Page 3 of Liminal
In the centre of the atrium, a gleaming inverted spire stretches down into darkness. It’s thin—impossibly so—like a twisted blade of black granite and pure gold.
“Ourancestors.” There’s no missing the haughty emphasis the rector places on the first word. “Infused the building with so much magic that many arcanists have remarked that it sometimes appears sentient. Generations of adepts have devoted time and magic to its upkeep, and now we, as caretakers of this”—he gestures around him—“must do the same.”
So we’re here to perform some kind of care-taking duty? My eyes go wide as I consider the implications.
Am I about to witness some kind of rare, powerful magic? Is this Magister Ackland’s way of thanking me for my help over the summer?
We descend for several minutes more in silence. I don’t dare voice any more questions, for fear of further embarrassing my sponsor. Instead, I marvel at the scope of the Vault, ignoring the growing burning in my calves in favour of gaping in open-mouthed wonder at every inch of this place. We descend past at least ten floors, though I may have miscounted, and I have a nagging suspicion each level may be just as vast as the ones above ground, if not more so.
The circular space at the bottom mirrors the Rotunda above, except where the public area of the Arcanaeum is light, airy, and filled with reading desks; this seems cold, dark, and oppressive. There are no rugs or intricate mosaics, just polished grey flagstones that gleam with reflected purple flames.
And shadows, cast by the immense bookcases that seem to go on infinitely in every direction.
“Ah, Rector Carlton, Magister Ackland. We were beginning to worry you’d lost your way,” a woman with a high-pitched voice says, drawing my attention away from the shelves and across the room.
Magister Winthrop is a renowned master of the school of transmutation. Her skin is covered in the runeforms that allow her to change her shape and appearance at will, and I stare open-mouthed at the evidence of her power.
She must be one of the strongest arcanists alive if she can really use so many complex spells…
Four other people are gathered on the edge of the room, though she stands deliberately apart from them, leaning against the shelves as they mutter quietly amongst themselves. One I recognise as Edmund, and he moves closer to me with a winkas soon as he catches sight of us. The rest must be the other parriarchs, given their expensive robes and enormous grimoires.
“Never fear, Magister Winthrop,” the rector replies. “We’re right on time. Is everything ready?”
“Everything except the offering,” she says curtly, ignoring my curtsy.
Winthrop is a large family now, and their parriarch is rumoured to have a notoriously short temper. Beside her must be the magisters McKinley, Ó Rinn, and Talcott. Their portraits hang in the university’s main hall, but I’ve never met them in person before. All of them are old, but Ó Rinn is ridiculously so. His papery white skin is so frail that even from here I can pick out the veins spidering beneath it. A stiff breeze would blow him over, and I find myself surreptitiously searching for a chair to offer him.
That’s how my eyes come to rest on the strange monument in the centre of the room. It’s hewn of black and gold granite and carved with runic scrollwork that’s too complex for me to even begin to decipher. The inverted spire I noted earlier reaches all the way down to stop barely three feet above the centre of the monument, which is flat, almost like…an altar?
“Edmund.” Magister Ackland clicks his fingers impatiently. “On with it.”
Before I can turn to find where Edmund has gone, my arms are wrestled behind me. My mouth falls open, words of confused protest ready on the tip of my tongue. But it’s as if someone has stolen my voice.
That quickly, I realise someonehas.
While I was distractedly gawping at everything, the rector snapped open his grimoire and laid his hand flat on one of the pages, lips moving almost soundlessly.
I can’t speak, and I’m not advanced enough to cast a counter-spell. Even if I could, I have no grimoire. I’ve only been learningmagic for a few months. What could I possibly do against arcanists who’ve been practising since they were infants?
I search for Magister Ackland’s kind eyes, only to flinch as I find them narrowed in contempt.
Fear, the likes of which I’ve rarely felt before, trickles down my spine. Every hair on my body rises with the urge to flee.
But there’s no escape.
“Please,” I mouth. “What’s going on? Magister!”
Itisan altar, I realise, nausea burning in my gut. An altar made for an offering.
I just stupidly failed to realise until now that their offering is me.
Wordless I may be, but I still struggle as Edmund wrestles me forward. I thrash so hard that my braid falls free of the pins, sending them skittering across the floor.
It makes no difference.
Driving the heel of my boot down, I try my hardest to stomp on his toes. I pour every ounce of my strength into the strike, but my foot slides against the smooth floor. I missed completely.
Edmund’s grip may as well be iron as he forces me over the altar, barely avoiding spearing me with the wickedly sharp tip of the spire above as he hefts me onto the stone surface.
