Without them, I’m fairly certain we’d all be Simpson’s little pets right about now.
“I reckon I could have gone further,” Seb says. “It felt like I could have wiped the entire city’s memories. I could do the same with Nexus for you, if you wanted,” he tells Fabian, who blinks at him. It’s like he can’t quite reconcile this is his littlebrother talking about wiping out memories from hundreds and hundreds of people.
“Unless the whole power boost thing was a one off. That’d be a bummer if it was.”
I shake my head. There are a lot more ghosts that I’ve made promises to and I intend to fulfill those promises—right after I’ve done some reading to confirm that I’m not sending them straight into limbo or something.
“Is that something you’d want?” I ask Fabian, a bubble of hope filling my insides. He’s put so much toil and sweat into being the next leader of Nexus, but whenever I think about him taking it over, it makes me feel sick with dread. The district is in chaos. There’s no respect. People actively dislike him... and me. And I can’t imagine that changing soon.
He looks down at me, a thoughtful frown marring his handsome face. “You know, I’ve been thinking about trying something new. I don’t know exactlywhat,since I’ve never really let myself think about what else there is. But after the past couple of years, I think I’m ready to do something that’s my dream instead of something that was forced on me.”
A fizzle of excitement stirs in my belly. “You’d seriously be willing to up and leave Arcanum? Maybe to Stoneraven or Willow Creek or Monster Haven?” Places I’ve only ever heard about and desperately want to visit. I turn to Ro, who is still splayed lazily on the sofa, watching as everything unfolds. “Ro, how about you?”
“You don’t even need to ask. I’d go just about anywhere with you, Silver,” he says. “You want us to fly to the moon? I’ll see how we can build a rocket.”
For the first time, it actually seems like a possibility to leave Arcanum. To start somewhere new without all the bullshit and the tainted memories of this place.
Fabian nods. “Somewhere new to start a fresh adventure sounds good to me.”
I squirm on my bare feet, even as Hanna lets out an obnoxious gagging noise at his sweet words. “We’d have to see if Dante would leave. He’s managed Second Circle for decades and he might not be willing to abandon it.”
Hanna scoffs. “If you think that vamp isn’t going to follow you anywhere too, you’re both blind and delusional.”
“You know what we need,” Ro calls from his spot on the sofa. “Family dinner. Lay out all the options. I’ll need some time to prepare, but I can have it ready tomorrow night.”
In an instant, he switches again to his dinner party alter ego. The one that expects everyone to be on time and with a healthy appetite.
Although, maybe this time, whichever idiot is first to mention board games can be designated peacekeeper.
I grin over at him, loving all the different versions of my hazel-eyed, joyful mage. “Family dinner it is.”
I spend the following day at the library, this time searching for books on necromancy. My ghostly librarian buddy reappears and she’s surprisingly helpful in pointing me toward the right section. One deep in the basement. I dragged Dante along with me and Zeph decided he wanted to come too. Like after spending so much time together, the two of them are now accustomed to coming with me as a dynamic duo.
I’m not complaining.
Pretty sure both of them are using it as an excuse to avoid the kitchen while Roscoe’s back in domestic god mode.
“So we’re heading to the forbidden archives again?” I ask the ghost librarian, my stomach sinking at the thought of having to go through that entire rigamarole again.
The ghost librarian shakes her head. “Just the basement. It’s a lot easier to get into. You head down the stairs and you should find the door is open since no one ever goes down there. It’s mostly forgotten storage boxes. That’s where you’ll find all the necromancy books. And the ghost books. We don’t get much attention, as you can imagine.”
The four of us find the staircase down to the basement through a shitty wooden door that’s right beside a storage closet. It’s unlocked, and the stairwell is barely lit, with the hint of daylight shining through a narrow slitted window at the very top.
It’s cobwebby and smells musty even before we get to the bottom. There’s the faint stink of mold and dust clogging up my nose.
“You could have brought us somewhere nicer to murder us,” Zeph says, carefully making his way down first.
“Seems fitting,” Dante murmurs as we reach the bottom. There’s a dome-ceilinged room that must be half the length of the entire library, with shelves stretching right the way along. It’s massive. My stomach sinks at the thought of having to sift through thousands of dusty old books before we find anything useful.
“How do you mean?” I ask.
“That the books on ghosts are kept down here. The books on my kind are in the forbidden archives, since we’re a species that’s so intent on hiding our vulnerabilities. But with all the information on ghosts and necromancy, they’re left down here. Forgotten.”
A pang of sadness goes through me as the ghostly librarian nods in agreement.
“The aisles aren’t labeled properly down here,” she tells me. “But you should find them on the third aisle to the right, shelves nine and ten from the bottom.”
I relay her words and the three of us head deeper into the stacks and dig into the pile of books. There are so many with beautiful leather bindings or gold embossed pages, which look like they’ve never been read. There are even more that are well-thumbed, with pages half falling out.
