Chapter 23
It was a week later—on the first week of their third month in the Orphic Basilica, a fortnight later than they’d expected their next delivery of supplies to appear—that a commotion came from below.
Roy trudged to the balcony, his head spinning from the excessive amount of cramming he’d accomplished in the past few hours. There, he looked down and immediately picked out the source of the ruckus.
A churning, frantic crowd of ghosts was assembled before the front entrance on the first floor.
They were shoving against the double doors, which jostled and jumped in their frames, and piling atop one another like shadows crawling up the walls.
Screams and groans sounded through the library, echoing.
The ghosts wandering the upper floors floated toward the scene, drawn to the uproar.
Far beneath the clamor and the droning moans, Roy made out a rhythmic pounding.
It grew louder and louder, more distinct by the second.
He thought the ghosts were rattling the doors, that they were forbidding Roy and Percival from leaving, for some reason, and so it didn’t occur to Roy until then that someone was outside.
Roy remembered the first time he’d heard that sound, thinking it was the Governor and instead finding Tessa at the library’s threshold. He didn’t think that luck would be on his side now.
Roy and Percival left the fifth floor and strode down to the first, each of their footsteps loud as a judge’s gavel.
They couldn’t stall, couldn’t even demonstrate their paltry strength; anything less than absolute submission would be misconstrued by the Governor as an act of treason, a breaching of the rules he’d laid before Roy’s feet over three months ago.
No, Roy thought. We have a chance.
It was slim at best, but they had discussed at length what they would say to the Governor. That didn’t stop him from feeling sick in the stomach, though.
Percival rushed up to the heaving multitude of ghosts swarming before the front doors and flapped his arms. “Go! Leave!” he yelled. “You’re not helping us! If the Governor is out there, then we need to answer him!”
Some moved, as if startled by his approach, but they glided right back, hissing and groaning at him. Two or three of the ghosts merged together, fusing, and created a looming shield of translucent darkness, which solidified the closer Percival got to the door.
They’re not intimidated by us, Roy thought. They saw the minimal damage we did in the crypt, and so they don’t fear we can do anything more to them.
What are they afraid of, then?
“If these are ghosts of scholars,” he mused, wandering around and scanning the hall until his eyes alighted on something he might use, “and they linger in the limbo of this library, then the most precious thing to them would be . . . the books.” He strode toward a wall with purpose. “And what do books hate?”
He pulled a torch out of its sconce.
“Fire.”
He turned back to the front doors, tightened his grip on the torch and then pitched it head-over-end at the ghosts.
The effect was immediate. They spread outward, dodging the unlit torch and uttering shrill, horrified screams. About twenty or thirty of the ghosts stared at him for a moment, red eyes brightening with panic and disorientation, then swirled through the air and retreated to the floors from which they’d come.
Others zipped back and forth like streaks of ink, painting tracks of darkness across the carpet and trailing ribbons of crimson light.
Then they scurried off, joining their companions in hibernation.
Percival watched the exodus, in turns fascinated and ashamed. “They remember,” he whispered. “They remember what happened here.”
“Yes,” Roy said. “But what was once war may bring peace. Or war again.”
Gulping, Percival reached forward and pulled open the door, letting in a gale of cold, howling wind.
Two hulking figures dressed in verdant felt caps and white-furred coats stamped through the doors, large black batons hung on their belts.
They wore fingerless white gloves and black boots.
Roy was no fool, though; now that he knew the truth, he could see past these mundane details, could recognize the peculiarity that had eluded him on his ride to the Orphic Basilica: those effulgent red eyes.
These were the Governor’s guards, these inchoate versions of the Old Ones, compliant and brought back from death for a higher duty.
The Governor strode in behind his guards, garbed in his snow-freckled cream coat.
His rheumy green eyes landed on Roy. He slicked his hair back, laying the unkempt white wisps flat against his scalp.
He was much shorter and podgier than the men who accompanied him, though despite his harmless appearance, the predaceous glint in his eyes rooted Roy in place.
Once the Governor came to a halt before his guards, they paced forward to flank him.
Then he grumbled to Roy and Percival, “Follow me.”
* * *
“There’s something beautiful about this building,” said the Governor.
Roy sat before him, Percival on his right. A large desk separated them from the Governor, whose guards surveyed them expressionlessly.
The room where they’d gathered, situated on the seventh floor, was strangely bereft of bookshelves.
Diaphanous drapes hung over the great window behind the Governor.
Through the narrow gap between them, Roy saw that high above Northgard, which was scattered with freckles of firelight and mostly buried in snow, the crescent moon glimmered like a luminous hook.
“But you know I am not here for splendor,” the Governor finished.
Without being asked, Percival advised the Governor on what they’d found since their most recent progress report.
Roy felt himself shriveling, and his integrity dwindling, more and more with every word that came out of Percival’s mouth.
This was a betrayal of the Orphic Basilica’s desire for honor, a desire which, while unspoken, was clear in every interaction he and Percival had had with the library.
Both the Orphic Basilica and the Elder Scribes would welcome open discussions and exchanges of knowledge, but that the information currently being shared was designed not to further the advancement of knowledge and instead to subjugate . . .
Roy couldn’t quell his guilt, but he reminded himself that this was the plan they’d made.
This was what it had to come down to.
When Percival finished his report of their findings, from which he omitted their awareness of the Governor’s army of Blighted Droves, along with his plans to enlarge and thereby augment this resurrected military unit, he said, “Although we haven’t uncovered who the Old Ones are or where they’re from, we’ve identified that these soldiers are forces of nature.
They are more akin to a plague than an army, and so must be treated as such. ”
“Splendid,” the Governor said. “But as you’ve said, you haven’t reached the truth of who these soldiers are, what they actually want.”
“No,” Roy said, fighting to maintain his calm.
He and Percival were relatively certain they had the solution to pushing back the Old Ones from Northgard.
But panic still fastened its hold around Roy’s heart.
He feared that, at any moment, they might be asked a question they would have to lie about, and Roy didn’t want to imagine what might happen should the Governor ferret out their understanding of his exploits.
“But we still have three months. We’re close. ”
“As is our defeat,” the Governor said, ignoring Roy’s mention of their deadline.
“I need answers, but since you seem to be if not at a loss for them, then at least struggling to uncover the complete identity of our adversaries, I believe some technicalities must be addressed, and some amendments must be made.”
“What were you hoping to discuss?” Percival asked, cautious.
“Amendments to what?” Roy asked at the same time.
The Governor rested his chin upon his clasped hands. “I would like to make an official modification to the Law of Intervention.”
Roy stiffened. “What? What modification?”
“The Old Ones are gaining on us,” the Governor said. “They’ve enforced their ranks around the Citadel. No attacks have yet been launched, but the long weeks of tension, made worse by the snowstorm, indicate it’s imminent.
“Moreover, small changes in the administration of the city”—Roy assumed this was Northgard’s brutal treatment of Rasileus’s lower-class citizens, deprived of food and forced to cannibalism, which was decidedly a very large change—“have resulted in outbreaks and acts of violent resistance from the working population. I am often hesitant when it comes to alliances, but I love this city. I would live in regret for all my days if I knew there was something I could’ve done and had refused to do it.
As such, I have needed to repay the debts of a few Manors and their Masters and Matrons. Your mother, Roy, is among them.”
“Debts?” Percival asked.
“Past liabilities,” the Governor explained. “Broken peace negotiations. Failed attempts at allegiance. Some treaties have an expiration date, you see, but Matron Dimestra and I have struck a new deal befitting our positions.”
Roy did not like the sound of that; the deal the Governor had already struck with the Matron was bad enough—worse, given that it had transferred loyalty of her Droves to the Governor and granted him the resources to build his revenant army.
But Roy was unclear what any of this had to do with his and Percival’s mission.
The Governor provided immediate clarity.
“Something similar has crossed my mind regarding your assignment.”
“We, too, wish to discuss our terms,” Roy said, his breath shaking, and then tried to assure the Governor. “And I want to be clear that Percival and I have guaranteed there’s no power imbalance or unjust consequences tied to our proposal.”