Chapter 36
The dockgirl often wishes she was back home. As horrible as her homeland could be, and as infested as it was with vampires and death, this sprawling port city is simply too much for her to handle.
As she rushes from her job at the docks, pushing past salty-smelling oafs and fishy-smelling barrels, she tears her apron off and replaces it with a dark robe suited to her next task.
She arrives at the grand library some short time later, breathless and doubled over. Standing to her full height at the sound of approaching footsteps, she presses her spectacles up the bridge of her nose.
The Head Librarian scowls down his beaked nose at her. “You’re late. Again, girl.”
The nods, sighing, frowning. “I’m so sorry, sir. The—”
“I don’t want excuses. I want punctuality. How can you be a librarian’s assistant, the keeper of knowledge, if you can’t even show up on time?”
She has no answer for that, and luckily, she doesn’t need to give one.
The Head Librarian will not dispose of her.
He’s found she’s too valuable—too smart for her own good.
She pores through tomes every day, a dream for a guttergirl like her who used to live in absolute squalor, and at one point literally lived underground.
“Today, there is to be an observational study,” the Head Librarian tells her. He is an utterly tall, thin, scowling man.
They pass the stacks of tomes and shelves, the kind of wondrous place that still brings tears to her eyes when she sees it.
How lucky she’s been. To escape the dreadful land of Nuhav and find herself here, in a city not teeming with bloodsuckers or people wanting her dead?
Well, some people still want her dead. But that’s the way of the world. The dockgirl figures she’ll never escape that harsh truth.
Here, in the library, she has the esteemed title of Assistant. She follows the Head Librarian everywhere he goes, ducking away to read tomes and scrolls, gathering anything he needs, and altogether living a much happier life than the one she knew in Nuhav.
Still, the dockgirl sometimes misses her home.
She knows this is a farce—an illusion—which is why she calls herself a dockgirl and not a Librarian’s Assistant.
Because she knows she’s a fraud and she’s not smart enough to be here among the scholars and book-learners of the world who flock to this place for knowledge.
That idea—knowledge—is rare for someone of her upbringing. Everyone is ignorant where she comes from. In the short time she’s here, she’ll do everything in her power to learn as much as possible, to swell her brain with knowledge until it’s bursting.
This is what makes the observational study such a sour point that afternoon. Because in the study room, mixed with other scholars in the arched benches circling the chamber, she gazes upon the slack form of a deceased vampire—pale, stiff, and dead on the slab at the center of the room.
It’s a grim reminder of her past.
Some sort of alchemist or physician paces around the dead thing and prods it with tools. He explains what its insides are like, and its outsides, and explains that his guild has discovered a horrible truth, they believe, that hints at the very origin of this rancid race they know nothing about.
The alchemist-physician says things the dockgirl has never thought about, never heard about. It makes her eyes huge behind her glasses. Her lips part in shock at the “truth” she learns.
And she realizes in that moment . . . she can’t stay here. Not with so many people she loves still trapped in that damned city, that homeland of hers. She needs to return to them if only to tell them the things she’s learned here.
So, against her wishes and against her will, she leaves the smelly, sprawling port city that evening, making the months-long trek back to where she came from.
The outside of the city is filled with a throng of tradesmen, troubadours, poor people, and the lowest lot in life.
They fill the trade roads, trying to push their way into the city but being rebuffed at every turn.
Because Nuhav is filled to capacity, they say.
The Olhavians have just lowered the gates separating the cities, which shocks the dockgirl.
That’s never happened in her life. What does it mean?
Hopefully, the Bronze guards tell her, barring her path into her homeland, it means Nuhav’s population will level out and more of these poor folk on the fringes will be let in soon.
It hurts the dockgirl to learn she can’t return to her homeland, when she has such pertinent, timely knowledge to share with her friends.
All of this makes it even more surprising when rich-looking Buvers arrive that evening in their ramshackle camps, cloaked and different looking than any vampires she’s seen before. More elegant, more regal.
The tall lanky one at the head, who might be a man or might be a woman, is certainly different than any Buver she’s seen. She thinks she knows who it is without needing to know their title, based on appearance and rumor alone.
The vampire calls out among the crowd: “Who here can read?”
The dockgirl jumps at the opportunity. She launches herself toward the savior vampires, no longer caring if they’re friend or foe.
Whatever it takes to get into Nuhav. If this is her ticket, she’ll buy the ride.
“Do you need me to read, sir? Er, ma’am?”
The tall, maybe-man, maybe-woman smiles coyly at her. “Not at all, dear. I simply need smart people on my side. Readers are usually a good indication of that.”
Well, the dockgirl has never considered herself smart, but she’ll gladly lie if this is how she gets in.
“I’m your girl then. Sir. Ma’am.”