“Chronicler?” she called again. “Hello?”
She stole down the stairs, out onto the main floor and into the forest of shelves. That same sourceless luminance lit the room, but among the books, the light seemed dimmer, the shadows deeper. Wandering into the stacks, the pair found themselves surrounded on all sides. Black shelves reaching up to the ceiling, filled with ornate scrolls and dusty tomes, great thick albums and carven codexes. The voices of scribes and queens. Warriors and saints. Heretics and gods. All of them now immortal.
The pair wandered deeper into the stacks, calling for the chronicler, getting lost amid the shadows. The shelves were a labyrinth, twisting off in every direction. Tric cleared his throat and spoke, his voice echoing in the gloom.
“Should we really be poking about in here alone?”
Mia’s eyes roamed the stacks, heart thumping in her chest. “Scared, my brave centurion?”
“I’m aware the razor-tongued princess of smart-arsery act is just your natural self-defense techniques kicking in, but I should point out I am in here helping you.”
Mia glanced at him sideways. “Aye. Apologies.”
“What are we looking for?”
Mia breathed deep. Shook her head.
“When Jessamine held up those suns … it was like someone had set me on fire. Like the light was burning me to cinders. I don’t understand any of it, and I’m sick of it. This is the biggest library I’ve ever seen. If there’s a tome on darkin anywhere in the world, it’ll be in here. I need to know what I am, Tric.”
“Did your Shahiid not teach you anything about yourself?”
“I’m guessing Mercurio knows as little about darkin as anyone else here. The Ministry talk about me being touched by the Mother, but none of them seem to actually know what that means. And Lord Cassius was as forthcoming as a pile of bricks when I asked him about it in Godsgrave.”
“Lord Cassius is darkin?”
“Lord Cassius is a bastard.”
Mia sucked her lip, gave a grudging shrug.
“… Nice cheekbones, though.”
The girl walked on, calling for the chronicler and getting no reply. Perusing the spines as she passed, she saw that many of the athenaeum’s books were written in tongues she couldn’t speak. Alphabets she’d never seen. Frowning, she stopped before a shelf full of particularly dusty tomes, squinted hard at their titles. She gazed at one in particular, a huge codex bound in black leather, silver letters tracing its spine.
“But that’s impossible,” she breathed.
She pulled the book off the shelf, struggling with the weight. Shuffling over to a small mahogany reading plinth, she gently opened the pages.
“It can’t be …”
Tric peered over her shoulder. “Aye. It’s a book all right.”
“This is Ephaesus. The Book of Wonders.”
“Good read?”
“I wouldn’t know. Every copy in existence was incinerated in the Bright Light. This book … it shouldn’t exist.” Mia’s gaze roamed the stacks. “Look, there’s Bosconi’s Heresies. And Lantimo the Elder’s treatise On Dark and Light.”
“Mia, I’m starting to get the feeling we shouldn’t be in here …”
Tric’s fear echoed her own, but she pushed back against it, hard as she could. “The truth of what I am must be in here somewhere. I’m not leaving ’til we find it.”
“Maybe we should start at the letter S?”
“S?”
“S for stubborn. S for stupid. S for smart-arse.”
“S for shut it.”
“See, that’s the spirit.”
The laughter felt good. Helped shake the chill from her belly. But Tric fell silent, grin dying on his lips, frowning into the darkness.
“… Did you feel that?”
“Feel what?”
Mia tilted her head. And as she hung there in the dark, the faintest vibration rumbled through the floor, up through her boots, and settled at the base of her spine.
“I felt that,” she whispered.
It was subtle at first, the tomes shivering in their places. But soon, the shelves took to vibrating, books murmuring, dust falling in gentle clouds. Mia searched the shadows as the tremors worsened, the floor beneath them shuddering. Her heart was hammering now. She didn’t know how deep into the maze they were, but suddenly, this didn’t seem the wisest place to be. Without Mister Kindly in her shadow, her fear came quick. Mouth drying. Pulse thumping.
“What in the Mother’s name is that?” Tric asked.
Mia could hear a leathery sound. As if a great bulk were being dragged across the stone. And then a bellowing roar echoed somewhere out in the athenaeum’s dark.
“Let’s get out of here, Mia.”
“… Aye,” she nodded. “Let’s.”
The dragging sound grew louder as the pair hurried back in what Mia hoped was the direction they’d come from. But the forest of shelves all looked the same, rising about them in faceless rows. The pair flinched as another roar sounded out in the dark, Tric snatching Mia’s hand and breaking into a sprint.
“What is it?”
“I don’t even want to know. Run!”
Books were almost falling from their shelves now. As Mia and Tric rounded a corner, she realized they’d worked their way into a dead end. With a curse, they backed away as another roar rang out—closer this time. Too close for comfort. Wanting no part of whatever was about to happen, Mia clutched fistfuls of shadows and tore them up, wrapping herself inside. And though she’d never done it before, surrounded by a darkness that had never known the touch of a sun, she seized Tric by the shoulders and dragged him in with her, enveloping them both.
Mia pulled Tric in tight, huddled against the shelves at their back. This close, she could feel the boy’s heart pounding against his ribs, realized he was just as frightened as she was. Near blind beneath the shroud, Tric sniffed the air, frowning.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“I can’t smell it.”
“At all?”
Tric shook his head. “All I get is the books. And you.”
“Bath time?”
“… Is that an invitation?”
“O, fuck off—”
Another roar. Closer. Whatever it was, they couldn’t see well enough under her cloak to run—they’d likely plow face-first into a shelf if they tried to bolt. So instead, Mia wrapped her arms around Tric and pulled him down, small as they could be. Fear swelling inside her, flooding the place Mister Kindly once filled. Pressed against the boy’s back and trying not to shiver.
The dragging sound grew louder, wet and creaking. The floor beneath them shook. Beyond her veil of shadowstuff, Mia saw something vast move past, slithering on the stone. She caught the impression of a long, serpentine shape, dozens of blunt, brutish heads, lined with teeth. Moving between the shelves like some colossal caterpillar, spine arching as it dragged itself forward, snuffling the air. Mia clutched her dagger, shaking with the fear of it. Cursing herself a weakling. A child.
Tric reached back wordlessly, took hold of her hand and squeezed.
Minutes stretched into forever, there in that sweat-soaked dark. But whatever the thing was, it passed by without noticing them, slowly slithering off between the shelves. Mia and Tric huddled together, listening until it was out of earshot, silent as mice.
“Now can we get out of here?” Tric finally hissed.
“I’m thinking … yyyyes.”
Slinging the shadowcloak aside, she pulled Tric to his feet. Clambering up onto a shelf, Mia peered out into the sea of tomes, looking for an escape from the maze. She could see the athenaeum’s doors in the distance, blinked hard against some trick of the light. They looked miles away …
“Lookin’ frsum’thin?”
Mia cursed, almost jumping out of her skin as the voice spoke from the shadows. Tric whirled on the spot, saltlocks flying, blade in hand.
Mia heard a flintbox strike, saw flame reflected on impossibly thick spectacles, two shocks of white hair. A plume of cinnamon-scented smoke drifted into the air, and Chronicler Aelius stepped into the light, wheeling a wooden trolley stacked dangerously high with books. A small plaque on its snout was marked RETURNS.