Chapter 25
I waved at the air in front of my face. “What is that smell?”
“That…” Ace waved at the path ahead of us. “Is Vitor.”
I wrinkled my nose but kept walking toward the offensive smell.
“You get used to it,” Ace said, as if that made everything better.
The narrow path through the forest led us uphill where the trees thinned out. As we crested the bank, the trees gave way to provide my first glimpse at the city of Vitor. “Why does it smell so much?”
A crumbling wall surrounded older buildings with mossy rooves. The dirt road leading up to the city ended at a large, unmanned gate.
“They weren’t cable to use magic to resurrect their power grid or sewage system like Wast and Perga.
Vitor also lacks a nearby river to take away all the waste,” Ace explained.
“There’s an underground system that funnels rainwater and helps move everything to the waterways, but the air gets particularly nasty by the end of summer.
Now that the rain has started, things should get better. ”
“Great.” I looked at the gray skies above. The rain had let up quite a lot since last night and for the first time ever, I wished it would come back.
“Shall we?” Ace held out his hand.
I clasped it and we strolled down the hill to the main road. “Why aren’t there any guards?”
Ace scanned the open gates, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Why would anyone attack Vitor?”
“They have a library?”
“Not everyone is prepared to go to war for their dirty books, Mouse.”
“My books are not dirty.”
Ace’s grin grew and he flashed his white teeth at me.
“Well…not all of them, at least,” I grumbled and let go of his hand to cross my arms over my chest.
He laughed and pried my hand free to hold it again.
“I like your dirty books, Mouse. They’ll get you all hot and bothered and give you ideas that I’ll be more than happy to help with.
But dirty books aside, Vitor isn’t ruled the same as Wast, and I don’t think King Oberon and Queen Titania are interested in expanding their control to this area as long as Vitor doesn’t overstep or cause problems. This is more like a free town with a peacekeeper in place to maintain order, not act as a politically competent rival.
Besides, I don’t think our king and queen have as much control over their current territory as they would have everyone believe. ”
He had a point there.
The king and queen couldn’t spread themselves too thin or they’d lose control of everything.
“You worked for the king as an assassin.”
He pressed his lips together. “There’s a reason Vitor is not a threat. The royals may not wish to rule this town, but they had a vested interest in keeping Vitor tame.”
We stepped through the gates and onto the cobblestone main street of Vitor. “What now?”
“We ask for directions,” he said.
“You don’t know where it is?”
“I didn’t come here to read, Mouse.”
No. He came here to kill, and he would’ve been efficient about it.
Ace turned to an older man stooped over a cane. “Excuse me. Could you direct us to the library?”
The old man paused to look up at Ace, his blue gaze cloud and unfocused. He nodded and waved his gnarled hand at the town. “Do you see those spires?” His voice crackled as he spoke.
Sure enough, on the far side of town, twin spires rose above the thatched rooves.
“That’s where you’ll find the Book Hoard.”
“Book Hoard?” I asked. Apparently, I was lax in naming my bookshelves.
“The library,” he said.
“Why is it called the Book Hoard?”
The man shrugged. “Isn’t that what a library is? Do you see the spires or not?”
“We do,” Ace interrupted before I could ask who named the library, and whether they were looking for new friends.
“Thank you for your assistance.” Ace tugged me along.
The old man nodded and hobbled away as we headed in the direction of the spires.
At the ragged edge of the town, the cobbled streets of Vitor gave way to tangled thistle and weathered stone.
An old library rose from the weeds and shrubs like a memory refusing to be forgotten.
Leaning slightly toward the hillside, battered but unbroken, the library’s silhouette was caught between the soft glow of twilight and the inky darkness of shadows.
It took us three days to get here, but the journey was worth this sight alone.
Vines curled like inked script along the library’s exterior, threading through cracks along the stone. The heavy oak doors were stained with age but still held.
I stood in front of the doors, hand in hand with Ace and stared at the craggy wood.
“It’s just a library,” Ace whispered.
“It might not hold any answers,” I said.
“True.” He squeezed my hand. “But it will still be fun to bend you over a table of books.”
I bumped my shoulder into his.
He didn’t budge. Instead, he chuckled and reached forward to open the door. The hinges creaked loudly.
“Do you think that old man can be trusted?” I asked.
Ace looked down at me, his eyebrows dipping down. “What exactly are you picturing? The old man dropping his cane and running full speed through town to tell the Vitor leader there’s a strange couple in town who want to read books?”
I huffed and let go of his hand to step into the library. A heavy scent of stale air, dust and paper washed over me. “It’s probably a very unusual request.”
Inside the library, the light filtered through colourfully paned-windows, casting jewelled shadows to dance along the warped floorboards. The shelves sagged from the weight of books.
“People travel and ask questions all the time, Mouse,” Ace closed the door behind us. It creaked shut and with a thud.
Nearby, a reading table of solid oak stood in a cascade of moonlight.
Ace probably already had plans for that particular furniture, but I was drawn to it for other reasons.
I walked toward the table and ran my hand along its smooth, dust covered surface.
Children had once sat here. Learners. Lovers.
Widows. This place spoke of a time before the galeon-phaanon war.
A time of knowledge and technology instead of magic and power.
“Where do we start?”
Ace eyed the table and lifted his eyebrows. A suggestive grin spread across his face. “I have a few ideas.”
“Focus, Wolfboy.” I turned toward the books. “We aren’t here to fulfill all your lurid fantasies.”
“Wolfboy?”
“You call me Mouse.”
He snorted. “You’ll need to do better than that. Also, it’s way too…on the nose.”
“Maybe I’ll just stick with the rodent theme and call you rat.”
“So, you’re willingly going to admit I’m bigger, stronger and more intelligent than you?”
I opened my mouth and then shut it again.
“Didn’t think so.” He headed toward one of the book aisles. “I’ll start on this end. You start on the other.”
“What are we looking for? A giant sign that says, ‘Secrets Here’? It won’t be that easy.”
“Probably not. But let’s hope there’s something about the war. Or maybe about when the galeons and phaanons first arrived.”
We began searching. We went aisle by aisle, book by book, and didn’t find anything. We spent the night sleeping on the library floor after Ace got to enact one of his library fantasies. When the sun rose the next day, bathing us in golden light, we started again. We only broke to find food.
Now, midafternoon, I was beginning to lose hope. We were only an aisle away from meeting in the middle and then this trip would’ve been for nothing.
I picked up a black leatherbound book and flipped open the cover. Dust rose in the air and I sneezed. The title had worn off the front, but the title page read, “The Fall of the Phaanon.”
I gripped the book tighter and started reading. Most of what the book detailed was common knowledge, though it also mentioned blood-tipped arrows. Apparently, galeon blood was just as fatal to phaanons as phaanon blood was to galeons.
I could be killed.
Somehow, that wasn’t so reassuring. There was a lot of galeon blood out there…
Wait.
Wait a phaaning second.
Maybe that was why the first arrow had affected me more. Maybe it had nothing to do with my body acclimatizing to the phaanon poison. Maybe the first one had been tainted with galeon blood.
I sucked in a deep breath.
If that was true, it meant someone else already suspected I was a pureblood phaanon. We already figured O’Reilly was behind the attacks, but did he know I was phaanon as well?
I kept leafing through the pages, scouring it for new information, when I flipped to a full spread image.
It was the same artwork from Sley’s tapestry.
“I found it,” I whispered.
“You want me to pound it?” Ace called out. “I mean, we took a break already, but I’m game.”
“No, Fluffykins. I said I think I’ve found it.”
“And I think I prefer Wolfboy to whatever the phaan you just called me.” Ace dropped whatever book he’d been holding and walked over. He leaned over my shoulder and studied the page. “It’s the same art piece.”
I nodded. “The tapestry artist must’ve seen this somehow.”
“It could be in more than one place. What does the book say about it?”
I flipped back to the preceding page. Nothing. No reference. I flipped past the artwork to the next page, and there, scrawled down the center of the page was a poem written in script:
They breeched the veil with magic and zeal
And made the mortal cities kneel.
The galeons rose, the Phaanons died,
Their glory built on death and pride.
But Mab, with fading breath and flame,
Departed quietly, without her name.
She sealed her twins in root and stone,
Then vanished leaving no flesh or bone.
The twins sleep on, without crown or cry,
Until the magic will stir and split the sky.
They dream in dark, untouched by lore
Unknowing what their blood is for.
The victors cheer, their story spun,
Convinced the tale is lost and done.
But an heir will rise through ash and flame
To make them pay for Mab’s lost name.
“That’s you,” Ace whispered. “You’re the heir.”