Page 97 of Liminal

“That’s a more recent one,” I acknowledge, ignoring her comment and the nods from her peers. “Winthrop and Carlton have also historically had their differences, though they’ve intermarried as often as they’ve quibbled.”

Nothing like a terrible marriage to ruin an alliance or a good one to fix it.

It’s hard to concentrate under the spotlight of North's intense stare, but I make it through a hasty explanation of the families' expansion to other corners of the globe before Hopkinson takes back over, setting coursework for the students to study their own lineages and dismissing them.

I’ve barely begun to drift back towards my desk when the Ackland heir corners me in the doorway.

His card is in my hand in the next instant, forcing him to back up.

“I wasn’t fucking looming!” he growls, correctly interpreting my intention. “I just wanted to apologise.”

He…did?

Leo and Lambert are lingering in their corner, ignoring the classmates streaming past them in favour of watching our interaction with interest, but North gives them both a look that sets them to packing up their things, albeit with deliberate slowness.

“Nosy assholes,” he mutters. “Look, I only came and watched because the door was open. I’m sorry you died like that, and I get why the Vault is a sore spot.”

It’s possibly the angriest apology I’ve ever heard in my existence, but he’s still unmistakably sincere. My fingers dig into my sleeves as I try to figure out what to say in response.

Josef hasn’t relented on getting into the Vault, and suspicion gnaws at me the longer we stare each other down. He wouldn't…hurt his heir, would he? Heirs are practically sacred to arcanists, but Josef's actions after Lambert's game and the cast on North's arm make me wonder.

The pride radiating from him is practically tangible. I doubt he'd admit to it if I asked.

Eventually I settle on, “What happened to your arm?”

He raises the cast and rolls his eyes. “Magic tutoring.”

It’s so hard to tell if he’s lying when he’s glowering down at me like this, but I don’t think he is. Tutoring makes sense, no doubt Josef’s idea. A liminal heir is bad enough, but one who can’t defend Ackland's faltering place in the six? That must be making the parriarch twitchy.

“I could heal it,” I offer grudgingly, but he’s already shaking his head.

North opens his mouth to say something else, but the words are drowned out by a knock on one of the doors.

A new applicant? This late in term?

“Sorry,” I cut him off. “Someone’s asking for entry. I’ll be right back.”

“Shit, she’s early,” he says, but I’m already zooming away in the direction of the Arcanaeum’s urging, towards a wide pink door with a brass daisy knocker that’s been tucked away in the corner of the stairwell nearest my office.

I flick the door open, grimacing in discomfort as I pass through, only to freeze as I realise that I’ve exited into a hospital room.

I’ve never been in one of these before, but I’ve read enough restoration textbooks comparing inept and arcanist healing methodologies that I can recognise the adjustable bed and some of the equipment scattered around. Beyond the wide window is a sunlit skyline which could belong to any city in the world, andin front of me, pale as a sheet and clutching the armrests of her wheelchair like she might pass out at any moment, is a girl with short dark hair and wide yellow eyes.

“So you’re real,” she remarks in a strained voice, sticking out a shaky hand. “Edlynn Ackland. I’d like to enter the library, please.”

Her introduction is cut off as she coughs wetly, doubling over, her face contorted in pain.

Edlynn Ackland.

There is no way this girl isn’t North’s sister. She has the same proud set to her dark brows, and beneath the loose hospital gown, she holds herself with the same determination he wears like a cloak. If not for the hunched over wheezing and her chair, she’d probably be the same ridiculous height, too.

I reach forward, unsure whether I’m extending my hand to help or give the Arcanaeum a chance to judge her.

She grabs me before I can make up my mind, and the Arcanaeum studies her intently. It withdraws just as suddenly.

“You’ve never used magic,” I whisper, shocked.

She has it, though she’s nowhere near as powerful as North, but there are none of the pathways that would indicate she’s ever drawn on it. And more, her touch caused none of the tingles that her brother’s did. I felt nothing. The same as Anthea, now that I think about it.