Page 42 of Liminal

He gives me a look. “You wouldn’t have let the issue fester if you were able to fix it.”

“This is beyond the three of you.” Two arcanists who can’t pass the first year without my help, and…whatever Galileo is. “There are no books in this building that explain the problem, and this is the most complete collection of knowledge in the world.”

“We’re super powerful,” Lambert interjects.

Of course they are, they’re heirs.

I roll my eyes and level him with an unimpressed stare. “If it were a matter of power, I would’ve dealt with it already.”

“Just how powerful are you?” North demands, suddenly.

A chill flits through the room, and gooseflesh sprouts on his arms. Those aren’t the words of someone who wants tutoring. Those are the words of someone who wants to use me. The last people who cared about how powerful I was sacrificed me.

“I don’t know why it matters. I don’t get involved in the affairs of arcanists.”

“But you are one,” he retorts, his defensiveness rising to match my own.

“I’m dead,” I correct. “My power level is irrelevant. I cannot leave this building, therefore, I’m effectively muzzled.”

“Didn’t feel like it when you slammed us?—”

“All the more reason to let us help you.” Galileo won’t let this drop. “We have access to our families’ private libraries.”

My mouth, already open to cast a spell that would show North what real power feels like, slams shut.

They won’t find anything. It’s a ridiculous notion. My death—and reanimation and subsequent decline—is the product of necromancy, and unless Galileo’s family leave tomes on that dark subject lying around, there’s nothing they can do.

So I wave off his suggestion.

“You can’t just refuse to help them,” North grumbles, molten steel in his tone. “Look, I convinced them to do it. Stop punishing them when they’re not to blame.”

Still not an apology.

My jaw clenches for a second time, but the action brings no relief. “You?—”

“Mathias Ackland was one of the parriarchs who murdered you?” Galileo guesses, and I curse myself for letting that detail slip in the anger of the moment. “Which means his grimoire might contain answers.”

There’s a knowing look in his eyes. It’s the glint of a falcon who’s spotted a mouse, and like prey, I freeze.

In the past few times we’ve spoken, I’ve admitted that Mathias was a necromancer. I’ve even spoken about my death at the hands of the parriarchs. Any smart person could put the two together and come to a logical conclusion.

Lambert is too distracted by his own problems, and North too out of the loop, for either of them to have made the jump, but I’m suddenly certain that Galileo has.

Heknows. He knows that my existence is the product of necromancy—forbidden magic. Which means he must also have reasoned that the only way to ‘fix’ me is by using that same magic.

So either he wants the book as proof—to have me and the Arcanaeum condemned—or he’s willing to dabble in necromancy to ensure that he gets whatever it is that he wants from me.

“I already have a collector working on it.” I shut him down without confirming anything. “If you have no other?—”

“Could you just…do it for us?” Lambert asks, pleadingly. “I know there’s no reason why you should, but we need you, Kyrith.” A pause. “I promise I’ll make you smile every night.”

North snorts in disbelief, but Galileo is just staring at me with eyes full of unsettling knowledge. I glance at the shelf behind them, freezing when I realise the letters on the engraved brass shelf plates, which should spell out the subject of the books below, have rearranged themselves.

THE SIX ARE THE KEY

The six? What… The Arcanaeum can’t mean the men in front of me. There are only three of them. Six is a fairly commonplace number. Six families, six magical universities worldwide, six basic trigonometric functions…

The letters jump about, skipping until they spell a new message. A familiar one.