25. Library Management
The overwhelming instinct to run forced me halfway to my feet, but Iseult grabbed me by my sleeve and held me at the table. Orla mouthed Caitria at us, and Iseult put a finger to her lips.
Caitria was here, waiting outside and demanding I be turned over to her and her army. Drowning Ferrin hadn’t made a difference. A new threat had simply risen in his place.
“The Saergrim? You mean the kid that attacked Kamryn the other night?” The guard named Dirk snorted. “I thought he was lying about that.”
“If all they need is the Saergrim, they’ve got it covered without us,” Dirk’s fellow guard said through a mouthful of food. “No reason to cut lunch short and rush to the northern wall.”
“I doubt the Baron would see it that way,” the messenger warned.
“That bitch hasn’t been to Willow’s Grave since she became Baron. What does she care?” However, the scraping of chair legs against stone accompanied the shuffling of bodies, and we remained immobile over our plates until the guards had left the plaza in the direction of the northern wall.
“Ciarán,” I hissed through the mental bond. “Did you hear all that?”
“I’m already on my way to check it out. Find that library, Blue. We’re running out of time.”
We abandoned what was left of our food, but word of the army at the northern gate was spreading fast. Guards and anxious townspeople alike filled the streets, either in a rush to get home and find their loved ones or to hurry north for more information.
We jostled against the swarming bodies, linking hands with each other so we wouldn’t become separated in the crowd.
“The Southern Gate is closed and Willow’s Grave is on lock down!” a guard bellowed from a low roof. “Return to your homes until further notice!”
Protesting shouts echoed through the street, and I used my free hand to tug at the hem of my hood again.
It took longer than anticipated to find the textile market, and by the time we arrived, the vending stalls that lined the plaza had been shuttered shut.
A few cords of fabric and woven tapestries swayed in the breeze, left out in the rush to vacate the space, and scraps of yarn and samples of fabric littered the cobblestones.
“This is it, right?” Orla asked, turning around in the plaza’s center. “Now we just need to find the bridge with the cat.”
“Right.” I scanned the space. A gurgling river echoed between the building walls, but when I took a step in that direction, my stomach swooped and my vision shifted.
The empty market disappeared, replaced with a bird’s eye view of the petrified forest that surrounded Willow’s Grave. Dark figures lurked between the stone trunks. A flash of green sent me ducking for cover on the parapet where I perched.
The stone cut away, replaced by vine-adorned sky overhead as I opened my eyes back in the empty textile market.
“Wren?” Orla helped me off the ground where I’d fallen. “What’s wrong?”
“Ciarán,” I gasped. “I saw—”
I cut off at the sound of a boom to the north. Green light flashed weakly against the daylight in the farthest reaches of the Great Willow’s branches. Stone cracked and crumbled, raining down onto the buildings below.
“What was that?” Iseult stared at the distant wall that protected the citadel.
My stomach lurched again, and the opal forest reappeared below me. I understood now. Ciarán had climbed the wall surrounding the city to better assess the enemy at the gate, and I was looking through his eyes.
A woman with dark curls stood out of the tree line fifty yards or so to the left to address an unseen someone at the gate. Her wide pant legs tapered into tight ankle wraps, and she spun a rope dart at her hip.
“Sundown, general!” she shouted. “You and your men will bring me the Saergrim by sundown or we will open fire on the citadel and force entry to search the Willow’s Grave ourselves!”
“It’s Caitria,” Ciarán confirmed in a whisper against the fabric of his cowl.
“Crap.” My singular thought echoed through both of our heads.
“I’ll work on an exit strategy with Fana and Tiernan. You three focus on getting the journal.”
I blinked, and Orla’s face swam in front of mine.
“It’s definitely Caitria,” I grunted. “It’s definitely her army outside. Ciarán showed me.”
“And my uncle?” Orla cleared her throat, but it was too late to hide the hopeful lilt to her voice.
“Hopefully still dead,” I said flatly. Orla replied with a tight nod. “Caitria is demanding the Barony guards hand me over by nightfall, or her army will attack Willow’s Grave.”
Iseult frowned at the lengthening shadows slowly enveloping the empty market shadows.
“We’ll be gone by then,” Orla insisted. “Come on.”
Iseult met my eye for the briefest of moments, but her tight expression was unreadable.
A block away from market, the path fanned out into a larger walkway that ran along a shallow river flowing away from the Great Willow.
An arched bridge of sand-colored stone stretched over the water.
Decorative columns capped the bridge railing on either end, and a cat-like gargoyle sat atop one of these on the opposite bank.
“There!” Orla rushed ahead and then stumbled to stop in front of the statue. “The library has to be around here somewhere, then.”
We scanned the buildings, but they’d all been vacated.
“What do the libraries in Skalterra look like?” I asked. The beige stone faces of these buildings looked like any other building in Willow’s Grave. Painted signs advertised glassware, meat pastries, and opal jewelry, but there was nothing about libraries or books.
“I’m not sure,” Orla admitted. “In the Second Sentinel, we had the Scholar’s Hall, but that was it.”
“No libraries in Tulyr either,” Iseult added.
I sighed. It was easy to forget that while my companions were all from Skalterra, most of them had scarcely left their homes before this. They were as lost as I was.
“We’ll find it,” I assured them, though I didn’t feel as certain as I sounded.
Another crash echoed from the north, and we hurried to run along the block, checking in windows and trying locked doors to no avail as the sun sank lower and the shadows grew longer.
Night was coming, and we still hadn’t found the library.
“It has to be around here somewhere,” Iseult growled. “That shopkeeper said it was across the bridge with the cat gargoyle. There’s the gargoyle. So where’s the library?”
“What about that building?” Orla pointed to a structure that was definitely large enough to be a grand library, but lacked a visible entrance. It looked more like a warehouse to me.
“No windows and the front door is locked,” Iseult said. “I tried it twice.”
“Go down the alleyway again.”
I jumped at Ciarán’s sudden command in my head.
“You’re supposed to be focused on finding us a way out of the citadel,” I snapped back.
“We can’t leave until you have that journal. Now, down the alleyway, Blue.”
I marched forward, slipping between the warehouse and the neighboring cloak shop, but the alley was just as empty as when we’d first checked it.
“See?” I made sure to get a good look at the empty stone walls so that Ciarán could see how useless his instruction was. “Nothing.”
“Touch the wall.”
“Say please.” I rolled my eyes, but pressed my palm against the wall.
“Don’t roll your eyes. It makes me dizzy.”
The electrical buzz of magick tickled the skin of my hand, and I yanked away from the stone, glaring at the wall.
“It’s magick, I think,” I said, no longer joking.
“Get the Skalbreaker.”
“Iseult?” I called. “Can you come check out this wall?”
Iseult’s white eyebrows jumped up, and she pushed me aside to press her hands against the stone wall.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, that’s clever.”
“What’s—” Orla cut off as her mouth dropped open.
The wall shimmered around Iseult’s hands, light radiating outwards like water rings on the surface of a pond. Her fingers sank into the stone, and she grunted.
“It’s a Skal-construct,” she explained through gritted teeth. “And it’s fighting back, but I can dissolve it.”
“Okay, but what if it’s not the library?” Orla whispered. “What if we’re breaking into someone’s home?”
“You’d hope if someone lived here, it would at least have windows.” I shrugged. Orla shrugged back, clearly not convinced. “Besides, we’re already wanted by both the Barony and the army outside. What’s a little breaking and entering?”
“I think we’ll be fine,” Iseult grunted as the wall finally gave and dissolved away into metallic steam that hung on the air. “Because that definitely looks like a library entrance.”
An ornate stairway glinted behind the curtain of steam. Marble steps led up a short flight to red painted double doors. A marble cat gargoyle identical to the statue on the bridge in everything but material sat on the top step.
“What if it’s locked?” Orla whispered, but Iseult was already halfway up the stairs, her Skal leg flashing beneath the hem of her robes with each step.
Iseult grabbed the curved door handle of silver and heaved.
The door groaned on its hinges as it swung forward and revealed the marble hall beyond. A ceiling of arched glass filled the space with the dying light of day, and silhouettes of vines waved against the distant sky.
Orla and I joined Iseult in the entryway, and the three of us stared at the hall. As extravagant and spacious as it was, it was also empty.
“Where are the books?” Orla hissed.
“I don’t know,” Iseult said. “Where do libraries normally keep their books?”
“Shelves, typically.” I glowered at the empty walls. “But where are the shelves?”
“Excuse me, how did you get in?” A young woman in a long, airy dress bustled down the hall. Her braids and skirts flew behind her in her hurry to meet us, and her circular glasses threatened to teeter off the end of her long nose. “We’re closed to visitors—”
Iseult pulled her headscarf back and let her white hair fall forward. The woman’s eyebrows hitched as she came to a halt.
“This is Lysanor's library, correct?” Iseult asked.
“Whether this library is Lysanor’s or not, it doesn’t change the fact that it is closed,” the woman clipped.