Page 79 of Liminal

Twenty-Three

Jasper

It’s hardly a surprise when Lambert announces, “We need more cushions!”

The suddenness—and loudness—of it shocks me into fumbling the blanket I’ve been folding.

“It’s not a little girls’ sleepover.” Dakari scoffs, his voice muffled by the table that he’s crawled under.

He’s on his back, one hand on his grimoire, and the other pressed up underneath the bulky projector as he tries to link the device to the necklace resting between the pages.

The three of us have been at this for almost an hour, and I’m not sure what more we can realistically achieve. The classroom tables have been shoved to the side, and Lambert transformed several pouffes into a large sectional that’s closer to a bed than a sofa.

Tiny wisplights flicker around the edges of the room, but we’ll dim them once the game starts.

“Wrong!” Lambert calls, interrupting my critical glance. “It’s Kyrith’s first magiball slumber party, and she’s gotta have the full experience. Now, get conjuring.”

I’m not much help, but I take the cushion Leo passes me and press it into the mass already covering the seat. We’ve turned the lecture space into a kind of cosy den, padded with dark navy fabrics that make me want to sink into them.

Or perhaps that’s just the perpetual tiredness that’s plagued me since Dakari brought me here. Magic, I’m properly knackered, and it’s damned frustrating.

“This is so immature,” Galileo grumbles, handing me another. “The Librarian is a grown woman?—”

“Shh, you heard her! She hasn’t experienced any of this.” Lambert conjures a cushion that’s covered in Barbie pink sequins that clashes horribly with the others. Galileo rolls his eyes and mutters a spell to fix it, then adds it to the pile.

I actually think Kyrith might be helping, supporting Lambert’s crazy for reasons I don’t understand, by changing the drapes and nudging things around when we’re not looking. I swear that the curtains didn’t have wee magiballs embroidered on them before, and occasionally a cushion pops up among the rest that I swear I don’t remember placing.

Perhaps it’s just my foggy brain. I’d hate to think she’s really watching us argue over blanket patterns.

Not my finest moment.

Neither was calling her ‘mistress.’ My cheeks heat at the memory as I scold myself for the hundredth time. I think I managed to pass it off as a joke, but the bossy Librarian with her confidence and her graceful curves has me tongue-tied. I don’t remember feeling that way when my father took me to the Arcanaeum for the first time as a bairn, but now…

Dakari noticed. He knew I had a thing for dominant women before I was taken, though he never understood it himself.

Maybe I came on too strong in the lineage room? She didn’t seem to mind, but now that I’ve had time to overthink, I wonder if she was just humouring me.

Just the thought of her quirking one of those brows expectantly has my cock hardening. I’m so distracted that I overbalance and stagger, only catching myself at the last minute so that I fall into the pile of pillows instead of the floor.

“Hey, no breaks!” Lambert calls.

Magic, where does he get his energy? “Simmer the fuck down. I just need a minute.”

She’s still trying to rebuild my magical well, and it’s working, albeit slowly. The process is…draining, but I almost wish it wouldn't end.

When I’m well again, I have to figure out what to do with my family, and what to do about the fact that I’ve lost ten years of my life that I simply don’t remember. I’ll have to think about leaving the Arcanaeum. Leaving her.

And maybe it’s just that she’s the first kind face I saw when I woke up, but I really, really don’t want to leave her. I think the others are the same way, because they gravitate to her, like moons caught in her orbit.

“Lambert, you’re going to be late,” Leo warns.

“Nah-uh, I’ll just exit in the locker room,” he retorts. “Besides, I want Kyrith to wish me luck before I go.”

Galileo rubs the back of his neck as he takes a seat in the armchair on my left and pins the cheery dunderhead with a look. “I doubt she’s going to give you your lucky blowjob.”

His…what?

“Tell me that isn’t a thing,” Dakari growls, echoing my thoughts.