Abaddon's Gift

Chapter Thirty-Six

Upon hearing the news, Maeno went directly to the library. Magi Yole said not a word as he slipped the workroom key across the desk to him. The old librarian wouldn't so much as look up when Maeno reached for it.

He walked into the workroom, half-expecting to see Bo sitting at the desk, where he always was.

The desk stood empty, papers and scattered notes still sitting as they had been the day before. The inkwell was tucked perfectly away, the quill knife sitting beside the inkwell as a reminder that it needed sharpening.

As soon as the door closed, he leaned against it, sinking down slowly as his hands pressed over his mouth, trying to stifle the sound that escaped nonetheless.

He had spent his night angry, tossing and turning because he thought Bo had spurned him. He thought the other spell mage had voiced polite words to get rid of him. Thought bad things, wanted Bo to be hurt.

And he had been dead the entire time.

Tears didn't come because he couldn't cry, but he also couldn't stop making that sound.

A low, ceaseless keening.

His hands were locked over his mouth, the sound still coming. He beat his head and shoulders against the door, trying to find some other thing to focus on, just to focus enough that the sound stopped, that he could gain some kind of control.

Yet the moment he felt something else, he recalled where he was and why he was there.

The keening grew louder.

Maeno crawled away from the door, not certain what he was trying to do. His head was low to the ground as he dragged himself across the floor as if that might do something. When he was in the middle of the room, he collapsed into a pathetic ball, curling around himself as the keening continued. His arms twisted around his head, hugging it tightly as if to protect himself from physical blows even though nothing would rain down on him.

Agony washed through him, as real as any physical hurt but with no source, no way to get away.

The tears escaped finally, but he found no relief. His stomach twisted into knots, fingers digging into his hair and scalp. Still he keened, though that keening took on a thicker quality. Because of the tears, his nose ran, but he couldn't even bring himself to wipe it.

His tears soaked the arm of his robe. Cold, grim fingers wrapped around his heart and squeezed.

The keening broke off, but only because he wheezed instead.

Suddenly he couldn't breathe, as if air entering through his mouth and stuffed up nose reached no further than the back of his throat before it spilled back out again. His chest heaved as he tried to breathe. Instead of keening, he was making little sobbing sounds mixed with hiccoughs.

Maeno beat the floor with his fists as the hiccoughing subsided. He screamed at the floor, at the world, at the injustice of it.

He screamed himself hoarse. When no more sound would come, when he had collapsed to the floor, no longer able to do more than whimper, he lay in the combination of blood and tears, too pathetic to rouse himself.

The next thing he was aware of was the sound of the door opening and a voice snarling an order.

He dragged in a breath and tried to will his body to move, but nothing responded.

"Blood, tears, this pattern," someone hissed. "He was trying to summon a demon."

"Not a demon," Graydon murmured as he crouched by Maeno's head, a hand settling on the side of his face. "Go retrieve a healer from the magehood class. You know the one?"