Chapter 4 Raven #2
Pippa doesn’t seem bothered at all as she slings her bag over her shoulder, turning to an archivist who’s pushing a wheeled cart toward us. “Raven needs help,” she says.
I blush, especially when the archivist glances my way as Pippa leaves. He’s cute, and that somehow makes it ten times worse.
“I don’t need help,” I say to the archivist.
“It’s not a problem,” he says. He’s a little older than me, maybe twenty or so, with shoulder-length brown hair that’s a little scruffy for such a charming face.
He reminds me of a Labrador, with cheerful dark eyes and a friendly smile.
His name is embroidered in gold thread on the breast pocket of the blazer that all senior archivists wear: Aspen.
I’m not sure if it’s his first name or his last.
He picks up the book I’ve been reading. “Well, now, how’d you get up here?
” he asks the book amusedly, as if it might answer.
And then I almost think it really might.
“I know just where these go. Would you help me carry them?” Aspen glances at me.
“I’m Aspen, by the way, Aspen Franklin. And you are? ”
“Raven Chen,” I tell him.
“Cool name,” he says. “Your parents were into Poe? Quoth the raven, Nevermore?”
I laugh. “Nope. I wish it was that cool. My real name’s Clarissa, but it never stuck.”
Aspen’s smile is contagious. “Are you a first-year? What house are you in?”
“No…I…I’m not a student here. I just work here,” I say, trying not to sound too embarrassed. “You?”
“I’m a third-year,” he says easily. I can tell he’s wondering what I’m doing in Sibylline. Probably thinks I’m a townie. I guess I am a townie.
I take half the stack while Aspen takes the other, leading me away from the circulation desk and toward the back of the hall.
Invisible at first until we make a turn, the shelves are actually a narrow, manufactured alley, hiding a large wooden door that Aspen unlocks with a brass key from a chain on his belt.
The air shifts, turning stuffier and more humid, when we step into a long hallway.
Offices and lounges for the archivists border either side of the hall as Aspen takes me through another locked door.
It leads us to a narrow, winding stairwell, spiraling down into the dark.
Aspen waves his hand in the air, and a trio of small lights burst to life in front of us, leading us like little fireflies.
“I hope you’re not afraid of the dark,” he warns.
I try to laugh, but it comes out like a hiss. “The dark? No. Tight spaces, though?”
“Oh, me too! I eventually got used to it, and you will, too. I promise, it doesn’t get too bad,” he says. He’s sweet. The way he’s reassuring me is making my face red. I hope he can’t see it. “Think of the tunnels under campus like a big basement. Nothing to worry about.”
I have no choice but to trust him as we climb down and down. The air grows heavier, smelling mustier as we go, and I’m getting dizzier by the second. I don’t want to think about how far underground we are, but I can’t help it. It’s getting harder to breathe, but I don’t let it show.
“So!” Aspen’s voice rips me away from my spiraling thoughts. “Do you have a boyfriend? Girlfriend? More-than-a-friend friend?”
“Are you trying to distract me?” I ask coolly.
He swivels his head to look at me, grinning. “Is it working?”
No, I want to say. I’m not interested. I’m in love with one person and one person only. “Anyway, to answer your question: No, I don’t have a boyfriend.” I think about Atticus, though, and only slightly choke on my words.
“Huh,” says Aspen.
“What?”
“Just surprised, that’s all.” When he looks at me again, a glimmer of something is in his gaze.
Before he says anything more, the stairs end at another hall, where we pass through more locked doors and more branching tunnels.
My thighs burn. I try not to make it look like I’m huffing with exhaustion, but it’s taking everything I have just to keep moving.
My arms shake with the weight of the books.
Small conveniences like elevators are sorely missed.
Before I can ask if there’s much farther to go, Aspen opens one final door.
“Here we are,” he says as the floating lights vanish. “The Eastern Archive.”
We’re deep underground, but the archive is bathed in golden light reflected off the silvery arches that span three stories overhead, the polished surface gilding the room in a warm glow.
Frescoes on the walls depict scenes from Greek mythology, like Persephone journeying into the underworld, Orion hunting the Pleiades, and Athena cursing Arachne.
On the ground floor, glass display cases with books propped open on pedestals reveal illuminated manuscripts that look so old, they might crumble to dust if I stare at them too long.
Three levels of mezzanines circle the room, accessible via iron spiral staircases, each section locked behind wrought-iron cages.
A roaring fireplace blazes at the far end of the room, burning without any visible fuel.
Aspen scales the steps, climbing up to the mezzanine, where he opens one of the iron cages. I obediently follow, even though all I want to do is stop and read everything I can.
“What are these books we’ve been carrying?” I ask, waiting patiently while Aspen tidies the shelf.
“These are some of the most important books in our collection, and their access is strictly controlled. The spells contained in them can be…dangerous, you know. The books are rare. You can’t find spells like these anywhere else on the planet.”
“Is that why you need to lock them behind cages?”
Aspen nods. “Otherwise, they might escape. Although they usually don’t make it too far…”
The shock that’s apparent on my face makes Aspen laugh. “It’s true. They like to wander the archive. We can’t let any of them leave the premises, otherwise who knows what might happen. They might be lost forever.”
“The books have a mind of their own?”
“Don’t we all?” He considers it for a moment. “We all have a desire to be free…but I guess it’s safer this way, for everyone.”
I fall silent as Aspen sorts through the books, putting them back into their places on the shelf. Another thought occurs to me. “Are they dangerous? These books?”
“Aren’t all books dangerous? Knowledge is power, isn’t it?” he says matter-of-factly.
I nod, my mind racing. If only I’d had time to translate what I read earlier. I can’t remember what the Welsh incantations said exactly, but if I could just get another look, then I could translate them into English.
When the last book is set back into place, Aspen locks the cage and checks the time on a candle clock. “The archive’s almost closed. Sorry I kept you so late. Let’s lock up and head home, shall we?”
We exit the archive, and he seals the room behind us with a brass key from the chain at his hip.
I glance at the door, and a pang of regret shoots through me.
Everything we want to know is beyond it.
The whole history of magic rests in that room.
I try not to stare at the keys as they dangle from his belt, but I wonder what would happen if I took one.
As I journey back to the surface, my thoughts race, a plan slowly coming together in my head, thinking of what Aspen told me about the books.
It was my idea for the three of us to come here, and if we are going to teach ourselves magic, we’re going to have to be unafraid to break into rooms we’re not allowed in and use everything we have in our arsenal.