Chapter 32 The Thing About Leaning #3
“Algat!” The Keeper of Records had been very clear when she’d told me I should only visit the library during the hour right after dusk and the hour directly before dawn.
She was in no position to tell me what to do, but even so, if I was about to go toe-to-toe with the old crone, I’d prefer to know about it beforehand, especially since she was probably furious that I’d taken a book from the library.
The female didn’t come.
I took off and headed for the stacks. I hummed as I went, trying to ease the disquiet in the back of my mind—the urgency to rip the null blade from the scabbard and hurl it as far as possible.
It was an awful sensation, one that couldn’t be described, but the knife was full of hate. It wanted to cause harm.
Fisher’s scent grew stronger as I wound through the rows and rows of books.
Every step I took drew me closer to him, and with it, the tension between my shoulder blades eased.
It was like this now: a rope pulled taut between us, and the farther apart we were, the tighter it pulled.
It was only when we were together that I felt like I could breathe properly. He was clo—
“Oh!” I pressed my hand to my chest. “Hello.” I’d jolted back, surprised, but the sudden movement up ahead was only one of the library’s stargazers.
The paper bird hovered in the air about two feet from my face, flitting from side to side as it watched me.
I took a step forward, and it hovered backward in concert with my movement.
Its tiny head seemed to cock to one side, its wings flapping a mile a minute.
“Inquisitive little creature, aren’t you?” I extended my hand, curious to see if the bird would alight on the end of my finger, but it darted back and away. “Oops. Sorry. It’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
It flew off.
“Okay. Bye, then.” It was a wonder. I was sad to see it go. But when I went left, turning down another row of books, there were three stargazers there, hovering, waiting for me.
“Huh. Are we playing a game?” There was a note of suspicion in my voice now.
Foley’s warning hadn’t wandered far from the forefront of my mind.
He’d said the birds were guileless things.
Easily coerced. I wasn’t concerned about the birds themselves.
Foley had also mentioned malcontent witches, tricking them into stealing my hair, and it was that idea that gave me pause.
I shifted my weight into my left foot, resting my hands on top of Erromar and Selanir, where they hung at my hips. “Are you going to let me by?”
As if they understood what I had said, two of the stargazers moved to the left, the other to the right, making room for me to pass.
“Thank you.” Slightly bemused, I kept walking, turning down another stack—where another five stargazers were waiting.
Over my shoulder, the three I had just passed were following close behind.
“Okay, this is getting a little creepy, folks.” More of them darted around the corner.
More, suddenly swooping over the top of the stacks and diving down.
Tens of them. Hundreds. They gathered overhead, flocking in a circle, the rustle of paper wings growing louder until it was all that I could hear.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
And then I ran.
Bone-white missiles zipped past my ears as I careened through the library.
Left. Right. Right again. Left. The stargazers buzzed my head, swooping, snagging in my hair, teasing it loose from my braid.
They crashed into me, pinwheeling to the floor and sliding, only to take off again, whirling around my head.
I swatted them away, batting them out of the air, but they only rose again.
I spun left and collided with a pile of books that had been stacked haphazardly on the floor.
They crashed to the ground, skidding in every direction, nearly bringing me down with them, but I kept my feet.
I charged forward, emerging into a small clearing amid the stacks, and my frustration finally won out over my alarm.
They were birds.
Paper birds.
I stopped running and shielded my eyes with my hands, peering through my fingers to assess the situation.
There were so many stargazers now, hundreds of them; they flew around me, faster, faster, faster—a vortex of them, whipping around and up toward the library’s rafters like one of the dust devils that tore across the dunes back in Zilvaren, only much, much bigger.
It . . . it was beautiful.
Cautiously, I lowered my hands and took it all in. The stargazers formed a tunnel, and I was at its center. The birds stirred the air, creating a breeze that blew my loose strands of hair around my head.
I’d never seen anything quite so lovely—or magical—in all my life.
If crows had their murders and vultures had their wakes, then the spectacle of these stargazers, moving harmony, could only be one thing: a constellation.
“Impressive . . .” The thought was whispered out loud, and the birds reacted. A single stargazer broke away from the wheeling mass and dropped from the air like a stone. A split second before it hit the floor, it pulled up and hair-pinned in the air, coming right at me.
It happened too quickly; I didn’t get my hand up in time. The edge of the stargazer’s wing sliced my cheekbone, leaving a bright sting of pain in its wake.
“Ahhh! What—” This was the second time one of them had cut me.
“That really isn’t nice,” I hissed. I prepared for what would come next—the raining hail of angry stargazers all set on drawing blood.
Death by a thousand cuts—but none of the other birds fell from the cyclone of flapping wings.
The air seemed to thicken with tension. The birds flew faster.
Faster still. They flew so fast that it became impossible to discern one bird from another, and the entire mass became a fluttering, rushing mass of white.
Craning my neck, I looked up and shook my head. “What . . . the hell . . . is happening?”
At once, the cyclone stopped dead. The birds began to fall out of the air, spinning or else nosediving, just like the first bird who had cut me and fallen, lifeless, to the steps outside the library.
I watched, speechless, as the first birds to hit the floor began to unfold, their wings snapping open, their bodies, their beaks, until they were crumpled sheets of paper.
Others unfolded midair and floated down much slower, like fat flakes of snow.
The world became fluttering, creased sheets of paper.
I plucked one out of the air as it drifted past my face, and there, on the paper, were lines and lines of elegant, slanted handwriting.
In most cases, the power is too great. The Alchemist will need to surrender . . .
My heart pounded.
I plucked another sheet of paper from the air.
. . . often painful. Historically, it was recommended that a counterbalance be used as a kind of Alchemical overflow mechanism . . .
The writing spoke of Alchemical magic. All of the pages—so many pages!
—were full of text about Alchemy. My mind would not comprehend it.
I’d picked the library at Cahlish clean.
Both Algat and Foley had confirmed that there were books on Alchemy in this library here, but neither of them had considered the stargazers.
The birds had been here for centuries. Longer than anyone could remember . . .
And all along, they had been the pages of a book.
Fast as I could, I started to collect them from the floor.
Sheaves and sheaves of paper. They were wrinkled and yellowed by time around the edges, but the writing had been on the inside of the pages; the words there, written in black ink, had been protected by the stargazer’s folds.
I’d collected half of the pages from the floor when they started to rattle in my hands.
I clamped the pile between my fingers, determined to keep hold of them, but then they were ripped free by some invisible force.
“No!” My shout echoed around the library. “Please!”
The pages didn’t listen. They flew through the air and tumbled one over the other, gathering into a ball. Before my eyes, they organized themselves into a single, ordered pile . . . and then they were a book.
Navy blue cloth cover.
Thick.
A tiny silver butterfly was stamped in foil on the front cover.
Other than that, there were no gilded edges. No fancy woven tassel.
It was a plain bound book with no extraordinary embellishments . . . and it landed on the floor at my feet with a thump.
Holy gods.
I held my breath as I picked it up. The spine creaked as I drew back the hardcover, as if it were any old book that simply hadn’t been opened in a long time.
For you, gods blessed.
Thank you for loving my boy.
—E
A single droplet of blood marked the page below the writing. Bright red, it was still fresh. Mine. The stargazer had cut me because it had wanted to test my blood. To make sure I was who it thought I was—who it had been waiting over a millennium for.
That first stargazer had nicked me, too. But I had backed out of the library, and . . . the stargazers could not exist outside of their sanctuary. It had lost its magic before it could confirm who I was . . .
Holy.
Fucking.
Gods.
Edina’s book. It had been here, all along, waiting to find me . . .
“Saeris?”
I spun around, pulse flying. Kingfisher stepped out of the shadows, and without thinking, I quickly tucked the book behind my back.
His cheeks were red, his hair ruffled, as if he’d been outside in the cold.
A small smile played over his lips as he saw me and stopped, leaning against the wooden bay of shelves next to him, tucking his thumbs into the belt at his waist. “Everything okay? I heard you cursing like a pirate back here.”
“Yes, everything’s fine. I—”
Find it. But do not tell him about it. I mean it. It’s important. He can’t know about the book. Only you. Do you understand?
Edina’s voice echoed through my mind. Memories of her, cloudy-eyed and desperate as she’d spoken through Everlayne back in the bedroom back in Cahlish. She hadn’t just asked me not to tell Fisher about the book. She had commanded me not to.
I looked upon my mate’s face now and saw the tired shadows beneath his eyes.
He had just gone through hell and back for me.
Yes, we badly needed the silver he and Carrion had brought back from Zilvaren, but that hadn’t been the only reason he’d gone back to my city.
He had gone for me, so that he could bring Hayden here.
He would go back there again, even though he hated it—I wouldn’t even have to ask.
And that was as far as I got.
I produced the book from behind my back and held it out to him.
“Your mother told me about a book,” I said.
“Back in Cahlish, when she told me I had to seal my runes. She told me I needed to find it, and that once I did, I shouldn’t tell you about it, but .
. .” I shook my head, holding it out to him.
“That doesn’t feel right. Here. I found it. This is the book.”
Fisher’s smile slowly faded, but it didn’t disappear altogether.
It took on a sad edge as he pushed away from the bookshelves and slowly came toward me.
Pensively, he took the book and opened it.
Turning past the first page with the note to me and my droplet of blood, his eyes skipped quickly over the text there, before he set his jaw, letting go of a long, deep breath.
His eyes shone bright as mirrors when he closed the book and handed it back to me.
The next thing I knew, he was cradling the back of my head in his hand and pressing a kiss against my forehead.
“The book is for you, Saeris,” he whispered. “But thank you for sharing it with me.” He drew back, not even bothering to hide that his eyes were filling with tears.
I looked down at the book, brushing my fingers over the foiled silver butterfly stamped onto the front cover.
“But . . . don’t you want to read it?” It made no sense.
If there was a whole book full of my mother’s handwriting, I didn’t know what kind of crimes I would commit if it meant I got to read it.
This was a message from the grave. A hand, reaching out from the dark. And Fisher didn’t want to take it?
That heavy, sad smile reappeared again. “No,” he said softly. “This is what she wanted. I trust her. And I trust you, Little Osha. Whatever revelations might be in that book, they’re for you and you alone. You’ll know what you need to do with them.”