Chapter Three #2
Rijes Velk glanced at the lift, but it hadn’t moved. “A revolution has begun,” she said, her voice still measured and calm. “The emperor was defenestrated at dawn.”
Marin felt as if her blood had chilled to winter seawater. She’d sailed into a revolution? She’d brought Perri into the middle of a revolution? She’d thought it was just protests. So had Dax. “How…” She shook her head. She didn’t need to know the details. “Are we safe here?”
“For now.” She looked grim. “The fighting surrounds the palace, but it will spread. The revolution has barely begun.”
“Defenestrated?” Marin repeated. “What does that mean?”
“He was thrown from a window.”
Marin tried to wrap her mind around that and failed. “I didn’t know that happened often enough for there to be a whole word for it.”
“Language is a marvelous thing,” Rijes Velk said.
She couldn’t feel sorry for the emperor himself—by all accounts, he seemed like a terrible person who didn’t care if he made everyday people’s lives worse with his whims, and she understood why the revolutionaries had done it.
But her stomach clenched to think what would happen to them when the imperial forces retaliated.
Before she could ask any questions, Rijes said, “I have a request of you.”
She could guess what it was, judging by the fact that Rijes had brought a statue down with her in the lift.
“You have a priceless work of art, and you want it taken somewhere safe just in case?” When the imperial forces regained control, they were going to come down hard.
The violence in the wake of their retaliation could spread from the palace to the library.
This place was much closer to the heart of the city than the conservatory was.
“She is—or was—a librarian, condemned for illegal spellcasting and transformed into a statue for punishment,” Rijes Velk said. “Yes, she is priceless, as all life is.”
Marin was aware her jaw was hanging open. She shut it.
“Her fate was a travesty of justice, the punishment outweighed the crime, and I do not wish to see her come to further harm. I will pay handsomely for you to transport her to the island of Belde, along with a letter for the gardener there.”
Marin knew the island of Belde. It was one of the southern outer islands, sparsely populated, and part of her usual route, as Rijes Velk knew.
Population exactly one, a reclusive gardener who oversaw a supposedly enchanted greenhouse.
She’d met him when he’d raised the flag on his dock to request supplies.
Ever since that initial meeting, he raised the flag and left payment in a box at the end of the dock, with the understanding she’d repeat the order.
She tried to pass by at least once a month to deliver his regular supplies, despite the distant location. “Is it a crime to transport her?”
Rijes’s lips quirked. “It is not. Her sentencing did not specify a location for her punishment.”
There was more to this request, she could tell. The head librarian of the Great Library of Alyssium did not come alone to negotiate a delivery with a supply runner. Marin kept her expression carefully blank and waited for the librarian to say more.
“You have proven to be reliable and discreet,” Rijes said. “As part of our agreement, I require you to tell no one of this delivery.”
“It won’t get me thrown in jail, though,” she pressed. She couldn’t pay off her parents’ debt from inside a cell. As much as she respected the head librarian, she had her priorities. Her parents’ well-being always came first.
Rijes hesitated, which made Marin respect her more. It would have been easy to lie. “There is a revolution in progress. I cannot predict what will come of it, what justice will exist when the dust settles. If you do this, know that you will be saving a life.”
Marin looked at the wood statue. Not much of a life. She wondered if the librarian was alert and aware within her wood casing, and Marin shuddered. Imagine how horrific it would be if she could see and hear but not move, speak, or even blink. “Is there a way to help her? To turn her back?”
For the first time, Rijes smiled, as if Marin had said exactly what she wanted to hear. “Give this letter to the gardener of Belde.” She handed her a paper sealed with wax, as well as a pouch that jangled like it held coins.
Marin accepted both. “You won’t get in trouble for removing her from the library?”
“All my staff are distracted by the events at the palace. I ordered the removal of all scrolls and art from the North Reading Room, to be placed in secure storage, in case of further upheaval. No one will notice that this statue did not make it with the rest.”
“You expect further upheaval? Beyond the…” What was the word?
“… defenestration?” Wasn’t it enough that the emperor was dead?
Splatted? Hadn’t the revolutionaries achieved their goal?
She thought again of the sorcerer blasts she’d heard.
She wondered if that meant more violence or an end to it.
At some point, the imperials would exact punishment.
“I have studied history,” Rijes said. “No matter how just the revolutionary cause is, the outcome of chaos is never certain and rarely short-lived. Violence begets violence, and forced change is as painful as birth and even less assured of success. You would do best to avoid Alyssium in the near future, if you can.”
That sounded like excellent advice. She trusted Rijes’s assessment far more than she trusted her own gut.
“Do you…” Marin wasn’t sure if she was overstepping.
This was the head librarian, after all, one of the most important people in the empire, keeper of all knowledge, history, and intellectual treasures—and especially every spellbook ever written.
But Marin had already started the question, so she plunged ahead and finished it.
“Do you want to come with me? Away from Alyssium? I can take you to wherever you’d like to go. ”
Perri echoed that offer by rising halfway out of the water and spreading his fins. He chirped a cascade of notes at her, encouraging her to come.
“I…” Rijes began. For an instant, Marin saw an emotion flicker on Rijes’s face, but it was too fast for her to identify what it was. “Thank you for the kind offer. It’s appreciated.”
“I mean it,” Marin said. “If it’s going to get unsafe, that means it’s especially unsafe for all the important people.
” The head librarian wasn’t an emperor, but she had power and influence.
Marin knew enough of history to know people with power and influence didn’t always have happy or quiet endings to their tales.
“You can come back when it’s calmed down. ”
“My place is here,” Rijes Velk said. “There are irreplaceable treasures that I must ensure are not lost. I have taken oaths to protect them.”
“Your life is an irreplaceable treasure,” Marin said.
Rijes smiled again, and Marin had the sense she didn’t smile often. Each smile seemed to surprise her, as if she didn’t know her lips curved that way anymore. “I knew I was right to choose you. You should go, before it worsens or before anyone seeks me out.”
“You should take the crate of books.”
Rijes shook her head. “They’ll only be in danger—”
“It will give you an excuse for being here on the dock, if anyone notices. You can wheel them directly to your secure storage, if you want.” She maneuvered the statue onto the deck of the boat and then inched it toward the stairs.
Made of wood, it wasn’t light, but she’d hauled heavier supplies.
She didn’t lack for muscles. Bracing herself, Marin carried the statue of the librarian downstairs into the cabin and then returned with the crate of books.
Huffing, she carried the crate off the boat and placed it on the same wheeled pallet that Rijes had used for the statue.
“You should think about leaving, though, if it gets bad. Books aren’t worth more than your life. ”
“We will agree to disagree on that.”
As soon as the crate was positioned in the lift, Rijes stepped in beside it, and Marin returned to Silver.
She unwound the line from the cleats. Behind her, the library lift door squealed as it shut, and Marin thought of one more question: “What spell did she cast? What did she do to get herself condemned?”
Rijes said simply, “She made herself a friend.”
And then the lift carried her upward.