Chapter 22
It was still dark when Maeve reached the Second Library. From the outside, the front desk looked deserted.
She tugged her hood up and entered the lobby. A sign on the desk read: Attendant Returns at Eight Sharp. Enter at Your Own Discretion.
Sibilla was probably still asleep.
Maeve pulled out Tristan’s key ring. It took a few attempts to find the right key, but eventually the library door clicked open, and she stepped into a dark corridor laced with the smell of stone and parchment. Guttering lamplight helped lead her to a massive chamber where bookshelves soared to the ceiling.
At the whisper of footsteps, Maeve kept moving and spotted a stairwell with a sign that listed out the twenty-three descending floors. It gave a broad overview of each, but there was no mention of where she might find old room assignments.
Maeve took the stairwell down one floor, passing a room of historical documents from when the university was founded. On the next landing, she found a sign that simply read: Records Floor .
Promising, at least.
She walked down a long hall, then through a room lined with scribing pigment almanacs going back hundreds of years, then another room filled with the College of Scriptomantic Art’s historic ink collection. No room assignments. At the distant sound of more footsteps, Maeve dipped into a long room with a sign marked: Incident Reports.
She was about to walk through it when she noticed the words Hawthorne House embossed on the spine of every book on one shelf. They were all arranged by years. She pulled one out, flipping through reports of leaking faucets and busted dressers. One man complained of a sparrow that flew in through a broken window and had gotten into his scribing supplies. Listed below his name were the names of his two roommates.
Maeve put the book down, searching. Then she found a shelf with Eldermoss Hall marking the spine of at least a hundred books, their dates going back centuries.
She pulled out the volume for the year the Written Doors burned.
It was a heavy tome that sent a plume of dust in the air when she flipped it open. The writing inside was too tiny to read in the dim room, and she searched around for a candle—anything to brighten the space. She needed more light.
Carrying the massive book with both arms, Maeve hurried down the adjoining corridor until the light was brighter. She knelt and opened the book once more. It took her a few minutes of squinting over graying text filled with reports of broken handles and crooked bed frames until she found her father.
Jonathan Abenthy had filed an incident report complaining how his window was stuck. Listed right beside his name was his roommate, a Mr.Fion Claryman.
She’d found him.
A library cart rattled. Someone was heading toward her.
She ripped the page out and shoved it down her pocket, then ran deeper into the library, until she hit a hall that was cordoned off by an iron gate with an ancient-looking wooden door behind it.
Another cart rattled. Footsteps clicked along the floor.
Coming her way.
Maeve took out Tristan’s key ring, fumbling through keys. Only one of his keys looked large enough for the iron gate’s lock.
She pushed it in and turned. The gate clicked open. She shut the gate and raced through the wooden door beyond it, then softly shut the door before anyone could see her. She covered her mouth at the sound of the cart’s wheels rolling closer. She heard footfalls. Whoever it was halted. The sound of the gate jingling sent a wave of terror through her. Her hands felt her pockets. Her letters were there, but Tristan’s key was still in the lock.
The jingling continued for another few seconds. It eventually stopped, and the cart rolled away. Whoever it was had gone. Maeve was about to sink to the floor with relief, but something moved out of the corner of her eye, and her pulse leapt.
She took a survey of the space around her. The room was at least a story and a half tall and lit by a single torch. She walked over and pulled the torch from the wall, bringing it to the side of a large case made of thick glass welded together with what looked to be pure silver. Something shifted behind the glass. A dark shape moved toward her.
Maeve jolted and fell backward, dropping the torch. Her hand flew out to catch herself and slammed against something metal on the floor. It sliced her. Searing pain lanced up her arm.
She looked down to where her blood dripped against a rusted plaque that read: Aldervine Specimen, Retrieved by Molly Blackcaster.
Maeve gripped her wrist and scrambled to her knees, her eyes locked on the glass case.
Inside it, deep green tendrils uncoiled, slick thorns clawing for purchase exactly as they had along the side of Blackcaster Station in Inverly.
If the glass weren’t there, she could reach out and run a finger along a thorn.
Her entire body began to tremble. It felt as though she was beside Blackcaster Station right after witnessing her great-aunt’s death.
That entire moment came back to her. Maeve could practically feel that stranger’s arms grabbing her shoulder, dragging her away, the soft give of his muscles as she inhaled the scent of pounce powder and herbs wafting from him like cologne—just like her father always smelled.
Her eyes widened in shock.
She’d felt comforted by that stranger because he had smelled exactly like her father. She’d never realized it before this moment.
She still couldn’t remember the stranger’s face, but she could picture his fingers gripping her arm perfectly. They were splattered with ink. He wore a necklace with a gray satchel that she had focused on to keep from looking at all the people dropping around her.
Maeve touched her own crematory ash satchel.
That man who had saved her had been a scriptomancer, and she’d never put it together until now.
Then more memories slammed into her, one after the other: screaming horses, her aunt’s cry, the copper taste of blood rinsing across her tongue. Her chest tightened like a fist was squeezing it, like she was losing everything she loved all over again. She tried to scream but couldn’t draw a breath. She couldn’t breathe—
Someone gripped her shoulder, dragging her up.
It was Sibilla.
“Hurry,” she said, forcing Maeve out of the room and through the metal gate, then past a blur of bookshelves, until they came around an aisle to a dim part of the floor. Sibilla’s face rippled with fury. “What were you thinking?”
Maeve collapsed to her knees. “The Aldervine—how does nobody know about it?”
“Many people know about it. A team of scientists come to study it once a month, but there isn’t very much they can test from behind the glass.” She narrowed her eyes. “How did you get past the gate? Only senior officials have access.”
Then Tristan must have somehow gotten a key from his father.
Maeve could still see the gate from where she stood. Tristan’s keys were gone from the lock. Whoever rattled that cart must have taken them. “The gate was left opened,” she said.
Sibilla’s right eye twitched. “That’s impossible.”
There were footsteps a few aisles away.
“Get up!” Sibilla dug her fingernails into Maeve’s shoulders, forcing her to stand. “If anyone asks, you were never inside that room, and you certainly didn’t see me,” she said in a shrill tone, then rushed away in the direction of the footsteps.
Maeve peeked around the shelves. To where Sibilla came up beside Postmaster Byrne and three other stewards. They spoke in a hushed tone, then made their way toward a far stairwell. Sibilla glanced back once before following the group.
Sibilla had saved her. Maeve didn’t know what to make of it, and she certainly didn’t have time to stand around wondering.
Something warm and wet slipped down Maeve’s fingers. She lifted her hand and gasped at blood weeping from where she’d cut herself on the plaque.
Thinking fast, she ripped a piece of fabric from her cloak and wound it around her wrist, then raced up the stairs, back through the main entrance. Freezing morning air sliced into her chest, and sleet pelted her shoulders, but she was outside—away from that vine. Tipping her face skyward, she sucked in a deep breath until she was dizzy.
She dug in her pocket and pulled out the page she’d ripped from the incident report, read the name of her father’s roommate.
Fion Claryman.
She recognized the name.
Maeve started walking, trying her best to push all thoughts of the Aldervine from her mind. He legs trembled badly, but the mess hall was nearby at least. She rushed inside, scanning along the postings hanging in the entranceway, until she found a flyer for the Scriptomantic Exhibition and held it to a light. Her blood smeared the paper.
When she was ten, her father dragged her to that year’s exhibition. Back then, it was held in a shabby lecture hall in the north side of Gloam in Leyland. He made her sit on a stained chair while he gave a demonstration to four upper school writing students, hoping to recruit them.
This year’s exhibition lasted an entire week, with a merchant hall where dealers sold supplies, and couriers from the Post, like Shea Widden, set up booths to scribe novelties and give speeches to ease everyone’s minds. The flyer listed a litany of scheduled talks about everything from the Written Doors to the inner workings of the Post.
Maeve ran her fingers down the paper, past more details.
The weeklong event didn’t start for another three weeks, save for a closed-door reception for the planning committee the week after next in Barrow.
It went on to list committee members, including Mr.Fion Claryman, Professor of Linguistics at the Barrow campus.
There he was. His name had been sitting right under her nose this entire time. And Postmaster Byrne had to know this man if he was involved in planning the exhibition.
Her father’s roommate.
Her old friend .
“I’m coming for you,” Maeve whispered.