13. Cat
Chapter thirteen
Cat
T he library filled my dreams, so much that when Zariel woke me the next morning with a gentle touch on my shoulder, I leapt out of bed like a child on Christmas. For an academic, this was better than Christmas. Who cared about a mate bond when there were otherworldly treasures to explore?
The library was something out of my deepest academic fantasies. It wasn’t just a place of books—it was a temple for them. The upper levels of the mountain were a sea of documents and staid tomes of every size and color, set in clearly labeled rows that went on as far as I could see—spanning through tunnels and halls. Silently, Zariel guided me through one of the halls, a relatively small one compared to the vastness around us. There was no light here, other than from the encased lamps, but the glow was enough to make the hardened ash on the walls sparkle like snow. There were no pines or other plants in this part of the mountain—probably to keep the humidity at a perfect level for the books—but the same jarring, grotesque pictures weaved their way across the walls. Something like art of a dancing fairy couple would a few steps later be a depiction of that same couple dancing without their skin. What would be angelic children playing in a garden would later be an empty space, the art depicting nothing but barren branches and toys splayed on the ground. That same balance between the beautiful and the macabre followed us even in here.
None of the libraries’ rooms were empty of people. In each room there were at least two angels wearing leather armor with swords fastened at their sides, watching the occupants with rapt attention. For the guards to be staring that intensely at angels spoke to how seriously they took their task. The two guarding this room narrowed their eyes when they saw me, but Zariel kept his hand on my lower back and met their challenge, daring them to say anything. They didn’t.
Zariel had given me three options to choose from when traveling to this level of the library. The first was having him fly me up, bypassing the stairs entirely. The second was using the set of stairs in the main atrium that had no rails—with nothing preventing me from falling to my untimely death. The third was a very narrow stair/tunnel combination that wound around the mountain .
I chose the stair tunnel, even though it took a half hour of walking on a noticeable incline.
“Why is it so dark?” I whispered, gathering the skirts around my legs and sneaking a pat to console my sore thighs. “Aren’t there windows here?” I was dressed like the other librarian angels, in gauzy robes that enveloped me in airy layers. A belt was tied around my waist, tucking up the fabric and hiding the fact that this garment was made for someone much taller than myself. I had tied my hair back in its customary braid, grateful that some part of my routine had stayed the same. I had no makeup and no moisturizer, but I had a braid.
“Light ruins the manuscripts,” Zariel whispered. “There’s a few areas here that do have windows, and the books there aren’t valuable. Mostly popular fiction tales and such, things that can be easily replaced. And they”—he gestured toward the guards—“are here to make sure no harm comes to the books.”
I tried not to stare, even though Zariel had warned me about them. It was a very different thing to see armed angelic guards in person. “Are those the same guards who work in the prison?”
“Yes. We rotate them, so they don’t lose their minds below ground. Angels aren’t meant to be confined in the earth—we belong in the sky.” That last sentence was uttered with a hint of something I couldn’t place. Bitterness? Regret? “And then they’re given frequent leaves, where they are encouraged to fly outside. Being inside the mountain itself is difficult enough for us, but here, in the library, we are level with the clouds.”
“Who are they?” I eyed a particularly tall one with a square chin. “I mean, how does one end up as a guard here?”
“Nobles’ sons and daughters, their second or third children. Or the younger children of those who are wealthy and well-connected. Certainly, a fair number are also from the lower classes and proved themselves.” He leveled a look at me. “It’s an honor to serve here, in any capacity. When their service is done, the guards receive a pension and a recommendation that does much for any other path they wish to pursue. The guards protect the books, but all of us are prepared to do so, if needed.”
I listened … and I didn’t. My head spun with the wealth of knowledge around me. And this was only half the mountain. There was also that vast enclave underground, the one even Silv knew only through rumors. “Can I see the prison?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “Not necessarily the prisoners, just … I want to go down there.”
Zariel didn’t answer me, not until we were concealed behind a few rows of books—as alone as we could hope to be in this place. The steady echo of scratching pens reached us in the silence, a perpetual humming like bees in a hive, even though the scribes were working in their own section where I couldn’t see them. “Why would you want to go down there?” he asked .
“I’m curious.” I looked around the hall, emphasizing my point. “You told me this is merely one section, one piece of the library. If this place is such a marvel, what is the prison like?”
A shadow fell over his features. “Torture,” he said. “You don’t want to go there, Cat. It’s dark, a maze full of despair, and it’s no place for you.” He gripped my hand tightly. “You belong here, in the light.” With him , he seemingly left unsaid. Suddenly, he dropped my hand, as if remembering who I actually was to him—someone he just met. His mate, but also a stranger.
“I’ll never get another chance to see it—no human will. Can we just go down to the entrance, even? Please?” Why was I prodding him? I didn’t want to see beings in misery, either, but I hated that there was knowledge I couldn’t have, and that I might return from the mountain having only seen the beautiful part. A minor character flaw. If I was in the Garden of Eden, I would’ve eaten that apple long before the serpent came around.
Zariel watched me for a moment, as if making sure I was serious, and then finally answered. “It wouldn’t be good for me to be seen as having an interest in the prison.”
“Interest? From just going to the entrance?”
“Yes.”
“Alright.” I frowned, confused.
“Cat …” Zariel sighed. “I may as well tell you. My sister, Aniela, is in the prison. ”
My heart stopped. “You have a sister?” He hadn’t mentioned her when he told me about his family.
“Yes.” Zariel then explained how she was an archivist and scribe, like him, and how after the worlds merged, she was accused of attempting to murder the High Artist, which she admitted to, and was now incarcerated far below. “I’ve done nothing wrong, nothing to make them think ill of me,” Zariel said when he finished. “Until now. But I need to keep it that way. I know others are watching what I’m doing, and searching for any sign that I might be like her.”
“Murder isn’t genetic,” I said. That was true. I had a great uncle who murdered his neighbor after the mass destruction of his rose bushes and buried the body where the roses used to be. But as far as I knew, no one else in the family had done such a thing. And the uncle himself was long dead, in circumstances I couldn’t get anyone to tell me. I liked knowledge, but sometimes family secrets were better left undisturbed.
“Among our kind, familial ties are everything,” Zariel said. “When we return to our world—if we ever do—my family will face consequences for what Aniela did.”
“Like what?”
“It will be subtle, but they will lose favor. Business opportunities. Marriage bonds. Until you, I expected that I’d never have the freedom to go out of my way to find—” he coughed. “What I mean is, I gave such things no thought and focused solely on my work. But as I said, we should avoid the prison. Just in case. I’m sure we are being watched, and such a journey will be reported. I don’t need them suggesting to the High Artist that we might be trying to help Aniela escape or something ridiculous.”
“I see,” I said. “Alright. But … why is a bond with me such a bad thing? Something that would make them think you did something wrong?”
“Because it shouldn’t have happened—angels don’t deign to mate with non-angels.” A blush rose to his cheeks. “We’re an isolated people, in many respects.”
“Your kind never … love others?”
“I didn’t say that. A mate is family, beyond family. For me to bring a non-human with me, to the areas of the kingdom that are due my mate by right, they might wonder what was wrong with me to make this happen. Or if I did something to cause this—dabbled in some magic that I shouldn’t have. And if I did, what else could I be planning? It was only the novelty of the situation, I think, that the High Artist ordered that we be left alone.”
“But you didn’t do anything … magic.”
“No.” Zariel took a deep breath. “I did not. But that doesn’t mean everyone will believe me.”
“I can’t ask you to risk anything, especially for something so frivolous,” I said. “Forget I asked about the prison.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course. I feel bad pushing you to answer things you weren’t ready to tell me. ”
“Never feel bad for that,” Zariel said. “There’s nothing you cannot ask me.” We exchanged a hesitant smile before I went back to investigating my new surroundings.
Matter of the prison conceded, as far as I was concerned, I took a few steps along the aisle over the stone floors, tracing my fingers over a few of the books’ gilded spines. Runes similar to Zariel’s own lined the stone and wood shelves, etched under the rows of tomes.
“What sorts of books are these?” I asked. I couldn’t decipher the language. Language s .
“History,” he said. “I couldn’t tell you exactly of what, but this section held the history of the water races.”
“And the runes?”
“Merely decoration. Our magic unfortunately doesn’t work by etching it on a surface.”
“Oh?”
“Our runes need a body to work their magic—and stone is not flesh,” he teased at the end. I snorted lightly in reply, and then faded to a somber silence.
The weight of the space pressed around me as if trapping me forever. There was so much history. So many different kingdoms and creatures. So many lives upended and destroyed by the merging of the worlds. And what I could see here, in this one part of the library, was merely the start of the knowledge of an entire world, one larger than anything I could hope to imagine .
“How many different creatures are there?” I asked. “In your world. Human-like ones, I mean.”
“That is more of a spectrum than you may think, but the number is incalculable. Many more creatures are likely undiscovered, or are so adept at hiding themselves that they may as well be so.”
“Do you think … do you think that the worlds will ever return? That you will be able to go home?”
Zariel took a quick look around him before answering me. “It is our dearest hope. But as for the how, promise me that you will only mention this—the worlds returning—when we are in my rooms. I don’t know how the Artists would react to a human knowing our ultimate goals.”
I nodded, though why was this such secret knowledge? Anyone would want to return home, if they had the choice. At the university, we already suspected that the angels were researching just that. And if the rest of Zariel’s kingdom was like this—with the grandeur of the library—then this mountain was a poor substitute for what the angels here had lost. No wonder they wanted to go back.
“I understand,” I said. “And despite everything, thank you for bringing me here. I am very excited to see, well, everything.” I grinned, one that he returned. A now-familiar heat worked through me, mixed with satisfaction at getting another smile from him.
Was it only the research I was interested in, why I was excited to be here? Or was there more?
… What if there was more?
“In that case,” he said, oblivious to the war stirring within me. He offered me his arm, and I took it gladly. “Let me show you my work. I have no doubt they already have an assignment for us to prepare for the next summit.”
H e did have an assignment—translating something that seemed to be … a recipe book? Zariel and I sat next to each other in a hall filled with other scribes, who were scratching along and pretending not to stare. He was trying to work, and I was trying not to bother him. But curiosity got the better of me.
“What is that?” I asked, keeping my voice low and pointing at the illustration on the page. It showed a unicorn’s fleshless head in a stew pot, bobbing along next to onions and potatoes.
“A recipe book.”
“Yes, I gathered that. But that appears to be a unicorn.”
“It is.”
I paled. “Um … alright. Yes, that’s a unicorn. For dinner.”
He let out a soft chuckle. “The humans wanted a copy of one of our recipe books, probably to get a better idea of what is consumed in our world.” He looked down at the image again. “You don’t eat unicorns here?”
“We don’t have unicorns here. Aren’t they magic? ”
“Well, yes. Makes them taste a little peppery. But we don’t eat the talking ones. At least, angels don’t.”
I blinked hard. Talking unicorns? Peppery? “I’ll have to take your word for it.” From his smile, I suspected he was teasing me, but we were interrupted by a female angel who approached our table.
“Zariel,” she said, “can I ask you to help me with translating this sentence?”
“Of course.” He moved aside his own work before taking hers, not noticing the narrowed expression the angel gave me. She was pretty, with silvery hair and high cheekbones, but I didn’t get the sense that she was jealous of me for being with Zariel. No, she disliked me on a more basic level.
“I didn’t want to bother you,” she said, “considering that you have this … human.”
“This human is my mate,” Zariel said, turning from the project to focus on her. “And if you want my help, you’re going to be polite. And not treat her like she isn’t here.”
“I am as polite as can be expected.”
“We both know that’s not true. And that had better change. Now.”
I froze, watching the verbal sparring about me end in frozen silence, which was echoed by dozens of pens stopping momentarily. I wasn’t welcome—that I knew—but generally the angels so far had just avoided me. Unfortunately, she probably didn’t have a choice, not if she wanted Zariel’s help .
A few painful minutes later, which were spent without anyone saying a word, Zariel handed the angel back her book and went into a long explanation about … planets? Rocks? Something that I didn’t even try to follow as half of it was in a strange language. The matter apparently resolved, she thanked him and then left, giving me a grudging nod when Zariel glared.
“You’re able to translate that quickly?” I whispered once she left.
“My rune, the one for memory. It bonded with me extremely well.”
“What does that mean?”
He took a long breath. “Well, just because an angel receives a rune does not mean that it will affect us each the same. My illusion rune is weak, for example. While my memory rune is … I excelled at my studies before. Now, I have … a reputation of sorts.” He must have had a reputation, if an angel asked him for help like this, with me there.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, wringing my hands. “I made everything harder for you.” He had been kind to me, beyond kind. He didn’t deserve what my being here was doing.
“No. Never think that.”
“But she—”
“—Does not matter.” He picked up his own work, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want you to be. And I want you here. ”
My hands gripped my robes and my mouth dropped open. His eyes peered at me, soft blue crystals under the dim light. He wanted me here. Me . I was just beginning to understand the depths of what that meant.
“Let me focus on everyone else, and you focus on your studies, alright?” Zariel’s wings fluttered, and I noticed one crept closer to me in the last several minutes, sheltering us. What would happen if I touched one of the metallic-edged feathers? Would he let me?
I smiled, taking a book off the table. I couldn’t think like that— of him —like that. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy being here. He wanted me to study? Why, I would. With pleasure.