Page 145 of Arcanist
The stone in my gut morphs into a boulder.
“You’ve not set a place for my uncle,” I say, keeping my tone light.
“Oh, how terribly remiss of us.” Isidora frowns over my head at one of the servers, and they bustle around, spurred into action by that one glare alone. “Heisterribly late.”
Pierce shifts his jaw incrementally, his eyes landing on his sister, who’s taken a sudden interest in her soup.
“I’m sure your time in the Arcanaeum will come to an end soon.” Isidora effortlessly steers the conversation back on topic, dismissing my uncle’s absence. “It can’t be easy to be away from home for so long. I know we all miss Pierce terribly.”
It takes a lot of work not to scoff. She barely even bothered to greet her son when we arrived. Now she wants me to believethat she missed him? And acting like I have a family to return to is just stupid. I have an apartment; that’s it.
That’s part of the reason Abe is so reluctant to retire.
Living at the Arcanaeum is the closest I’ve had to a home since I was a teenager. Instead of saying as much, I offer a noncommittal grunt and shove my spoon into my mouth, turning my focus to where Leo and Mathias are talking.
“Can we not just—” Leo says, but Mathias shakes his head.
“Young man, it would disrespect our hosts to discuss work at the dinner table,” Mathias chides. “Your ensorcellment can wait a few more hours.”
Leo’s expression flashes through a hundred different emotions. Rage, disbelief, annoyance. It would make me smirk if it weren’t so damned pathetic.
He chucked aside the woman who was forgoing sleep to save him and pinned his hopes on a man who couldn’t care less.
Fucking. Moron.
I let the full force of my judgement rest in the smug smirk I level at him, then remember his words from before, and scowl.
Knock-knock—Crash!
Every head at the table swivels to face the red-faced server. He drops to his knees, scrambling to collect the fragments of the china plate he was holding. I forcibly lower myself back into my chair, hoping no one noticed my hand drop to my grimoire.
Not a threat.
The knock at the door comes again, and Isidora smiles as the butler bows, excusing himself to answer it.
“That’ll be the rector now.”
I glance to my other side, only to find Anthea’s gone as white as a sheet.
“Are you okay?” I mumble under my breath, against my better judgement. “Do you?—”
Enforcers spill into the dining room, but my attention narrows on Mathias as he lowers his spoon to the table, a soft smile stretching those purple lips.
“Seize her!”
The woman beside me rockets out of her chair, heading for the smaller door directly behind us.
“Ad Arcanaeum!” Anthea cries, slamming her fist against the wood. “Sanctuary!Ad Arc?—”
“What is the meaning of this?” Isidora demands, gliding to her feet as the enforcers silence Anthea with a dozen spells, all cast at once.
That seems excessive. She didn’t even reach for her grimoire, and yet now she’s immobile, pinned to the ground as they rip the book from its holster at her side.
The sense ofwrongskitters up my spine, even stronger than before, and I rise to my feet.
“Parriarchs.” A uniformed female officer with her hand still firmly pressed on the page of her open and hovering grimoire addresses the table. “We’re here to arrest Anthea Carlton on suspicion of practising necromancy.”
My eyes flash to Pierce, whose lips part in shock. Either he didn’t know this would happen, or?—
