The hallway was crowded with Alex, just getting to his feet, her brother, the black-clad soldier—a member of the Swift’s Family, she realized—and her own guards.
The tax records and grain production reports that had attacked Alex lay in a tumbled heap against the wall of the passageway. A few pages stirred, as if there was a breeze. Which there wasn’t. The pile shifted.
From inside her office came the sound of a rumbling crash, as if the entire shelf had just collapsed. It was followed by a thump-thump-thump that rattled the door in its frame. The books, trying to escape.
No. They were trying to get at Alex.
His face was grim as he stepped closer to her and bent to peer into her eyes. “Where is your uncle?”
It was such an unexpected question. She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s late. I expect he’s in his rooms. He—”
“No, he’s not,” Alex interrupted, looking deadly serious. “Listen, Kenneret. Your Majesty, I mean. Since the day I got here, your uncle has been trying to get rid of me. He sent that letter to Purslane, and I’m pretty sure he told your steward to offer me money to leave, and I’m betting he’s been working on you, too, telling you how inexperienced I am, that I’m too young for the job, and all of that.”
“Maybe he simply doesn’t like you, Alex,” she reasoned.
“No,” he said quickly. “I mean, yes, he doesn’t like me, but that isn’t it. He was searching for one of the Lost Books, and he didn’t want me making his search more difficult.”
“But you’re just a librarian,” Charlie blurted out.
“Charlie,” Alex said, his voice positively dripping acid, “I pretty much want to kill you right now. A librarian is never just a librarian. And the Lost Books are far more than just books.”
Kenneret shook her head. “But why would Uncle Patch want to find one of the Lost Books?”
“Why do you think?” Alex asked sharply.
Her eyes widened. He couldn’t be suggesting . . .
From her office came the sound of glass shattering.
“Uh, sorry to interrupt,” said the black-clad soldier. “But I’m not sure that door is going to hold.” He pointed at Kenneret’s office. Then he pointed at the pile of books that had attacked before. “And those ones are looking restless . . .”
“Yes, of course,” Kenneret said. “You two”—she pointed at her guards—“stay here and make sure the books don’t escape, or come after us.” Leaving them to it, she turned and started walking down the hallway.
Alex took two quick steps to catch up with her. “Your Majesty, your uncle has found at least one of the Lost Books. It’s called the Keys Treatise, and it gives its reader the power to unlock any door. I think he’s been using the Treatise to search the library for another Lost Book, one called the Scroll of Kings. It was written by a legendary king, and whoever reads it gains great power.”
Charlie was a step behind her, followed by the black-clad Family soldier. “What power?” he asked, as the sound of the books pounding on her office door faded.
When Alex answered, his voice sounded bleak. “The power to rule.”
She couldn’t bring herself to believe what he was suggesting. Her uncle had done his best to raise her and Charlie—well, he’d sent Charlie away to school, but he’d always been there for her, as her regent, and then as an advisor. He had tried to counsel her, pointing out whenever she made stupid mistakes or bad decisions. Maybe . . . maybe he had done that because he wanted her to fail.
Had he been undermining her all along? He was so hard to read—he always presented a bland, smiling face to the world. “This Keys Treatise,” she asked Alex, who paced at her side. “You think it was found four months ago?”
“Yeah, about that long, I’m guessing,” Alex answered. “Look, Kennie, we don’t—”
She held up a hand, and he fell silent. Her brother, a step behind them, was listening.
It had been four months since her uncle had changed. She had wondered why—and now she knew. That’s when he had found the Lost Book. “If the Keys Treatise was found,” she asked Alex, “and read, would the person who read it learn about the Scroll of Kings?”
He nodded. “Yes. I think he would.”
Kenneret took a few more steps, then stopped. The others gathered around her. Saying it aloud would make it real, and true. “My uncle is making a bid for the throne,” she said slowly. “He wants to rule Aethel.” She closed her eyes for half a second, feeling a wash of fear, and betrayal, and sorrow, too, that her uncle could do such a thing. But she was queen. She could not give in to those feelings. She would grieve later; she would be furious later. Right now she had to act. She had to be queen.
When she opened her eyes again, she was all grim purpose. “All right,” she rapped out. “My uncle knows that the Scroll of Kings can give him the power to get rid of me and take the throne. He has been searching for it for months. Do you think he has found it?”
As an answer, Alex held up his hand, then pushed up his sleeve to reveal his wrist. He was wearing a bracelet of some kind—no, it was a tattoo. He held it closer, turning his hand so she could see better.
In dark letters against the pale skin of his wrist was a single word.
KINGS
She looked up, meeting Alex’s gray eyes. “What does that mean?”
“It’s a warning, Your Majesty,” Alex answered promptly. “It means that he’s either found the Scroll, or he’s about to.”
“All right,” she snapped. “How do we stop him?”
23
“Lord Patch has to be in the library somewhere,” Alex said.
“Then we’ll go to the library,” Kenneret said steadily, “and we’ll find him.” She set off down the mirrored, gilded hallway. Alex fell in beside her. Charlie was a step behind, with Jeffen.
They hurried around a corner. “Thanks for coming with me,” Alex panted as they sprinted up a marble stairway lit only by a fading light-well in a sconce.
“I’m not,” Kenneret answered briskly. “You are coming with me. We’ll deal with my uncle together, and with the Scroll of Kings.”
Alex frowned, knowing what she meant by dealing with the Lost Book.
Kenneret looked over her shoulder at Jeffen, two steps below them. “The Swift and the rest of the Family were already on their way here, and they will arrive very soon. Possibly even by morning. Do you think we can hold out until then?”
“What,” Alex said shortly, “so you can have them dismantle and burn the library?”
“I will do what has to be done,” she replied.
The thought of that possibility made his head spin. He would die before he let it happen. He knew she intended to burn the Scroll of Kings, too, if she got her hands on it. The Lost Books could be used by evil people for evil purposes, but the books themselves were not evil, he was sure of it. They contained the self of a person—they were alive—and they didn’t deserve to be burned. There was an alternative. He just had to figure out what it was.
As they reached the top of the stairs, Charlie took two quick steps to hurry at Alex’s other side. “Listen,” he said. “Once this is over, assuming we’re all still alive, I can help you get away. I know some good hiding places.”
Alex glanced aside. “Get away? From who?”
“The Family,” Charlie hissed in a voice loud enough for the other two to hear. “And the Swift. They’re going to arrest you.”
Alex blinked. “Arrest me? No they’re not.”
“But you ran away from the Swift’s fortress, didn’t you?” Charlie asked.
“Last time I checked,” Alex said sharply, starting to lose his patience, “running away from home wasn’t a crime.”
“From . . . from home?” Charlie and Kenneret exchanged a glance.
Alex was definitely not going to explain it all now, and anyway, they’d reached the remote hallway with the worn carpet that led to the library door. It was time for action.
Taking out his
key ring, he unlocked the library door, and they all trooped in.
They found Bug and Franciss huddled under one of the long wooden reading tables. Scattered all around it were books sprawled with their covers open, tumbled over each other.
High above, on the third-floor balcony, a book slid off its shelf, plunged through the air, and Alex stepped aside as it slammed into the place he’d been standing.
“They keep doing that,” Franciss said, crawling out from under the table, casting a wary look at the bookshelves. “Attacking us!” Bug stayed where she was, her big eyes blinking.
Alex bent and picked up the book. It was a history of naval battles, and it was trembling. “What’s the matter?” he asked, unbending a few pages and closing the book, smoothing the cover with his fingers. He shook his head. That hadn’t been an attack.
“He talks to the books,” he heard Franciss whisper to the others.
“They’re afraid,” he said. “They know something is wrong, and they’re trying to get away.” Looking up, he saw rank on rank of bookshelves, the balconies and catwalks, the shadowed ceiling high above. Every book was terrified; the air shivered with it. They knew the entire library was in danger—from burning, dismantling, from being marked by the Lost Books, from Patch’s plans. He didn’t have much time. The mark on his wrist meant that Patch had found the Scroll of Kings. He was probably reading it now. The longer they waited, the more likely he was to finish it and command its power.
But they couldn’t rush into this fight. His pa had taught him that whenever a leader went into battle, he or she had to consider the objectives of the fight, the resources at hand, and the enemy.
The objective, of course, was to save the books.
And the queen.
His pa would have something to say about the order of importance there. But Alex was not the Swift, he was a librarian, and for him the books came first, always.
He bent to check under the table. Miss Bug peered back at him. “Are you going to hide or help?” he asked her.
She blinked three times and hunched her thin shoulders.
“It’s for the library,” he added, and reached out a hand to her.
Her bug eyes squinted at his hand. She leaned closer. “What is that?”
Her twiglike finger pointed at the bracelet of letters on his left wrist. The word KINGS was still printed there.
Miss Bug was staring at him, and her lips were moving. “You . . . are . . . marked . . .” she whispered.
He didn’t have time to explain what had happened all those years ago with the Red Codex in his father’s library. “Are you coming out or not?” he asked impatiently.
“All right,” she said in her high voice, and started crawling out from under the table.
As he straightened, another book plummeted from a high shelf.
“Yipes!” Charlie said, and leaped out of its way, and it crashed to the floor next to him.
Alex surveyed the others. Jeffen and Franciss: well armed and well trained, and they would take his orders. Charlie: had his sword. Bug: a librarian, but maybe not of much use. His pages would do as they were told, but they were simple creatures. They couldn’t do much.
And Kenneret? She was short and snub-nosed, and she wasn’t even wearing her crown, and she was completely self-possessed as she returned his speculative look with a calm gaze of her own. The queen was beyond competent. She was an equal ally in this fight. Alex felt fairly certain that her uncle had underestimated her strength.
And now, the enemy. “Lord Patch is in the library somewhere,” Alex told them. “He has just found the Scroll of Kings, and he’s reading it, which means he’ll soon gain the power of a king, if he doesn’t have it already. We have to find him, and take the Scroll.”
“And burn it,” Kenneret added.
He shot her a glare.
“It’s dangerous,” she reasoned.
“And evil,” Miss Bug piped up.
“Books are not evil,” Alex told them, and not for the first time, either. Shaking his head, he set aside the argument. “The question is, where is Lord Patch hiding?” Dodging another falling book that crashed down behind him, he went to look at the map of the library, which was laid out in the middle of the stone floor. It was a sprawling mess, really, with extra pages tacked onto its edges where he’d found new rooms and corridors, secret tunnels, stairways, trapdoors, Miss Bug’s little cave, the barricaded room where the blackpowder explosions book was stored, and the other fortified room where he’d locked up the marked books. It was a true maze on five different levels. They could easily get lost in it, and Patch knew it as well as he did—or better.
As he’d found each book marked with the Lost Books symbol, he’d put an X on the map, but there was no pattern to it—at least, not one that he could see. Standing, he walked around to the other side of the map and crouched again, trying to puzzle it out.
Dimly he was aware of other books falling from the shelves, a distant banging sound, which, he guessed, was the marked books trying to escape from the fortified room, and of Jeffen and Franciss with hands on their swords, ready for action, and Kenneret talking to Miss Bug.
“The king who wrote the Scroll of Kings,” the queen asked. “Was he a good king? Do you know?”
Miss Bug’s whispery voice answered. “He was. He was from far away and not from Aethel, but he was good. A bad, evil book, but a good king.”
“I see,” Kenneret said musingly, as if she was thinking.
Studying the map, Alex shook his head. No, he couldn’t figure it out. He got to his feet. “All right,” he started. “We’ll have to—”
“Wait a minute,” Charlie interrupted.
“We don’t have a minute,” Alex snapped.
“Ten seconds,” Charlie amended, still gazing at the map. And as Alex stared at him in astonishment, the prince climbed onto a chair and then onto the reading table. He ducked as a book whizzed past his head, and then he shot Alex a triumphant grin. “There is a pattern. You just can’t see it from down there. Look!”
Alex scrambled onto the table and looked, and sure enough, Charlie was right. From a height, the pattern left by the marked books was obvious, one X leading to another, to another, forming the shape of the Lost Books symbol, all leading to . . . “There,” Alex said, pointing. A room on the fifth floor, in the deepest depths of the library. “That’s where he is.” The room where the Scroll of Kings had been hidden—the room where they’d find Lord Patch.
24
“Come on!” Alex ordered. Jumping off the table, he started across the stone floor. With Kenneret and Charlie a step behind him, he climbed up the spiral staircase; Jeffen and Franciss, with Miss Bug scurrying along between them, brought up the rear.
As they reached the second level, a rumbling roar echoed through the big main room of the library.
“What was that?” Jeffen cried, putting his hand on his sword.
Alex paused and consulted his mental map of the library. “Zoological books are down there.” Books about all kinds of animals. “A marked book about lions, probably.”
“Lions!” cried Jeffen.
“Or tigers,” Alex said grimly, and kept going up the stairs. From the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of a huge, tawny shape bursting from a passageway on the ground level and bounding across the stone floor, heading for the stairs. Another echoing roar filled the room.
“It’s a lion, all right!” Jeffen shouted.
“Keep going,” Alex panted, and they pounded up the spiral stairs. As they went around the curve, he caught another glimpse of the lion bounding up the stairs after them, and then they were past the second-floor balcony, headed for the third.
From down another passageway on the other side of the main room came a hissing sound.
“Oh, please, let it not be snakes,” he heard Jeffen gasp, and then a torrent of steel-tipped arrows burst out of a doorway and shot across the library, aimed straight at Alex.
Both Charlie and Ke
nneret hit him from behind, and he fell hard on the stairs, hearing the arrows strike the books behind him—thunk-thunk-thunk—and clatter off the railing to fall away to the stone floor below.
Charlie pulled him and his sister to their feet. “The marked books are still after you, Alex,” he said.
“Yeah, I noticed,” Alex shot back.
“You all right?” Franciss asked as she climbed a few steps to reach them, her eye on the passage that had produced the arrows.
Miss Bug pointed with a bony finger. “Archery books down there.”
Jeffen was bringing up the rear, five steps below them. “Lion!” he panted. “Still coming!”
Alex looked up. They had two levels to go to reach the fifth floor. Every book in the library was trembling; the cavernous main room was filled with the noise of pages rustling, books bumping on the shelves, the huffs of the lion coming up the stairs after them . . .
. . . and the ringing clash of a hammer striking sparks off a heavy anvil.
“Blacksmithing books down that way, too,” Miss Bug piped up.
“Run!” Jeffen yelled.
Alex almost tripped as he raced up the stairs, with Charlie and Kenneret on his heels; from behind came the sound of hot metal hissing with steam; a quick glance back showed him Jeffen—not panicking—fighting off a blacksmith’s hammer, a whirling anvil, and two rods of iron with coal-bright ends that glowed orange in the dim light. “I’ll hold them off!” he shouted. “Keep going!”
The lion roared again.
The roar was answered by a brilliant flash of light from a passage above them on the fourth level, followed by a thundering boom that shook the entire library, and an eruption of sooty, black smoke.
Alex knew what it was—the blackpowder explosions book had finally broken out of its barricaded room.
A second blackpowder blast hit, sending flaming books whizzing out into the main area and arcing past them like shooting stars to land on the floor, far below. Alex, Charlie, and Kenneret raced up three more steps to the third-floor balcony with soot and sparks billowing around them.
Fire, Alex realized. In his library!