The Da’ard has begun to wear off, so the dull throb in my sides has turned into a sharp pulse each time I raise an arm to pull myself up to the next rung. Darkness seeps into my clothes, each eruption of pain a bite or a scratch from the inside. My breaths come in short bursts of pain. When my head finally hits the ceiling, I almost lose my grip on the top rung of the ladder, my sweaty palms slipping against the cold metal bar. As I jam my hand up against the rough stone ceiling, my quicklight catches the gleam of a smooth metal handle poking out of the rock a few feet away.
The statue’s head looms beneath me, its eyes closed in quiet meditation as the handle above me turns too slowly. The rusted pieces screech as they grind together. I push up, and the hatch falls open with a thud, sending a cloud of dust down into my face. I sneeze and drop the quicklight. Stomach turning, I have to lean into the ladder and close my eyes to stop my head from spinning at the light’s long descent. My arms and legs shake as I pull myself up through the hole and collapse on a floor so thick with dust that every breath is like trying to inhale cotton. I crawl away from the hole, heave myself up onto what feels like a chair, and pull my shirt up over my nose. A few deep breaths, and my racing heartbeat begins to slow.
After a few minutes of battling the dark, my eyes adjust and I can discern a faint line of lighter black on the floor, which I follow until I find an actual light, deep in the library’s basement. Two dusty staircases up and a few minutes of wandering later, I come to an open room that I recognize, with a wide staircase leading to the main stacks. Black marble, just like the rest of this place. Imposing and coldly beautiful.
The picture window I remember so clearly overlooks the staircase, stopping me as a mix of longing and revulsion fights its way up my throat. The jewel cast of the light as it filters through the paper-thin cuts of stone folds down around the rows and rows of books, their colors so familiar. A beautiful maiden is pieced together in the jade, her curls tumbling from a bed of sleep.
Stuck forever.
Mother always told the story with a dramatic sigh, as if the princess pricking her finger on the spindle and falling asleep wasn’t the tragic end to the story, just an unfortunate pause that passed her fate on to the imagination of the listener. Aya and I would make them up together, hiding under our covers, whispering back and forth until Father came with threats of no sweet bao for dessert the next day if we didn’t go to sleep. Aya would say the evil fairy would be sorry and wake her up, then become her servant as penance. Or that little birds cheeped in her ears until she woke up, and the princess threw water on her royal parents to bring them back from the spell. My favorite idea, though Aya always stuck her tongue out and wrinkled her nose whenever I told it, was that a prince would kiss her awake in true fairy-tale fashion, and the whole kingdom would open their eyes along with her, the evil fairy’s spell broken.
But that isn’t how the story ends. The princess pricks her finger, falls down as if dead, and her family and the whole kingdom rot away around her bit by bit until it’s a place of the dead, a place for ghosts and monsters. She’s the one who sought out the evil fairy, and those are the consequences. She deserves her fate.
I look up at the window. It’s a relic from Before, when we mixed books and tales with people from far away. Before the world was us against Kamar, the Outsiders who poisoned our air with SS. The picture changes every few hours, all the tiny pieces somehow rattling to a new spot like a kaleidoscope of trained butterflies. For some reason, the library survived the purges of everything from Before when Yuan Zhiwei claimed the City as a safe haven. Setting foot inside is like stepping back in time. Geometric designs on the walls are richly painted in reds and purples, and the supports holding up the roof are carved with dragons and phoenixes, all legends that have been forgotten.
My hand reaches toward the picture window before I can control myself, brushing the woman’s long curls. She doesn’t look like Mother, but her eyes are closed just the same. Asleep. Dead to the world, and yet still stuck here because of her crimes.
A low cough echoes through the room. I jerk my hand back, knocking two books down from the low shelves as I spin around in panic.
A young man watches me from the other side of the room. His high collar boasts one red star. I feel as though I’ve seen him before, but I can’t place him.
He doesn’t look surprised or upset, just a little embarrassed to have caught someone trying to climb a bookcase. Licking his lips and pressing them together, he seems to be trying to keep his eyes on the floor, but they flick up to my face a few times. I am still frozen to the spot, caught like a mouse in a trap.
The picture transforms behind me, the lights dancing to their new places on the floor. Jade pieces realign into a young girl cowering before a black, fanged beast. The change wrenches me back to life.
“Excuse me,” he starts, “were you looking for—”
“Nothing,” I interrupt. Heart pounding, I nod to him and walk toward the front of the library with my nose in the air.
“Wait!” He’s walking after me, the polite smile pasted across his face starting to slip.
I walk faster, the young man only a bit behind me in the twists and turns through bookshelves, though he doesn’t yell for help. By the time I push through the library’s outer doors, I’m almost at a run. Outside, I duck behind the statue of Yuan Zhiwei, his broad shoulders dusted with snow. His ax points down Renewal Road, toward the City Center building.
The young man comes out after me, looking up and down the street, his face striking a chord in my memory yet again. Was he one of the librarians from when I was young? But I immediately discount that idea. He’s much too young for that. And if the Watch is looking for me, it stands to reason they know about it even this far up in the First Quarter. After the young man passes my hiding place, I walk in the opposite direction, slipping behind the library into the strangled maze of lanes backing most of the government buildings in this quarter. Third entrances for the window cleaners and floor waxers.
Going in the direction the young man went would mean passing through the main gate at the end of Renewal Road and trying to cross the bridge that spans the river over to the City Center, which would be a good way to get caught. And I’m glad I can’t go that way. I can’t face passing the City Center and Mother in her living coffin over Traitor’s Arch. Not today. Maybe not ever.
The back streets are still familiar. Walking with my eyes on the paving stones, I join the steady stream of Thirds moving through the narrow lanes, jobs done for the day. Thirds with the odd Fourth scattered through. The Fourths keep their gaze down, whatever rehabilitation they had to go through that allowed them to remain inside the City leaving their expressions blank. Each step seems measured, as though if their stride stretches an inch too far, some First will notice and reassign them to one of the Outside farms or mine labor. Or worse, banish them to the wilds Outside to scavenge what the City and Kamar leave behind. Never able to sleep soundly or stay in one place, because then the other Wood Rats will find you.
To land an assignment in the First Quarter, these Fourths must be reformed indeed, though I think even Firsts have a hard time selling toilet cleaning as glorious labor for the Liberation down in the Third Quarter. A woman jostles my arm as she hurries past. She looks back apologetically but does not stop, almost running to keep up with the flow of workers headed for the gate.