“Good smokes, these,” she finally said.
“Aye.”
“Don’t recognize the maker’s mark, though.”
“He’s dead.” Aelius shrugged. “Don’t make ’em like this anymore.”
“Like these books?”
“Eh?”
Mia motioned to the shelves. “I recognize some of the titles. They aren’t supposed to exist. It makes sense now I think about it. This is a Church to the goddess of murder.”
Tric blinked as realization dawned. “So Niah’s library is filled with books that have died?”
Aelius looked at the pair through the smoke, slowly nodded.
“Some,” he finally said. “Some are books that were burned. Or forgotten ages past. Some never got the chance to live at all. Abandoned or half-imagined or just too frightening to begin. Memoirs of murdered tyrants. Theorems of crucified heretics. Masterpieces of geniuses who ended before their time.”
Mia looked around the shelves. Shaking her head. What wonders were hidden in these forgotten and unborn pages? What horrors?
“And the … worms?” she exhaled.
“Not sure where they’re from, to be honest.” Aelius shrugged. “Maybe one of the books? Things in these pages don’t always stay on the pages, if you get my drift. They only come out if they think the words are in danger. Or if they get, y’know … hungry.”
“What do they eat?” Tric asked.
The old man fixed the boy in his stare. “What do you reckon?”
“We’ve been here nearly four months.” Mia dragged deep on her cigarillo. “You don’t think this is the kind of thing the Ministry should mention on your first turn? ‘O, by the by, Acolytes, there’s these colossal fucking wormthings that live in the library, so for Maw’s sake, get your books back on time’?”
“What if more acolytes sneak in here alone?” Tric asked. “Mouser’s contest earns us six marks for every book stolen from the athenaeum.”
“Well, Mouser’s a bit of bastard, isn’t he?” Aelius said.
“What would happen if someone actually broke in here and tried to lift one?”
The old man smiled. “What do you reckon?”
Tric gawped. “Madness…”
“Look, the worms only bother folk who mess with the words. And if you’re fool enough to go faffing about with books like these, you deserve what you get. And aside all that, I did warn you.” Aelius blew a smoke ring at Mia’s face. “Told you when we first met that depending what aisle you walked down, you might never be seen again.”
“All right, then, for future reference, which aisles should we avoid?” the girl asked.
“It changes.” The old man shrugged. “This whole place changes time to time. New books appearing every other turn. Others moving to places I didn’t put them. Sometimes I find whole sections I never knew existed.”
“And you’re supposed to chronicle all this?”
Aelius nodded. “Bugger of a job, really.”
“You could get some help?” Tric offered.
“I had four assistants, once. Didn’t go so well.”
“Why? What happened to them?”
The old man looked at the boy sidelong. Three voices rang in the gloom simultaneously.
“What do you reckon?”
Mia blew a lungful of pale gray into the silence.
“… I don’t suppose there are any books on darkin in here, are there?”
The chronicler glanced down at her shadow. Back up to her eyes. “Why?”
“Is that a no?”
“It’s a ‘why.’ Wonderful thing about a library like this. Any book that ever was or wasn’t written is going to be in here eventually. Trouble is finding the bloody things. Lot of effort to look for something specific. And sometimes these books get chips on their shoulders. The burned ones ’specially. Sometimes they don’t want to be found.”
Mia felt hope sinking in her breast. She looked at Tric, who shrugged helplessly.
“But,” the old man said, looking her up and down. “You’ve got the look of a girl who’s no stranger to the page. I can tell. You’ve got words in your soul.”
“Words in my soul?” Mia scoffed. “‘Burn After Reading’?”
“Listen, girl,” Aelius sniffed. “The books we love, they love us back. And just as we mark our places in the pages, those pages leave their marks on us. I can see it in you, sure as I see it in me. You’re a daughter of words. A girl with a story to tell.”
“They don’t tell stories about Red Church disciples, Chronicler,” Mia said. “No songs sung for us. No ballads or poems. People live and die in the shadows, here.”
“Well, maybe here’s not where you’re supposed to be.”
She looked up sharply at that. Eyes narrowed in the smoke.
“Anyways.” The old man pushed himself off the shelf and sighed. “I’ll keep an eye out. And if I find a book about darkin worth reading, I’ll pass it along. Fair?”
“… Fair.” Mia bowed. “My thanks, Chronicler.”
“You two had best be off. And me besides. Too many books. Too few centuries.”
The old man escorted Mia and Tric through the labyrinth of shelves, trundling his RETURNS trolley and trailing a thin line of sugar-scented smoke all the way to the doors. And though the distance had looked like miles to Mia, they arrived at the exit in a handful of minutes, the forest of paper and words left far behind them.
“Cheerio.”
Nodding to them both, Aelius smiled and closed the doors without a sound.
Tric turned to her with a crooked grin. “Words in your soul, eh?”
“O, fuck off.”
The boy spread his arms, loudly proclaiming, “A girl with a story to tell!”
Mia aimed a hard punch, right into Tric’s bicep. The boy flinched as Mia cursed, jarring her injured elbow. Tric raised both his fists, threw a few sparring punches toward her head as she slapped him off, aiming a boot at his hindquarters as he turned away. And together, the pair wandered off into the darkness.
She resisted the urge to take the boy’s hand again.
Just barely.
CHAPTER 22
POWER
She was fourteen years old the last time the suns fell from the sky.
The greatest wordsmiths of the Republic have never truly captured the beauty of a full Itreyan sunsset. The blood stench wafting over Godsgrave streets as Aa’s priests sacrifice animals in the thousands, beseeching the God of Light to return soon. The bloody glow of Saan on the horizon, colliding with Saai’s pale blue, tumbling further into a sullen indigo. It takes three turns for the light to fully die. Three turns of prayer, slaughter and budding hysteria until the Mother of Night briefly reclaims dominion of the sky.
And then, the truedark Carnivalé begins.
Mia woke to the sound of revelry. The constant popopopop of fireworks from the Iron Collegium, meant to frighten the Maw back below the horizon. She stretched out her hand, watched the shadows play. Feeling the power that had been growing inside her these last few turns finally blooming. With a wave of her hand, a tendril of shadow flipped an entire stack of books into the air, scattering the tomes across the room. At her whim, more shadows reached out, putting each book back in its proper place. She opened her bedroom door with a glance. Dressed without lifting a finger.
“… bravo…,” Mister Kindly had said. “… if only i had hands to applaud…”
Mia smacked her backside. “I’d settle for lips to kiss my sweet behind.”
“… i would have to find it first…”
“Arses are like wine, Mister Kindly. Better too little than too much.”
“… a beauty and a philosopher. be still, my beating heart…”
The not-cat looked down at its translucent chest.
“… o, wait…”
The girl checked the knives at her belt, in her boots, tucked up her sleeve. She was a scrap of a thing, crooked fringe and hollow cheeks, full of all the confidence fourteen ye
ars in the world brings. Listening downstairs, she heard Old Mercurio’s familiar murmur, swapping gossip with one of his frequent not-customers. The old man wasn’t one for revelry. Unlike every other resident of Godsgrave, her master would be staying off the streets tonights. He had eyes aplenty out there already.
“… you insist on doing this, then…?”
She looked to her friend. All trace of jest draining from her face, leaving it hard and pale.
“This is my best chance. I’ve never felt as strong as I have in truedark. If I’m ever going to get in there, it’s tonights.”
“… you should tell the old man…”
“He’d try to talk me out of it.”
“… do you not ask yourself why…?”
“There’s no guards in there during truedark, Mister Kindly.”
“… because the descent will begin soon. hundreds of prisoners slaughtering each other for the right to leave the philosopher’s stone. do you really wish to be in there with them…?”
“Four years, Mister Kindly. Four years they’ve been locked in that hole. My brother learned to walk in a prison cell. I don’t know the last time my mother saw the suns. What have I been training for all these years, if not this? I have to get them out of there.”
“… you are a fourteen-year-old girl, mia…”
“And is it the fourteen-year-old part, or the girl part that troubles you?”
“… mia—”
“No,” she snapped. “This ends tonights. On my side or in my way?”
The not-cat sighed.
“… you know where I stand. always…”
“Then let’s stop talking about it, shall we?”
Out the window. Onto the street. The crush and revelry. Everyone in their Carnivalé masks; beautiful dominos and fearsome voltos and laughing punchinellos. The girl slipped through the throng, a harlequin’s face over her own, cloak over her head. Past the sighing lovers on the Bridge of Vows, the hucksters on the Bridge of Coin, down to the broken shore. Slinging the canvas off her stolen gondola, she stretched her arms and closed her eyes. Darkness slithered from the nooks and crannies, wrapping the girl and boat in a shroud of night.
Hidden in the darkness, she punted across the Bay of Butchers, under a walkway on the Bridge of Follies, shifting and rolling on the rising tide.1 Slinging her cloak aside as she made for the open sea, hours turning by, aiming for the foreboding spike of stone thrust up from the ocean’s face. The hole in which her mother and brother had languished for four long years at Julius Scaeva’s command, hopeless and helpless.
Not anymore.
She made berth on the jagged rocks, the shadows bringing her safely into harbor. The darkness dragged the gondola onto the shore, spared it the jagged kiss of the rocks surrounding the Stone. Mia licked her lips, inhaled salt air. Listening to the distant hymn of the gulls. The violence already echoing through the Stone’s innards. Mister Kindly drinking in her fear and leaving her fierce and unafraid.
She held out her arms. Willing herself upward. The power thrummed in her veins, like nothing she’d ever felt before. A black kinship, flowing like the growing dark. Long black tendrils wrapped her up, slipped from her fingers, digging into the brickwork at the Stone’s base. Like the translucent limbs of some vast spider, they pulled her upward. And one black handhold at a time, the girl began to climb.
Up the towering wall, hair billowing in the rising wind. Over the battlements and twisted tangles of razorweed atop the walls. The shadows wrapped her up like a babe in swaddling and carried her down into the copper-thick stench of death.
Mia stole through the hallways of bloody stone, wrapped in a darkness so deep she could barely see. Bodies. Everywhere. Men choked and stabbed. Beaten to death with their own chains and bludgeoned to death with their own limbs. The sound of murder ringing all around, the stink of offal thick in the air. Vague shapes running past her, tangling and screaming on the floor. The cries ringing somewhere far away, somewhere the dark wouldn’t let her hear.
She slipped inside the Philosopher’s Stone like a knife between ribs. This prison. This abattoir. Down past the open cells to the quieter places, where the doors were still sealed, where the prisoners who didn’t wish to try their luck in the Descent were still locked, thin and starving. She threw the shadowcloak aside so she could see better, peering through the bars at the stick-thin scarecrows, the hollow-eyed ghosts. She could see why folks would try their luck in the Senate’s horrid gambit. Better to die fighting than linger here in the dark and starve. Better to stand and fall than kneel and live.
Unless, of course, you had a four-year-old son locked in here with you …
The scarecrows cried out to her, thinking her some Hearthless wraith come to torment them. She ran the length and breadth of the cell block, eyes wide. Desperation now. Fear, despite the cat in her shadow. They must be here somewhere? Surely the Dona Corvere wouldn’t have dragged her son out into the butchery above for the chance to escape this nightmare?
Would she?
“Mother!” Mia called, tears in her eyes. “Mother, it’s Mia!”
Endless hallways. Lightless black. Deeper and deeper into the shadow.
“Mother?”
“Mother!”
Mia clawed her way upright, wisps of hair stuck to the sweat on her skin. Her heart was thrashing against her ribs, eyes wide, chest heaving. Blinking in the dark, drenched in panic, finally recognizing her room in the Quiet Mountain, the sourceless luminance shrouding all in its gentle glow.
“Just a dream,” she whispered.
Not a dream. A nightmare. The kind she’d not had in years. Whenever the nevernight terrors came creeping to her bed above Mercurio’s shop, whenever the phantoms of her past stole inside her skull as she slept, Mister Kindly had been there. Tearing them to ribbons. But now she was alone. At the mercy of her dreams.
Her memories.
Daughters, where could he be?
Mia dragged herself upright, shivering. Head bowed. Arms wrapped around herself. Fear throbbing in her chest in time with her pulse. The shadows twisted along the wall as she clenched her fist. Remembering the way they’d flocked to her command the last time the suns fell from the sky. The last time she—
Don’t look.
She’d thought she might be all right. Tric had escorted her to her bedchamber after the library visit, assured her Mister Kindly would come back. As ninebells had struck, she’d crawled into bed, tried to convince herself all would be well. But without her friend there to protect her, there was nothing to stop the dreams. The memories of that lightless, blood-soaked pit. What she’d found within.
Don’t look.
She screwed her eyes shut tight.
Don’t look.
The empty room. The empty bed. Loneliness. Fear. Washing over her in waves. She’d not been truly by herself in years. Never faced sleep’s terrors without someone beside her. She pushed her knuckles into her eyes, sighed.
Ninebells had rung. Breaking the Revered Mother’s curfew would be foolish, especially after what they’d done to Hush. But she’d stolen out with Ashlinn and not been caught. And the place she wanted to be was only a few doors down, after all.
The place I want to be?
The prospect of endless, sleepless hours stretching out in front of her.
The growing fear that Mister Kindly might never come back.
Certainty budding in her chest.
The place I want to be.
A darkened hallway. Shaking hands. She pushed shadowstuff into the lock to muffle the sound, but her fingers were trembling so badly, she wondered if she could crack it. If she knocked, someone else might hear. Ashlinn. Diamo. Jessamine.
The lock finally clicked. The door swung open a crack on shadow-muffled hinges. She peered into the darkened room, stole inside. Gasping in fright as someone seized her arm, thrust her back into the wall, knife to her throat. Pausing as he recognized her in the dark, lowering the blade and speaking through gritted tee
th.
“Maw’s teeth, what are you doing in here?” Tric hissed.
“… Surprise?”
“I could have cut your damn throat!”
She fought to calm her galloping pulse, push the fright back far enough to speak.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she whispered.
“So you break into my room? It’s after ninebells, what if you got caught?
“I’m sorry.” She licked at dry lips. Swallowed.
He was still pressed against her, close enough to breathe him in. She realized he must sleep naked—his bare skin gleamed in the dim, sourceless light. Her gaze traveled his body, the hard muscle on his hairless torso, the taut cords at his neck, along his arms. Her breath coming a little quicker. The fear that had woken her was roiling in her still, but something else was stirring now. Something older. Stronger.
Do I want this?
She looked up into deep hazel eyes, softening with pity. He couldn’t know what it was like. Couldn’t understand what Mister Kindly meant to her. But still, she saw his anger melt, some soft understanding stepping in to replace it.
“I’m sorry too. You just scared me, is all.”
Tric sighed, began to ease away. A wordless protest slipped from her lips, and she reached out, running her fingertips up his arm. Goosebumps rose on his skin. She rested one hand on the hard swell of his shoulder. Stopped him from pulling away.
“Mia…”
“Can I sleep here tonight?”
He frowned. Those big hazel eyes searching her own.
“Sleep?”
Naked as he was, she could feel him pressed against her leg. She lowered her chin, looked up at him through the dark haze of her lashes. A small, knowing smile twisted her lips as she felt him stirring slightly. With deliberate slowness, she reached down with her free hand. Brushing her fingertips along his length, feeling it swell. He gasped as she took him fully in her hand, running her fingers along his silken-smooth underside. Flooded with dark satisfaction that her merest touch could inflame him.
Daughters, but he felt hot. Almost scalding the palm of her hand. And the slick of cold fear inside her belly began to melt, replaced by a slowly growing fire.