Chapter Eleven #2
The front of the shop is mostly composed of minor titles with just enough magic between them to tantalise, but not to cause too much harm: either shiny and indifferent to the world in all their newness, or else domesticated by the many hands that have already parsed them.
Byron makes approving noises at the available selection, although Cassandra notices the way her hands find the various gaps on the shelf, her tongue poking out as though she’s mentally making notes.
Obviously clever. Obviously skilled. And where there isn’t skill, there’ll be talent to bridge the gap, passed down between generations in the river’s way.
Septimus is well respected; there’s no reason for a niece of his to be waiting around for an opportunity.
Especially an opportunity that feels more like a favour extended.
“You could have your pick of bookshops,” Cassandra says, as though it’s nothing more than a passing thought. “How come this one?”
Byron hesitates, and Cassandra catches the split second of deliberation over a truth, the calculation of what it would cost to lie.
But it all plays out on Byron’s face, too open for dishonesty.
Her hands glide across a bookshelf, and somewhere upstairs, there’s a gentle series of creaks that sounds almost like purring.
“I told you, Septimus worked here,” she says. “So did my older cousins. And even though it’s been years, do you know what they talk about? What every conversation turns to? This bookshop. The first tributary bookshop.”
Owned by Lady Fate herself, or so Chiron had said, before she had passed it on to her chosen successor—the first of many protégés to come.
Cassandra looks around at the bookshop again, trying to see it with Byron’s eyes.
As a shop to be restored to glory, as a legend in its own right.
Success waiting to happen, not a reminder of failure.
But there’s no reason to lie about that. Cassandra doesn’t respond, letting the silence spool out.
“And… there was a thief,” Byron admits. “At the last bookshop I worked at.”
There’s always a thief, isn’t there.
“Slipped right past me. They made off with a stack of books we’d just purchased at auction. Down to the last goddamn title—” She clears her throat. “Anyway. That won’t happen again.”
Byron doesn’t go on, but Cassandra can fill in the details. A big enough haul, and it doesn’t matter how skilled the thief, or how vigilant the bookseller, or even that the disadvantage always lies in the bookshop’s hands. Someone has to take the fall.
Cassandra eyes the paltry stock. “Well, I don’t think we’ll be entertaining thieves any time soon.”
“And like I said,” Byron says, brightening, “this isn’t just any bookshop.”
No, Cassandra thinks, it’s not. It’s a bookshop that needs a lot of work. It’s a bookshop with opinions. It’s a bookshop that should be in better hands—like Lowell Sharpe’s. But the time for that passed a week ago, and now it’s Cassandra’s name on the deed instead of his.
“I’m not afraid of a challenge,” Byron adds.
Cassandra chose this, she reminds herself. So she’ll damn well keep choosing.
She puts her hand out. “When would you like to start?”
The diary of Cassian II, no. XVII, entry CXIV, approx. 43 years before the common era
Translated by Elias Clarke
The [bookshop] has settled here for little more than six months, and already, there is war. It stretched out its tendrils towards us even as I unpacked, plucking men for conscription. They march past in sweat-crushed armour, shaking the foundations of each building they pass.
The olives rot on their trees, for want of hands…
[A fungal growth of some sort crawls across the next few paragraphs, but I presume that much of what is described here is also relayed in the supplementary correspondence i through xvi. Must check.]
I am often asked to read letters to the local families. They rely on me for the truth, but it is a hard task to bear when I must tell them that their sons are dead, their cities razed to ash, their…
[The next two pages are missing; I suspect further rummaging in the archives below will uncover them eventually. The Keeper refuses to assist.]
War has reached us at last, for a praetor showed up today. There was a rangy, hollow look to him, and his clothes sat loosely on his frame. I suppose even politicians must eat.
He talked quickly, as though afraid of being overheard.
And I listened, though it goes without saying that I’ve heard it all before.
On one side, the rulers and their politicians; on the other, a general who first wielded his charm and now wave after wave of men, relentless as the tide.
The fields are watered with blood, these days.
“He wishes to be king,” the praetor said. “He cannot be king.”
I have waited out many wars, and I know my share of kings, however they come to claim the title. But I have been waiting a long time for this one to end, and I can see no solution. Moreover, I am tired of listening to death rites.
So I agreed. He will have the text to break his king.
But as there is great magic, so must there be a great price.
He will give me his name, and will be [another scorch mark] no longer.
No one will know his victories, his glories, his kindnesses.
He will slip through memories’ fingers, and be lost to all but fate.
It is a gentler price than some might exact, and harsher than others. But the scales must balance.
[c.f. the ledger of Cassian II, no. VI, entry CXXVIII—his name may yet be recorded there.]
Entry CXVII
Tonight, I found myself in the [beneath/below], and as customary, I was awed by its halls and the contents therein.
Bookshelves filled with wax tablets, scrolls, hard clay bricks of text, new codexes and more.
The [wraiths/unseen ones] moved back and forth like shadows, preoccupied with their own journeys.
As is my right, I approached [Fortuna/the Fated One—I believe he is speaking of the Keeper]. And I said…
[More pages missing. Would that I had shunned my second calling as a historian.]
I invoked Fortuna. I defied her. I chose another future.
Entry CXVIII
The news broke in the morning: a conspiracy of betrayal. The man who wished to be king is dead.
There will be no more kings.
[At least for a while. N.B. no mention of the compendium.]