, laughing god, wrought from the fantasies of Raphael himself. You’d have to be a nun to ignore it, and I’m certainly not.

In life, I was no stranger to the decadent feel of a man between my thighs, and the intimacy of a lover’s caress. I missed both so much over my first decade of death that, eventually, it was safer to simply crush any kernel of desire just to stay sane. Yet here he is, reminding me.

I drag myself out of my musings to find his cheek resting heavily on one hand, as he leans over his book. His eyes still keep straying south of my collarbones every few minutes. Honestly, if I thought it would make him work faster, I’d unlace my stays and flash him.

“Lambert.” I snap my ghostly fingers in front of his face soundlessly. “Come on, you were telling me the properties of gorse flowers?—”

“Wait… I thought we were still on chicory?”

I almost drop through the floor. “That was eight plants ago!”

My failure as a tutor sinks deep into my ethereal bones. It’s my strongest belief thatallpeople possess an aptitude for learning, if given the information in a way they can process. Unfortunately, that puts the onus on me to find a way to teach him this material.

“We’re going about this the wrong way,” I say, gliding away from him and then back. “This is enough for one evening. When you return, I will have a solution.”

“Tomorrow?” Lambert asks, back to bouncing now that the prospect of freedom is so close.

If only he had the enthusiasm for study that he seems to possess for almost everything else.

“Tomorrow.” I pause, looking over at Galileo. “You never said what you were here for. You don’t seem to struggle with Alchemy.”

He tilts his head enigmatically. “Lambert needs the help more than I do. Once he’s not at risk of expulsion, you can help me.”

His glacier blue eyes flick pointedly to my arm, which I must’ve forgotten to conceal at some point during the evening thanks to my frustration with Lambert. He’s always lowering my guard. It makes him more dangerous than Northcliff.

“Do I need to be concerned?” His smooth voice is soft, but there’s a thread of steely authority hidden beneath it that raises my hackles.

“I don’t see why you would be.” My defensive reply earns me an arched brow.

“Don’t play stupid, Librarian. It’s beneath you. As heirs to the parriarchy, the well-being of the Arcanaeum and its keeper are important to us.”

Heirs to the parriarchy? Both of them? The entire building seems to constrict, then sink a little heavier into the ground.

The hollow laugh that escapes me makes the corners of his eyes narrow. “Oh, yes, I imagine the parriarchs would justhateif I disappeared for good. It would be terrible for them.”