Chapter Twelve
CHAPTER
Twelve
IT TAKES TWO weeks’ worth of late nights and early mornings for Cassandra and Byron to go through the shop’s existing inventory.
At the end, every book has been logged, dusted and carefully moved into a new location closer to the front of the shop, where she can keep an eye on them.
As a result, the first few bays look a lot fuller. But the rest of the shop lies empty.
They’ve already had a few customers come in to browse, and Cassandra’s done her best to sell to them.
There’s the woman who came in for a book of handwritten family recipes with nothing but a steely glint in her eyes as she handed over a painting that Byron instantly recognised as priceless—and therefore a suitable offering for the river.
Byron had debated hanging it at the top of the stairs, but Cassandra had left it leaning against the pool at the back of the bookshop, and by the next day, it had vanished.
There’s the man who came in for a tintype of an empty portrait studio, slipped into a book, with a lover’s promise etched onto the back.
His hand had trembled as he’d passed over a worn, gold-plated ring.
Nothing a pawnshop would bother taking, but he had stared long and hard at it on Chiron’s desk, as though tempted to snatch it back and run.
Not a child, or a masterwork painting, but priceless nonetheless.
Both times, Cassandra hadn’t asked why they had come.
It was Lady Fate who guided their feet past every other shop to this one, and the bookshop who revealed itself to them, like a teasing lover.
Maybe Chiron would have questioned their motivations; quite frankly, Cassandra’s just glad she’s sold anything at all.
Perched on Chiron’s desk, she flicks through the ledger, ink still drying on the page.
There are pastoral poetry collections that smell like petrichor and earth, crumbling posters for long-forgotten plays with charisma laced into the print, diaries seething with the promise of revenge.
As long as it’s legible, it counts. But Chiron’s already meagre collection has quickly dwindled, and most customers come in only to look askance at the offerings before quietly leaving.
There’s no point in browsing for the title that could change your life when there are so few to begin with.
No stock, no sales, no bookshop.
Which is how Cassandra finds herself at the entrance of a vast countryside estate in Kent, home until recently to a bookseller with a fiercely guarded collection.
According to a tip-off from one of Byron’s fellow booksellers, there’s an exceptionally rare four-volume set on the Napoleonic Wars buried somewhere inside—the crown jewel in a collection entirely of jewels, ready for the taking.
“I didn’t realise cherubs were still in vogue,” Byron says, eyeing above the front door, then exhales. “God, I love an estate sale.”
Cassandra thought they would arrive in plenty of time, but Byron had been forced to park halfway down the drive, and they’d trudged up the gravel instead, passing everything from sleek sports cars to bulky white vans.
Cassandra tries not to look like she’s calculating how much each assumed driver has brought in cash.
Or, judging from the make of the car and the expensive clutter of the interiors, how easy it would be to part them from it.
You are an owner, she tells herself sternly. You are one of them.
It’s not the kind of sale that someone like her would usually be invited to, though she’s never needed permission to slip past a door.
Who, after all, could resist their curiosity, when presented with such tantalising details: an illustrated manuscript that could transform a man from person to bird and back; a waterlogged pamphlet that drowned any reader who tried to get past the third paragraph; bamboo scrolls that could tie two person’s fates together indefinitely if read at the same time.
But she rarely stole anything. Too many unexpected eyes around hidden corners.
Too many chances of running into people from her past. Though it seems a little ridiculous to fling open the estate’s doors, even to a curated group of buyers, and not expect half of it to simply vanish via dextrous fingers and oversized coats.
Maybe it’s just that these thieves are better dressed.
Inside, the hallway is heaving with people weighed down by stacks of books, or hotly bickering with one another.
“Looks like it’s just assistants.” Byron cracks her knuckles. “We can pick them off, no problem.”
“No owners?”
Byron shrugs. “They used to come. But I don’t think they like to get their hands dirty, these days. Think they’re too good to sift through shit, I guess.”
Cassandra tries to conjure up an image of sanctimonious Lowell Sharpe, willing to wade through a century of detritus and antique furniture for a few books, only to have to elbow his way back out against the tide of booksellers.
More realistically, he’s probably commanding them through nefarious means from some cold throne miles away in his bookshop.
“You go that way,” Byron says. “I’ll tackle this wing.”
Without waiting for an answer, Byron takes off, jostling through the assistants. At least one of them knows what they’re doing, Cassandra thinks.
The estate’s corridors are mostly long stretches crammed with furniture, so that Cassandra has to hold her breath to squeeze past. Ancient sofas with stuffing bleeding from the upholstery sag underneath the crush of boxes of dirty china and smudged wineglasses, mouldering fur coats and enough blackened silverware to occupy a lifetime of polishing.
Several boxes in a corner overflow with old photographs, most too damaged to be of interest. Chairs from every imaginable time period and degree of fragility are stacked in teetering piles, right next to defunct TVs and other, more modern appliances.
No books yet, though. With a pang of worry, she wonders if the bulk of the collection has already been seized by the other assistants, and it’s her who’s once again two steps behind. Chiron wouldn’t have been late. Then again, he would have had an army of booksellers to send in the first place.
She wanders through room after room, pale light straining through filmy bare windows. Although she’s not the only person vying for a bargain in this wing, the only signs of their existence are distant footsteps, or murmurs that could just as easily be the house’s natural rhythms.
Then she catches it—a faint whisper that sets her teeth on edge. Books, speaking to one another in their language of ink and paper. Magic.
Abruptly, she turns left, through a high archway decorated with more ugly cherubs. The light is dimmer, so it takes her a second to adjust. But when she does—
It’s not necessarily the size of the library that impresses her, though it’s undeniably spectacular.
Two floors of shelving, stretching up to a ceiling that seems almost non-existent, it’s so far away.
Comfortable armchairs on top of sprawling Persian rugs, with enough detritus to make it clear that this was a well-used room.
What catches her attention is the quality of the sound. The murmur of that indefinable book language, sweet and familiar.
According to Byron’s mysterious sources, the estate’s owner had been in some very interesting auctions not long before she died.
Rare books in rarer bindings, incunabula detailing the first experiments of print, books of no particular origin and yet so clearly imprinted with the ink song of the river.
Most of this could very well have already disappeared even before the estate sale, pilfered by gannet relatives or simply given away, if that was the intended use.
But there’s enough on Cassandra’s list to make a start—and there’s that crown jewel she’s after.
No one else is in the room, so she allows herself the pleasure of running her hands across the spines, listening to the little voice in her head that chatters their contents to her.
She’s always been good at this language—it’s why Chiron had been so eager to put her to work so young. As a thief, it’s been indispensable.
Most of the books are only slightly magical, and although each title would arguably be priceless in itself, she’s after bigger prey.
On her second turn around the room, her fingers catch a loudness, and she stops, her thumb on the spine of the first of four volumes on the Napoleonic Wars.
Power, the voice in her head says, a silky ink whisper. Ambition.
She stacks the books onto her arm one at a time, careful not to jostle them. Then she reaches out for the last book—
Someone’s hand brushes across hers. She looks up into an equally startled pair of dark eyes. One immensely irritating, unmistakably familiar eyebrow rises.
“Ms. Fairfax.”
Lowell Sharpe stands right next to her, even though she could have sworn he hadn’t been there a second ago. She snatches her hand away, and immediately, Lowell plucks the book from the shelf, passing it to a nervous-looking assistant.
“Thank you for ceding your claim,” he says. “Now, if you excuse me…”
Cassandra glares at him. “That was mine, actually.”
“Until you let go of it.” Lowell shrugs, as if the matter is entirely out of his hands. “Rules are rules.”
Cassandra’s gaze snaps to his assistant, who pulls an apologetic face, as if to say, yes, he’s like that all the time.
“I take it you’re still considering my offer, Ms. Fairfax,” he says.
“It’s Cassandra. And no,” she says. “I’m keeping the bookshop.”
He gives an aggravated huff. “But the letter—”
“I’ve already signed the contract.”