“Do pardon us,” Jackaby said. “I just mean to have a quiet word with my associates. The house is a bit more . . . occupied than I generally prefer.”
“Know the feelin’. Yer bookroom is fair an’ all, but th’ twain keeps watchin’ me, and all them nimmies is righ’ unsettlin’ after a time.”
“Twain? Nimmies?” I glanced around. “I didn’t see anyone else in—oh my!” A woman’s face, which had moments ago appeared to be carved into the side of one of the heavy bookshelves, leaned forward and blinked out at us with eyes like glittering sapphires.
“Oh, that is a bit off-putting, isn’t it,” said Jenny. “Is that what it’s like when I come through a wall unannounced?”
The nymph peered at her mournfully for a few seconds and then turned to Jackaby.
“You’re not wearing the hat I made for you,” she said in a whisper like the wind through leaves.
“Erm, yes. No. I am not, actually. There was an incident.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes before falling backward, melting into the woodwork entirely.
“Wood nymphs,” said Jackaby.
“Not a real cheery lot, them,” observed Hudson.
“In retrospect, a library is a rather somber locale for their kind. A bit like housing a man in a graveyard. Well, a bit like housing a man in a graveyard in which his people’s bones have been mashed to a pulp and reconstituted into slim sheets, onto which one has scribbled a lot of silly words with pictures of monks and satyrs in the margins.”
Even with unexpected guests coming out of the woodwork, the library was still an oasis of calm. I had always found it comforting—so long as I did not allow my curiosity to draw me back into the Dangerous Documents section. Something indescribably eerie lay in those foggy depths at the end of a mazelike series of bookshelves. I much preferred keeping to the front of the library.
“All right, then, straight to the back,” said Jackaby. “We need to talk.”
“Secret meetin’, then?” Nudd said, scrambling away from his horde to join us. “This yer trusted few? Inner circly sorta thing, nae? A’righ’. I’m wit’ ye. ’Bout time ye took command.”
“What? No,” Jackaby said. “I’m not assuming command of anything. God knows why, but these fools are hardy enough to keep my company even in the face of this mess, so I simply intend to put their foolhardy company to good use.”
“Aye. Tha’s the inner circly bit.”
Jackaby shook his head. “Come on, then.”
We followed through tight corridors filled with an inexplicable fog of dread until they gave way to an opening entirely enclosed by bookshelves, with just enough space for a single oval reading table. The table had a small oil lamp in the center, which Jackaby lit. There were only two chairs, but there was room enough for four or five to stand around the table comfortably. The six of us did our best.
“So, this is the Dangerous Documents section.” I glanced at the spines and scrolls around us. Some were sealed with iron clasps and heavy locks; others had been chained directly to their shelves. Those that sat freely seemed to have edged away from their more intimidating colleagues.
“Yes,” Jackaby said. “Don’t worry, they won’t bite. Well, none of the ones on that end, anyway. You can take a look, but nobody do anything colossally ignorant like read them out loud. Or let them read you out loud.”
“Okay,” said Hudson, scratching his beard with his hook. “Care to tell us why we’re here?”
“I have no idea why you’re here,” said Jackaby. “I understand why the fairies and sprites and the other oddlings have come—they’re here for my protection, what little of it I have to offer. You’re human, though, Hank. You were in no danger. You could be anywhere right now, so why are you here?”
“It don’t take an expert to read the signs, chum. Things ain’t right. You got a way of makin’ things right, and I aim ta help. Last time I got involved, it was me who made ’em wrong in the first place—so if you’re fixin’ this, I’m fixin’ to fix it with ya.”
“You know we’re with you, too, sir,” I said. Charlie nodded.
“It’s only recently I’ve been able to go out into the world again,” said Jenny. “I’m certainly not letting somebody go destroying that world before I’ve had a chance to enjoy it.”
“What about you?” Jackaby turned to Nudd.
“My horde’s got one foot in this world, t’other foot in th’ Annwyn. Bin feelin’ th’ tremors shakin’ both sides fer a long time noo.”
“But your horde is seeded hundreds of miles away. Spade wasn’t about to find you any time soon, and even if he had, as you say, you’ve got one foot in the Annwyn. You could always escape to the other side long before he posed any threat. Even if the worst came to pass, even if the earth and the Annwyn tore each other apart—you owe no allegiance to either faction. You could stand to the side until the dust cleared. So why seek me out? There’s no profit in joining the fray.”
“Nae. An’ it wouldn’ae be our firs’ time pickin’ o’er the dead after a battle. I’ll take no shame in it iffin’ it comes tae tha’, neither, but there’s profit in protectin’ an investment. We’s invested.”
Jackaby raised an eyebrow. “Invested in New Fiddleham? Brigand or not, you sound almost sentimental.”
Nudd gave a barking laugh. “Gotta lotta contacts in this city, t’ be sure—but it’s nae New Fiddleham we’s invested in.”
Jackaby looked confused.
“I believe he means you, sir,” I said. “Everyone in this room is invested in you.”
Jackaby looked deeply uncomfortable as the room quieted, heads nodding in agreement.
“Even him?” Hudson broke the hush. He pointed up to the shelf behind Jackaby. A man not more than six inches tall, his body covered in dust brown, woolly fur, sat at the top, dangling his feet casually off the shelf. He looked a bit like a mild-mannered chipmunk and an accountant fused into a single body. His face was round and rosy, bordered by downy tufts of hair around his ears and a stubbly beard that circled his chin.
“Ah,” said Jackaby. “That little fellow is an . . . actually, I don’t know.” He turned his head this way and that. “I don’t know you,” he told the creature.
“Humans don’t,” it said. Its voice was small and unassuming.
“No, I mean, I don’t believe I’ve even read about you, which is—I must say—rather uncommon. You have an exceptional aura, though, has anyone ever told you? Unrestrainedly brilliant. A rather zoetic bluish-red. But not really red, though, is it? Nor blue. What are you?”
“Half of what I once was,” said the creature humbly. “More than you will ever be,” it added quietly.
“Ach, watch yerself. ’Tis a twain,” Nudd interjected. “Powerful strong magic, th’ twain, but beholden tae none but they’s own. Unseelie as they come.”
“It’s an Unseelie fairy?” I said, taking an involuntary step backward—directly into Hudson. He steadied me with a hand on my shoulder.
“Unseelie. Seelie. Old words,” said the twain, softly. “They don’t mean as much as they once did. War changes things.”