Page 78 of Liminal

He doesn’t take long to answer, and I hate the way my shoulders sag a little at the sight of him.

My grandfather is a relatively young man by arcanist standards, for all that he doesn’t look it. The streaks of white in his hair weren’t there before my birth, and nor were the constant frown lines between his dove-grey eyes. Somewhere in the background, I can hear people conversing in something that might be Hindi, along with the clink of glassware and the lyrical hum of Bollywood music, but I don’t look or listen too closely.

Better that I don’t know anything that might be used to find him. The fact that I’ve already narrowed his location down to Southern Asia is dangerous.

“Pierce!” He grins, but the expression quickly sours when he notices I’m not smiling back. “What did she do now?”

God, am I so transparent?

“Jasper escaped, and she wants me to use his kid sister to get him back.”

My grandfather goes quiet and pensive in the way he often does when I’ve presented him with a problem.

“And she didn’t let you claim Sanctuary?”

That was his plan, but I didn’t even bother to try.

“She’ll see my claiming Sanctuary as another scheme to get to him, and if she refuses me, and one of Isidora’s spies catches wind of what’s happening…”

My mother will be less than pleased, and that’s an understatement. I’ll be lucky ifIdon’t end up sealed in thebasement next, even though I have less skill in restoration than she does.

The last great Carlton healer is on the other side of the mirror, still frowning at the bottle of beer in his hand. Our family has had a vested interest in refusing to nurture any burgeoning talent in that school. If the other five lines knew about Mathias Ackland, they’d be doing the same thing.

As it is, I’m sure it won’t be long until he finds a replacement.

“The Librarian is impartial?—”

“She’s defending Jasper,” I mutter. “I don’t blame her.”

But with the tracker ensorcelled into the base of my spine, there’s nowhere else I can run from my mother. I know it concerns my grandfather, because he doesn’t let the subject drop.

“Request a meeting?—”

“I’ve threatened her,” I admit, rubbing the back of my neck. “It was on the parriarch’s orders, but she doesn’t know that. She’s not going to let me within five feet of her, let alone grant me a private audience.”

Grandfather strokes his grey moustache with a grimace. “And there’s no chance that Anthea will?—”

“She’s going to be married off,” I interrupt. “I’m heir now. Mother already filed the paperwork. There’s no escaping it.” I pause, shoulders slumping. “Even if I could get the Librarian to offer me Sanctuary, the Arcanaeum is doomed. She’s… cracking. The building has gone too long without a power infusion. It’s running out of magic.”

“That’s a nice way to say ‘sacrifice,’” Grandfather notes. “But it’s odd…If the Arcanaeum were running out of power, I would expect the effects to show in the building first. There are no cracks, and just this morning the Lineage Room was redecorated.”

I shrug, wondering where he gets his information from when he’s supposed to be in hiding. “Perhaps the Librarian is untethering herself to save the building. Either way, she’s cracking, and she’s trying to hide it.”

The moment Ackland heard of it, he went very quiet in a way that made the hair on the back of my neck rise in warning.

Grandfather takes a long swig from his beer and drops the bottle to the table. The thunk of glass is like a warning bell, punctuating the dark look he shoots into the distance.

“This is serious. Things are happening that can’t be left to chance.”

“I’ll handle it,” I promise, through the dread pressing down on my chest. “I can?—”

He cuts me off with a calm look. “You have handled enough in your short life, Pierce. I have no doubt you will handle this, too, but you won’t be doing it alone.”

“Grandfather.”

He can’t mean…

“I’m returning to Richmond.”