“Don’t open it, m’lady!” cried Satchel, whirling toward the rattkin, his bony hands outstretched. The spool of thread flew from his pelvis and unrolled across the floor. “I beg of you!”
His tone was so plaintive that Fern stopped in the act of doing just that. The book was exceptionally large, half again the size of most of those in the shop. A real tome. “What—?”
“It is not one of your books,” said Satchel. “It is … it is—” His voice became strangled, choked by a growing distance, as though he were being dragged into a tunnel.
An image of Balthus, his hands falling away from the shelves, sprang to Viv’s mind.
“It’s one of hers,” she said, rising to her feet, thigh thrumming as blood rushed to it after so long spent in the same position.
“Varine’s?” whispered Fern.
When Satchel didn’t correct her, Viv said, “Balthus. He hid it here. I wondered why in the hells he’d been in your shop.” She held out a hand for the book. “If there’s someone in this room who should be dealing with unholy necromancer nonsense, it’s me. May I?”
Fern narrowed her eyes. “Didn’t you get stabbed and dumped in this town because of unholy necromancer nonsense?”
“Yeah. But I survived, didn’t I?”
The rattkin looked like she wanted to argue the point, but she handed the tome over.
It was much heavier than it looked. And it looked heavy.
Viv expected the book to be ancient, some derelict grimoire of forbidden knowledge, but the black leather cover seemed almost new. No text graced the surface, although tiny embossing wreathed the edges. The patterns reminded her of the fine inscriptions on Satchel’s bones. The edges of the pages gleamed a gold-flecked red.
And she could smell it. In her hands, that blood-in-snow scent wafted up from the leather. An involuntary shiver scurried up her arms.
“Yeah,” she breathed. “Satchel said Balthus stole something else, and this is definitely it.” She looked to the homunculus. “I’m right, aren’t I? Now that it’s in my hands, there’s no secret to protect, is there?”
“It is hers,” managed Satchel, although his voice remained weak.
“What happens if I open it?”
He tried to respond, jaw quivering, but again, he seemed incapable.
Viv ran a finger along the edge of the leather binding. It felt wet and slick, like a cave wall beaded with moisture from a dampness deep within.
“Fuck it,” she said, and flipped back the cover.
* * *
The page was black.
Not inked black. Not blank. But darkness itself. It absolutely devoured light. A tiny margin of creamy paper bordered the null space. Viv thought she felt the faint kiss of wind on her face, and the smell of lightning strikes.
“Fuck!” cried Fern. “You just opened it? You’re all right, aren’t you? No … necromancer nonsense?”
“Oh, there’s necromancer nonsense all right.” Viv glanced at Satchel, who was wringing his bony hands in dismay.
She hovered an index finger over the blackness, but couldn’t bring herself to touch it. The air above the page was cold, an icy breath radiating from the paper.
Carefully, Viv peeled the page up by its thin margin and turned to the next.
Another black page. And then another. And another. Hundreds. At the bottom of each, an inked number, increasing in sequence, just like any other book.
“Well?” Fern’s voice pitched even higher in anxiety.
Viv shook her head. “I don’t know.” She carefully carried the book over to the side table and cleared the paper from the surface with a sweep of her forearm.
She gently laid the tome open upon the tabletop and stepped back.
“Gods,” breathed Fern, edging toward it.
Viv thought she could hear a sound emanating from the impossible night of that page, the chime of a glass sharply struck. “Hang on,” she said. She snatched the pen from the inkwell, knocking off the excess ink.
Satchel continued to observe but didn’t try to stop them. Not yet, anyway. Viv took that as a positive sign.
She flipped the pen in her grip, feather down, and dipped it toward the page.
The feather disappeared into the blackness as though it were a pool of ink from which no light could reflect.
Fern covered her mouth with both paws, and Viv withdrew the pen.
It was whole, and unmarred.
“Well, that’s the first test done,” said Viv.
“The first test?” protested Fern. “What’s the second—”
Viv set aside the pen and opened and closed her right hand. Then, thinking better of it, she shook her head.
“Oh thank fuck,” said Fern. “I thought you were going to put your hand—”
The rattkin squeaked shrilly as Viv drove her left arm into the blackness of the page, all the way up to the elbow, and drew it back out, fast.
Flexing her fingers and staring at the book in wonder, Viv finished, “That’s the second.”
Fern sputtered, waving her paws in apoplexy, and if she ever regained her composure, Viv figured the language would be pretty spectacular.
26
“I touched something,” said Viv. “There’s stuff in there.” She’d done no more than brush a surface with her fingertips, a cold and unyielding object.
Fern approached the book again to stare warily into the darkness of the page, as though something might burst from within and drag her inside. “They’re portals,” she said. “Hundreds of them.” She dipped a finger into the blackness and withdrew it with a shiver. “It’s like icy water.”
“That’s right, isn’t it, Satchel? This is some kind of storage?” asked Viv.
Satchel nodded miserably. “Yes, m’lady Viv.”
“I guess once we know her secrets you don’t have to keep them anymore, huh?” Viv began to appreciate the scale of what the book might contain, and her eyes widened. “What’s Varine keeping in all of these? Eight hells, she has to be furious.”
The homunculus remained tellingly mum on the subject.
“I’ve heard about objects like this, but I never thought I’d see one,” said Fern. “And so many pages!”
Flipping a few, Viv sank her left hand in again. Fern tensed, but didn’t object this time. The rattkin was right; it was like submerging her arm in icy water. Subtle currents licked at her skin, and Viv broke out in gooseflesh all the way to her neck.
She carefully quested around the edges, finding the borders of the space, like walls of ice that her fingernails skittered across. Holding her breath, she pushed deeper and found what was stored within.
It was moist, fleshy, slick with viscous fluid. She recoiled immediately, yanking her arm back. She stared at her fingertips, expecting to see them smeared with blood or something worse. They were clean, though.
“Not that page,” she said with a shiver, as her imagination supplied an idea of what precisely a necromancer might want to store for later use.
Turning to the next, she tried again and was relieved to touch an object she thought she recognized. Dozens of them, in fact. Coins? Pinching one, she felt writing against her fingertips, letters or sigils in sharp relief. But when she began to withdraw it, the coin bit into her flesh like razors, and she released it with a yelp. Pulling free, she found a network of fine cuts lacing her thumb and forefinger.
“Shit.” She moved to suck the oozing blood, but thought better of that and wiped her hand on her trousers instead.
“Satchel.” Fern grasped his ulna. “There’s not … not anything living in these, is there?”
Viv stopped with her hand hovering just above another page, mouth hanging open. “Okay, that’s a question I probably should’ve thought to ask.”
“Nothing living can survive for long in the underspace,” he replied. “But that does not mean there are no dangers stored within. Be wary.”
“Can’t survive for long? You mean if I put my arm—”
“A few moments will not harm you,” said Satchel, and Viv relaxed. “Not permanently, anyway,” he finished.