Chapter Twenty-Six Vina #2
“We have all three houses on this street,” Cora said, as Vina stepped hesitantly forward. “We knocked the walls together. From the outside, the houses are nothing to look at. From the inside, they’re not much to look at either, of course. But the space is better.”
Vina stopped at a table. A slim volume was open. She hesitated, oddly drawn to it.
“These books,” Vina murmured.
“Take it,” said the person at the table, looking up. “We bribed our way into a printing press to make copies of this one. It can take a human touch. But keep your hands off the hand transcriptions—they’re precious, and if the ink smudges I’ll be forced to rip out your eyes.”
“Entirely fair,” Vina said. She traced the air above the words—now that she had permission—with a fingertip. “It’s in a different language?”
“Welsh,” said the librarian, and the word was like an electric burr against Vina’s ears—as if two decades ago the word would have turned to a white haze of static and faded from her mind.
“Vina,” said Galath. “Come.”
Hari and Galath were standing at the far edge of the room. Cora was gone. Vina went to join them.
“How did you meet them?” Vina asked. “These librarians?”
“Vaughan found us first,” said Hari. “And then we came to know them. Help them.” A pause, then Hari said, “We’ve been busy, Vina.
We really have tried. Tried to save the library, and protect incarnates.
And we’ve tried to save Simran.” Hari swallowed.
Then said, thickly, “I promised her parents I’d find her.
It’s not a promise I intended to break.”
Vina’s vision went hazy for a moment, two lives converging again.
That flat above a sweet shop, with a broken table, and Simran’s wary parents watching her.
And overlaid, the memory of her early childhood, when her dada and dadi had come to visit—their frail, gentle hands, their gentler words.
Hari’s parents, she’d thought. Her papa’s family.
She’d always been glad her papa was like her, with parents who loved him without blood ties, only bonds of the heart.
“They.” Vina blinked, emotion washing over her like a storm. Her own voice trembled a little when she said, “Did they. Know what I am?”
“They knew you,” Hari said. He placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Knight, come with me,” Cora said, sticking her head out from a corner door. She got a glare from a few librarians for the noise. She glared right back. “Ophelia wants to talk to you.”
Cora led her down a staircase into a courtyard garden. Under a gray sky, the garden was oddly lush, full of flowers made of shadows, and insects of gossamer smoke that hummed gently between them. Vina could smell the ink of them. Tales.
“The tales are growing,” said Ophelia. She’d been imposing, charming when Vina had last met her.
She was older now, but beautiful for it—hair still black, skin deep brown, lines of sorrow faintly bracketing her mouth.
She was kneeling among the stories, in practical trousers and a jumper, waiting for Vina to join her.
Vina did, kneeling down beside her. Ophelia’s hands were mottled—old burns had streaked them with gradations of color and twisted the fingers inward. Vina focused her gaze on the stories—those whispering, leaflike shadows.
“I thought nothing survived the burning,” said Vina, awed.
“Nothing did. These are new stories, carefully reared,” Ophelia replied.
“I thought all was lost, after the green library burned. But more stories were brought to us. This isn’t the library, old and magical and—irreplaceable.
But it is a library. And we keep doing our work.
” One of the insects settled on her shoulder—a smoke-and-gossamer-winged moth.
“You came to speak to us,” said Ophelia. “What do you need, sir knight?”
“I need to destroy the Queen’s archive. The archive is—a cage, chains on those stories. I saw those chains. I felt them. Destroy it and the stories will be free again. Incarnates will be able to change.”
“Or the tales may die,” said Ophelia. “I understand the magic of stories, sir knight. We all do. Sometimes we even bind tales in ink and paper. But the archivists… What they’ve done? I can’t understand it, never mind undo it.”
“All I’m asking for is information,” said Vina earnestly. “Any advice, any knowledge you can offer. How can I end the archive? Must it be by fire? The sword? Must I seek magic to free those tales? Do you and your kind have the magic to help me?”
“We don’t have the Beast anymore, or a chalice of knowledge,” said Ophelia.
Her hands were faintly trembling. “I almost burned, trying to save the Beast. I didn’t want to leave it behind.
There was so much smoke—but the Beast did not emerge from its hall.
I broke down its door—burned my hands on the knocker.
But it wasn’t there. My family had to drag me out.
Did it burn? Did it die? I still wonder, but I thought losing it along with the library would destroy me.
It turns out I’m made of stronger stuff.
Isn’t that strange? Marvelous, even? So I have no truths to give you. I only have what I believe.”
Vina listened silently.
“I see strange buildings in the distance,” said Ophelia.
“And one night a fire raced through London, then vanished by morning like it had never burned, taking thousands of houses with it—even St. Paul’s.
And then I come here, to our makeshift library, and I watch stories grow—some of them are sweet, and many of them are full of evil and cruelty.
So some stories may burn this city, and others may peel back its surface and reveal monsters under its skin.
But I believe my job is to save them all—bit by bit, day by day.
So here’s my belief for you, sir knight.
We librarians are built to save and protect the Isle’s tales, and I’d rather die than risk harming any of them. What are you built to do?”
Behind her gold-rimmed spectacles, her eyes were sorrowful.
“I am sorry I couldn’t help you,” Ophelia said. “The pain I felt when the library burned… I won’t let that agony repeat in the world. Not if I can help it. But if you need someone to speak to—if you need shelter—we librarians will still be here.”
Cora and Vaughan waited at the stairs back into the house.
“It’s time for you to leave,” said Cora. Her voice was flat and unfriendly.
Vina hesitated.
“If I could speak to any of the other librarians…” she said.
“No,” said Cora. “We’ve helped you. We are helping you. But we’ve lost so much. To ask us to burn books… It’s cruel, knight. That’s the truth.”
“Cora,” Vaughan protested. “Please—”
“It’s easy for you to speak on her behalf, when you’re going straight back to the forest, Vaughan,” Cora said, crossing her arms. “It’s not the same for us. We have to survive out in the Isle, knowing we might lose everything at any moment.”
Guilt washed over Vina. She opened her mouth to apologize—and then she swallowed the urge back.
“If there’s a way to save the books, I’m going to find it,” she said.
“Then get out and do it,” said Cora. “And don’t come back until you do.”
“She doesn’t mean that,” Vaughan said.
“I bloody do.”
“I’ll go for at least a little while,” Vina said, hastily making her retreat.
She walked past Galath and Hari, across the hall to the narrow hallway, and out onto the front step. She sat down with a thump.
A few beats later, and the door opened. Hari came out.
“Where’s Galath?” Vina asked.
“Talking to the librarians.”
“Soothing them, is he?”
“You know Galath,” said Hari, smiling wryly. “He’s the spirit of diplomacy.”
He sat beside her and took out one of his cigarettes. He flicked his fingers to summon a flame, then lit it.
Vina stared at the flame, thinking of the library burning; thinking of the archive full of its paper books.
“Did you think they’d help me?” Vina asked. “The librarians, I mean.”
“I hoped they’d give you a direction,” said Hari. “Give us all one, in truth. We’ve tried so long to get Simran back, to do something… and here we are. You’re an adult, and I’m an old man, and she’s still gone.”
“You’re not an old man,” said Vina. “You’re not even fifty yet.”
“And somehow I still feel more ancient than Galath is,” said Hari. “Maybe it’s the knee pain. Nobody told me my knees would creak this much.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Vina. “I’ve never been old.”
That killed the conversation stone dead, but Vina quashed her guilt and focused on her own racing thoughts. There had to be a way forward.
The librarians weren’t willing to risk harming tales.
They collected tales. Protected them. They were so like the archivists in strange ways: the bright side of the coin to their tarnished one.
Vina could tell them that destroying the archive wouldn’t hurt the tales, but what did she really know?
Just what Simran had told her, words over a blade before Vina had—
Before they both died.
“You said you know cunning folk in London,” said Vina. “But I’m not sure benevolent magic is what we need. You’re a witch. Do you know other witches?”
“I know Cora.”
“I don’t think she’s going to help me.”
“I’ve never been the kind to seek them out,” said Hari. “I had Simran. And Galath knows his craft, too, though he wouldn’t claim the title. That was enough for me. But I can find them.” Over the smoke of his cigarette, his gaze was intent. “What are you thinking, Vina?”
“Ophelia said librarians aren’t built for destruction,” said Vina. “I need people who are. I need maleficent magic. I need witches.”
“Then let’s seek out some witches,” said Hari. “I’m sure nothing will go wrong at all.”