Mia staggered away as Jessamine stepped forward, smile widening. Terror washed over her in cold waves, Mister Kindly flinching in her shadow. And though the suns only gleamed a little in the light from the stained glass above, to Mia that light seemed blinding. Burning. Blistering. As Jessamine continued advancing, Mia stumbled to her knees, mouth filling with bile. Tric snatched up his training sword and snarled.
“Put that bloody thing away, Jess.”
The girl pouted. “We’re just having some fun, Tricky.”
“I said put it away!”
The girl took another step toward Mia, the suns gleaming. Tric raised his training sword and Diamo stepped to meet him, sledgehammer hands twitching. The boys fell to it, Tric swinging the wooden blade with a sharp crack into Diamo’s forearm, the Itreyan grunting with pain and lashing out with a fist. The pair fell into a scuffle, knuckles and elbows and curses. But all the while, Jessamine was advancing, Mia scrabbling back across the stone now, puke bubbling in her throat.
She was helpless. Mister Kindly’s fear spilling into her and doubling. Tripling. She bumped into something hard at her back, realized she was against the wall. Eyes closed against that awful, burning light. The darkness around her writhed, withering like flowers too long in the sun. And as Jessamine stepped closer and Mia felt the light beating down on her like a physical weight, her heart thundering so loud it threatened to burst from her chest, Mister Kindly finally tore himself loose from her shadow.
He tore himself loose and he ran.
“Mister Kindly!”
The shadow bolted across the floor, hissing as it fled. Along the stone. Down the stairs. Disappearing from sight as Mia cried out, terror flooding over her in crushing waves. She aimed a feeble kick at Jessamine’s legs, the girl laughing as she stepped aside. Mia could hear Tric shouting. Her pulse rushing in her ears. Pain. Dread so black she thought she might die. And just as it became too much, just as that awful light threatened to burn her blind …
“What in the Mother’s name is going on here?”
Jessamine turned, the light eclipsed by her body. Through the nausea and burning tears, Mia could see Shahiid Solis standing in the training circle, massive arms folded, white eyes fixed on nothing at all. Tric and Diamo picked themselves up off the floor, Jessamine slipping the necklace back inside her tunic. With the suns out of sight, the pain wracking Mia’s body abated almost immediately. But with Mister Kindly gone, the fear remained, creeping like a greasy tide through her innards. She swayed to her feet, pulse pounding, looking about the darkness. She could see no sign of her friend.
“I asked a question, Acolytes,” Solis growled.
Ignoring the Shahiid of Songs, Mia skirted around the wall, away from Jessamine. Blind eyes turned toward her footsteps, but she made the archway, dashing down the stairwell on trembling legs. She heard Solis roar, demanding explanation. Tric called after her, but she ignored him, stumbling down into the dark.
“Mister Kindly?”
No answer. No sense of her friend. Only the fear, that long-forgotten, crushing weight of fear. Her hands were shaking. Her lip trembling. He’d left her, she realized.
He left me …
“Mister Kindly!”
“Mia, stop!” Tric called, pounding down the stairs behind her.
The girl ignored him, charging off through the twisted hallways and into the stained-glass gloom, calling the shadowcat’s name.
“Stop!” Tric grabbed her arm.
“Let go of me!”
“This place is a bloody maze. He could be anywhere.”
“That’s why I have to find him!” She turned and yelled to the dark. “Mister Kindly!”
“He just had a fright is all. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”
“You don’t know that! Those suns, that bitch, they hurt him!”
“So what’s your plan? Wander around in the dark looking for something that’s made of darkness? Think for one minute!”
Mia blinked hard. Tried to catch her breath. Struggling with the fear. The weight. The chill. So much, Goddess, she’d not felt this in an age. Not since he’d first found her coiled inside that barrel, gifting her the knife that saved her life. But what Tric had said outside the Mountain was right: in leaning on the shadowcat for so long, she’d forgotten how to deal with this herself. Her legs were shaking. Her belly full of oily ice. She closed her eyes, willing herself calm. The fear pushed back, laughing. Too big. Too much.
He’d left her. For the first time in as long as she could remember.
I’m alone …
“O, Goddess,” she whispered. “O, Goddess, help me …”
She hung there in the dark. Unable to stumble on. Too frightened to stand still. The image of those accursed suns swimming behind her eyelids every time she blinked. She could still feel it. That impossible hatred. The three eyes of the Everseeing, burning her blind. What had she done to deserve it? What was wrong with her? And what was she going to do if he didn’t come back?
And then she felt it. Strong arms enveloping her. Holding her tight. Tric pressed her to his chest, wrapping her up. Smoothing her hair. Holding her close.
“It’s all right,” he murmured. “It’ll be all right.”
She concentrated on the warmth of his bare skin. The beat of his heart. Eyes closed. Just breathing. Warm and safe and not so alone. She beat it back. The fear. Slowly. Every inch a mile. But she pushed it away, down into the bottom of her feet, stamping it hard as she could. Trying to figure out what all of this meant. Why those suns burned her. What she’d done to invoke the hatred of a god. What had so badly frightened a creature who fed on fear itself.
“Too many questions,” she whispered. “Not enough answers.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Mia sniffed, swallowed thickly. Placed both hands against Tric’s chest and, mustering all the strength she could, pushed herself away. She looked up into his eyes, heart still thumping in her chest. Lips just a few inches from his.
“… Mia?”
The girl breathed deep. Looking down to her shadow on the stone and finding it only as dark as the boy’s beside her. Not dark enough for two anymore. And there, in the black, finally seizing on the answer to her puzzle.
“I think it’s time to recruit the most dangerous man in these halls,” she said.
Tric looked back up to the Hall of Songs, the Shahiid they’d just fled from. “I thought we just ran away from the most dangerous man in these halls?”
Mia tried to smile.
Settled for shaking her head.
“You’ve obviously not spent enough time with librarians, Don Tric.”
CHAPTER 21
WORDS
The pair stopped off long enough to get Tric another shirt and check in Mia’s room for any sign of the shadowcat. She’d searched the black beneath the bed, the corners and closets, but finding nothing, they hurried off through the spiraling dark. The evemeal bells were ringing, but Mia and Tric headed away from the Sky Altar, deeper into the blackness, until they arrived at the athenaeum. The doors loomed above them, twelve feet high and a foot thick, opening silently with the touch of Mia’s smallest finger.
A familiar scent picked her up and carried her back to happier turns—curled up in her room above Mercurio’s store, surrounded by mountains of her dearest friends. The ones that took her away from the hurt and the garish sunslight and the thought of her mother and brother locked away in some lightless cell.
Books.
Mia looked down to her feet, her shadow preceding her into the library. It was still no darker than Tric’s. No different. The emptiness inside her reared up and bared its teeth, and for a moment she found herself too scared to take another step. But finally, balling her hands into fists, she walked into the athenaeum, inhaled the scent of ink and dust and leather and parchment. Tric stood beside her, overlooking the sea of shelves. Mia breathed in the words. Hundreds, thousands, millions of words.
“Chronicler Aelius?” she called.
No answer. Stillness reigned in this kingdom of ink and dust.