After several terrifying minutes I managed to get my arm free. Then, after lying there for a moment, trembling in the dark, I pressed ahead.
And found what I’d been looking for….
After emerging from the Underthing, I made my careful way through a window and a locked door into the women’s wing of the Mews. I knocked softly on Fela’s door, not wanting to wake anyone accidentally. Men were not allowed unescorted in the women’s wing of the Mews, especially not during the late hours of night.
I knocked three times before I heard a gentle stirring in her room. After a moment, Fela opened the door, her long hair in wild disarray. Her eyes were still half-closed as she peered into the hallway with a puzzled expression. She blinked when she saw me standing there, as if she hadn’t really expected anyone.
She was unmistakably naked, with a bedsheet half-wrapped around herself. I will admit that the sight of gorgeous, full-breasted Fela half-naked in front of me was one of the most startlingly erotic moments in my young life.
“Kvothe?” she said, maintaining a remarkable degree of composure. She tried to cover herself more fully and met with mixed success, pulling the sheet up to her neck in exchange for exposing a scandalous amount of long, shapely leg. “What time is it? How did you get in here?”
“You said that if I ever needed anything, I could call on you for a favor,” I said urgently. “Did you mean it?”
“Well, yes. Of course,” she said. “God, you’re a mess. What happened to you?”
I looked down at myself, only then realizing the state I was in. I was grimy, the front of my body streaked with dirt from sliding across the floor. I’d torn open my pants across one knee, and it looked like I was bleeding underneath. I’d been so excited that I hadn’t even noticed or thought to change into my new clothes before I came.
Fela took a half step back and swung the door wider, making room for me to enter. As it opened, the door made a tiny wind that pressed the sheet against her body, outlining her nudity in perfect profile for a moment. “Do you need to come in?”
“I can’t stay,” I said without thinking, struggling against the urge to gawk openly. “I need you to meet a friend of mine in the Archives tomorrow evening. Fifth bell, by the four-plate door. Can you do that?”
“I have class,” she said. “But if it’s important, I can skip it.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly as I backed away.
It says a great deal about what I had found in the tunnels underneath the University that I was halfway back to my room at Anker’s before I realized I had turned down an invitation from a near-naked Fela to join her in her room.
The next day Fela skipped her lecture on Advanced Geometries and made her way to the Archives. She climbed down several flights of stairs and through a maze of corridors and shelves to find the only section of stone wall in the entire building that wasn’t lined with books. The four-plate door stood there, silent and immobile as a mountain: Valaritas.
Fela looked around nervously, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
After a long moment, a hooded figure stepped out of the dark and into the ruddy light of her hand lamp.
She smiled anxiously. “Hello,” she said softly. “A friend asked me to…” she paused and ducked her head a little, trying to glimpse the face under the shadow of the hood.
You probably wouldn’t be surprised at who she saw.
“Kvothe?” she said incredulously, looking around in sudden panic. “My God, what are you doing in here?”
“Trespassing,” I said flippantly.
She grabbed hold of me and pulled me through a maze of shelves until we came to one of the reading holes scattered throughout the Archives. She pushed me in and closed the door firmly behind us and leaned against it. “How did you get in here? Lorren will burst a vessel! Do you want to get us both expelled?”
“They wouldn’t expel you,” I said easily. “You’re guilty of Willful Collusion at the very most. They can’t expel you for that. You’d probably get off with a fine, since they don’t whip women.” I shifted my shoulders a little, feeling the dull tug of the stitches across my back. “Which seems a little unfair if you ask me.”
“How did you get in here?” she repeated. “Did you sneak past the desk?”
“You’re better off not knowing,” I hedged.
It had been Billows, of course. Once I smelled old leather and dust on the wind there I knew I was close. Hidden away in the maze of tunnels was a door that lead directly into the lowest level of the stacks. It was there so the scrivs would have easy access to the ventilation system. The door had been locked, of course, but locked doors have never proved much of a hindrance to me. More’s the pity.
I didn’t tell Fela any of that, however. I knew my secret route would only work as long as it remained secret. Telling a scriv, even a scriv who owed me a favor, simply wasn’t a good idea.
“Listen,” I said quickly. “It’s safe as houses. I’ve been here for hours and no one’s come even close to me. Everyone carries their own light so it’s easy to avoid them.”
“You just surprised me,” Fela said, as she brushed her dark hair back over her shoulders. “You’re right though, it’s probably safer out there.” She opened the door and peered outside, making sure the coast was clear. “Scrivs spot-check the reading holes periodically to make sure no one’s sleeping in here, or having sex.”
“What?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about the Archives.” She smiled as she opened the door the rest of the way.
“That’s why I need your help,” I said as we headed out into the stacks. “I can’t make heads or tails of this place.”
“What are you looking for?” Fela asked.
“About a thousand things,” I said honestly. “But we can start with the history of the Amyr. Or any nonfictional reports of the Chandrian. Anything about either one really. I haven’t been able to find a thing.”
I didn’t bother trying to keep the frustration from my voice. To finally get inside the Archives after all this time and not be able to find any of the answers I was looking for was maddening. “I thought things would be better organized,” I groused.
Fela chuckled deep in her throat. “And how would you do that, exactly? Organize everything, I mean.”
“I’ve been thinking about it for the last couple hours, actually,” I said. “It’d be best to do it by subject. You know: histories, memoirs, grammars….”
Fela stopped walking and gave a deep sigh. “I guess we should get this over with.” She pulled a slim book off a shelf at random. “What’s the subject of this book?”
I opened it and glanced over the pages. It was written in an old scribe’s hand, spidery and hard to follow. “It looks like a memoir.”
“What type of memoir? Where do you put it in relationship to the other memoirs?”
Still flipping pages, I spotted a carefully drawn map. “Actually, it looks more like a travelogue.”