Page 106 of Arcanist
“Ah, lass, that big brain of yours is working overtime.” He tugs me closer, so our bodies are pressed against one another. “Dinnae fret.”
“I’m not. I just…I thought I was making things simpler with the contract, and instead?—”
“You did.” He kisses the top of my head again. “You’vebeen through enough. The only thing you need to be doing is enjoying yourself, ya ken? We’re all adults. We can work out anything that comes up.”
Without giving me a second to object, or further overthink things, he stands, scooping me into his arms and stepping around our abandoned food towards the beach.
“Now, I think you’re long overdue the experience of sinking your wee toes into the sand, no?” He pauses. “How far can you go before…”
“A few steps. Any more, and it hurts.”
Nodding, he sits down just beyond the boundary, keeping me in his lap. It’s a little farther than I would normally dare, but fate is smiling on me for once, because I don’t even register the tugging of the Arcanaeum pulling me back. My body is still bathed in warm sunlight. Stars. The sun. How long has it been since I felt the sun?
“No tears,” he murmurs, kissing away the burning trail bisecting my cheekbone. “This is a good memory.”
It is. I swallow back the lump in my throat, sinking my feet into the warm sand for the first time in centuries. I’m determined to memorise every second of it.
Because one day, when this beautiful man is gone, and I’m alone again, this moment might give me the strength to face another five centuries.
Thirty-Two
Kyrith
There is, I think to myself,something decadently scandalous about watching a man walk through a crowd, knowing that your own personal stamp of ownership is wrapped around his cock.
Jasper is clothed. There’s no evidence of the cage in the way he walks, or how he drops into his chair beside North, waiting for Hopkinson to arrive with the other students.
Yet,Iknow it’s there, and that knowledge alone is doing things to me.
Woven into the glyphs on his new jewellery is one that connects to the runeform on the back of the bracelet he gifted me. If he takes it off, I’ll know. I put it there as a safety measure. It’s not the only one.
There’s a tracker hidden in amongst the rest, too. Just in case.
Jasper remains in danger. I won’t see him locked away for another decade.
Thankfully, he didn’t object; in fact, he burst into laughter when I told him about it. Then he asked if I planned to AirTag the others’ dicks as well. I didn’t understand the reference, but it didn’t seem to matter. He kissed the living daylights out of me and then told me I could track his ‘baws’ to my heart’s content.
The Magister trudges into the classroom, waving a hand at the projector with a forced smile. “Good morning, class!”
He’s not quite his usual enthusiastic self, and I don’t think it’s just the effects of a particularly enervating Monday morning. The reason becomes apparent when he taps his grimoire with an impatient forefinger, summoning forth a small army of papers that float across the room.
Eddy’s low groan assures me that it is what I think it is.
“Hey! I thought the test was on arcane law,” Lambert objects.
“This one should only be quick.” Hopkinson stumbles over his words. “Then we’ll get to the real exam. The rector asked us to hand this one out today. All of the classes are being tested to submit data on our students’ capabilities, for funding reasons.”
A chill runs up my spine. It could be innocent; in fact, I hope it’s nothing, but if I were a lich looking for a promising restorationist to replace the one who’d escaped me, this would be a good place to start.
Pulling myself free of the fabric of the building, I hover over Leo’s shoulder, staying invisible as I read the page.
“Do tests normally ask for blood-status?” I ask as I watch him fill out his name in curling black ink, followed by ‘adept’ on the line below.
The incremental shake of his head confirms my suspicions. All around me, the Library seems to shrink inward, worry pouring from both of us.
That swiftly, the Lineage Room is closed. The bookshelvesare sealed with wards that crisscross the spines like chains. If Mathias Ackland and his ilk want to start dragging us back to the days when an arcanist’s worth was weighed on the scales of some genetic lottery, then he won’t be permitted to use our records to do it.
Then the Arcanaeum nudges my attention to theopentrapdoor of the Vault, and I almost jump out of my skin.
