“Have you lost your mind?” Mia hissed, loud as she dared. “What was that?”
“How’s the ribs, Tric?” he asked. “I couldn’t help but notice you getting the stuffing kicked out of you. O, I’m fine, Pale Daughter, my thanks for—”
“What did you expect? This is our first turn inside these walls and you’ve already pissed off Shahiid Solis and probably the most feared assassin in the Itreyan Republic. And let’s not forget the fellow acolyte set to murder you.”
“He called me koffi, Mia. He’s lucky I didn’t cave his head in.”
“What’s koffi?”
“Never mind.” He dragged his arm from her grip. “Forget it.”
“Tric—”
“I’m tired. I’ll see you on the morrow.”
The boy stalked off, leaving Mia alone with Naev. The woman watched her with dark, careful eyes, hovering like a moth about a black flame. Mia’s brow was creased, staring at the half-finished puzzle before her.
“… You don’t happen to speak Dweymeri, do you?” she asked.
“No. Although Naev is certain there are tomes of translation in the athenaeum.”
Mia chewed her lip. Pictured her bed, with its mountains of pillows and soft fur.
“Is it open this late?”
“The library is always open here. But to attend without invitation—”
“Could you take me there? Please?”
The woman’s dark eyes gleamed. “As she wishes.”
Stairs and arches. Arches and stairs. Mia and Naev walked for what seemed plodding miles, with naught but dark stone for company. The girl began to regret not heading to bed—the journey from Last Hope was beginning to catch up, and she was fading fast. She lost her bearings several times—the corridors and stairs all looked the same, and she began to feel hopelessly disoriented.
“How do you not get lost in here?” she asked.
The woman traced the spiral patterns carved into the walls. “Naev reads.”
Mia touched the chill stone. “These are words?”
“More. They are a poem. A song.”
“About what?”
“Finding the way in the dark.”
“Finding the library is good enough. My eyeballs are about to go to bed without me.”
“A good thing, then. Here we are.”
A set of double doors loomed at the end of the passageway. The wood was dark, carved with that same scrolling motif marking the walls. Mia noted there were no handles, that the doors must have weighed a ton apiece. And yet, Naev pushed them open with a gentle hand, the hinges making barely a whisper as they opened wide.
Mia stepped inside, and for the third time that turn, felt her lungs bid her breath farewell. She stood on a mezzanine overlooking a dark wood—a forest of ornate shelves, laid out like a garden maze. And on each shelf stood books. Piles of books. Mountains of books. Oceans and oceans of books. Books of stained vellum and fresh parchment. Books bound in leather and wood and leaves, locked books and dusty books, books as thick as her waist and as tiny as her fist. Mia’s eyes were alight, fingernails denting the wooden railing.
“Naev, don’t let me down there,” she breathed.
“Why not?”
“You’ll never see me again …”
“Truer words never spoken,” said a rasping voice. “Depending what aisle you picked.”
Mia turned to the voice’s owner, saw a wizened Liisian man leaning against the far railing. He was dressed in britches and a scruffy waistcoat. A pair of improbably thick spectacles was balanced on a hooked nose, two shocks of white hair protruding from a balding head, as if they couldn’t decide on the best escape route. Back bent like a question mark. A cigarillo dangled from his mouth, another behind his ear. He looked about seven thousand four hundred and fifty-two years old.
He stood beside a small wooden trolley stacked with books, marked RETURNS.
“Is that wise?” Mia said.
“What?” the old man blinked.
“This is a library. You can’t smoke in a bloody library.”
“O, shit …”
The old man plucked his cigarillo, pondered it briefly, popped it back into his mouth.
“What if the books catch fire?” Mia asked.
“O, shiiiiiiiit,” the old man said, exhaling a cloud that made Mia’s tongue tingle.
“Well … can I have one, then?”
“One what?”
“A smoke.”
“Are you daft?” The man peered at her through his improbable spectacles. “You can’t smoke in a bloody library. What if the books catch fire?”
Mia hooked her thumbs into her belt, tilted her head. “O, shiiiiit?”
The old man tugged the cigarillo from behind his ear, lit it with his own, and offered it to the girl. Mia grinned and puffed away on the strawberry-tinged smoke, licking her lips and delighting at the sugared paper. Naev gestured to the old man.
“Naev presents Chronicler Aelius, keeper of the athenaeum.”
“All right?” the old man enquired.
“All right,” Mia nodded.
“Splendid.”
Naev coughed in the rising pall. “Chronicler, she seeks to have a Dweymeri word translated. She desires a book on the subject. Does he have one in his keeping?”
“I’ve many, no doubt. But if it’s only one word the acolyte seeks the knowing of, I can probably save myself the look and speak it here.”
“You speak Dweymeri?” Mia asked.
“If there’s a language spoken beneath the suns that I’ve not a knowing of, you can pluck out my eyes and use them for marbles, lass.”2
“Well, as much as the idea of wandering the aisles might appeal to me on any other turn, my lovely fur bed is calling, good Chronicler.” Mia took a deep drag. “So if you could give me a meaning along with this fine smoke, I’d be twice in your debt.”
“Speak the word.”
“Koffi.”
“Oof.” The old man winced. “Who called you that?”
“No one.”
“A good thing … Wait, you didn’t throw it at someone else?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, don’t. It’s about the worst insult you can give a Dweymeri.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Roughly translated? Child of rape.” The old man took a puff. “The worst of the Dweymeri pirates are in the habit of … having their way with folk they capture. A koffi is the product of such devilry. A half-caste. The bastard child of an unwilling mother.”
“Maw’s teeth,” Mia breathed. “No wonder Tric wanted to kill him …”
Aelius crushed his smoke out on the wall, tucked the dead butt into his pocket.
“That’s all you needed? One word?”
“For now.”
“Well, I’ll be off then. Too many books. Too few centuries.”
“My thanks, Chronicler Aelius.”
“Good luck with singing lessons tomorrow.”
Mia frowned, watched his bent back as he shuffled away. Crushing out her own cigarillo, she looked to Naev. “Bedtime, if you’d be so kind as to lead the way?”
“Of course.”
The woman led Mia back through the winding labyrinth. Patches of arkemical illumination spilled through stained-glass windows. Mia swore they returned a different way than they’d come by—either that or the walls were moving. Her mind was spinning like mekwerk.
Was it true, what Floodcaller said? Wasn’t it possible Tric’s parents had loved each other, though each had different skin? Mia couldn’t help but remember the murder in Tric’s eyes. Would he have taken such offense if there weren’t truth behind the insult?
Mia wondered if she should speak to Tric about it. She didn’t want to have to spend her nevernights worrying about the knife waiting for him in the dark, but the boy was as stubborn as a wagonload of mules. It’d be bad enough looking over her shoulder for Jessamine. Tric didn’t have the not-eyes in the back of his head that Mia did, and Floodcaller had already proved he could wipe the floor with him face-to-face.
If the boy wasn’t careful, he’d end up buried here.
You can imagine Mia’s surprise then, when Floodcaller was discovered lying in the shadow of Niah’s statue the next morning. A pool of blood cooling among the names on the carven stone about him.
Throat cut ear to ear.
BOOK 2
IRON OR GLASS
CHAPTER 10
SONG
Twenty-seven acolytes stood in the Hall of Eulogies.