Chapter Twenty-Five
CHAPTER
Twenty-Five
I REALLY MUST STOP getting into strangers’ cars.
Cassandra sits cautiously in the back. The seats are cool, silky leather, and the scent of polish hangs in the air.
The driver up front doesn’t acknowledge her, but she notices his hand go to his pocket.
Metal flashes at her for a split second.
It could be nothing—a phone, a set of keys—but every muscle in Cassandra’s body tenses.
The woman catches her expression and laughs.
“Cassandra Fairfax. Such a curiosity,” she says.
“No history to speak of, and yet somehow you’ve managed to secure yourself one of the most coveted tributary bookshops.
Your bookselling knowledge is impressive, but lacking in certain fundamentals.
You entertain invitations and attend our events, but won’t participate. It makes for quite the enigma.”
Cassandra’s eyes flick to the woman before she can stop herself. She knew she was being watched, that the auction was a test, that the owners were waiting for her to slip up. But hearing it out loud is another thing entirely.
“You know my name,” she says. “But I’m still waiting on yours.”
It comes out a little harder than she intended, but she can’t shake that unnerved feeling. And even though it hardly counts as a threat, the driver up front goes still. One hand creeps towards his pocket.
“Eveline,” she says, and the driver’s hand returns to the steering wheel.
There’s no more small talk after that.
The car leads them through dark streets, the window tint making it difficult for Cassandra to keep track of where they’re going, except that it seems to be out of London.
After a while, she gives up; the time to make smart decisions happened when she was still on the pavement, the bookshop key in her hands.
But she’s spent weeks puzzling over the requests for these books that shouldn’t exist—or did, and no longer.
And for all Lowell’s new-found warmth—or lack of hostility—towards her, she can’t bear the thought of asking him yet another question that she’s already supposed to know.
If Eveline knows how to solve them, or at the very least stop the requests coming in, then she’s willing to trade a little risk for that.
An hour later, the car slows to a halt. Eveline’s bookshop rises up before them, an elegant three-storey building with curlicue licks of iron framing art nouveau windows.
Old-fashioned lamps stand on either side, casting warm light onto the pavement below.
But for all its beauty, the exterior strikes Cassandra as a little chilly.
Eveline waits in the car as the driver-slash-bodyguard gets out to open her door. As soon as she leaves, Cassandra experimentally tugs on her own car door handle. Locked.
So this is how they’re going to play it, she thinks grimly.
Then the driver opens the door for her, as though it was always possible to simply get out and leave. Cassandra tries to school her features into blank curiosity as she steps out. But the driver-slash-bodyguard shoots her a warning glance.
“Come in, through the back.”
Unlike Maud’s bookshop, this one is organised with a ruthlessness to rival Lowell. Stained-glass skylights above glow with unnatural daylight, tinting the shelves and the floor below a mosaic of colours. Every shelf is full, every book brimming with power. The hum of magic at work is unmistakable.
As her gaze sweeps over the bookshelves, something slinks between them—a quick movement, with a distinctly inhuman fluidity. She flinches.
Eveline looks at her with a certain measure of smugness.
“My artifices. Booksellers are rather messy creatures. On the other hand, artifices do not complain, they do not need sleep or food or wages, and they are quite pliable to my demands. Most importantly, they cannot leave the bookshop for pastures new.”
Now that she’s alert to them, Cassandra can spy two more artifices creeping between the shelves.
Though it’s hard to catch a glimpse of them whole, she discerns unusual, elongated limbs, and torsos bearing accordion leaves of skin that stretch and shrink.
All of it a pale, tea colour mottled by black marks—paper.
Though they have no faces she can identify, nevertheless, she has the odd sensation of their attention leaning towards her, like sunflowers turning towards the sun.
The amount of magic it would take to even animate one of the artifices, never mind so many…
“It takes a great deal of time and energy,” Eveline says, reading her expression.
“Many books, to start with, submerged into the river. Then they must be pried apart, page by page, and written over with instructions, before being pieced back together into their new forms. Much of the reading happens at the end of the process. Those who survive…” She gestures to the shadows of the artifices.
“And the offering to the river?” Cassandra asks curiously.
Eveline’s smile is thin-lipped. “The river exacts its price, one way or another.”
Eveline leads her through the rest of the bookshop without further invitation to questions.
But underneath the familiar scent of old books and ink is a smell that reminds Cassandra of damp, or wet dog.
The smell only increases as they move through the shop, and she notes that although there are plenty of shelves close to the back, almost all of them are empty.
Like Chiron’s had been, before she’d arrived.
“Plumbing issue?” she suggests.
Eveline only looks at her, but Cassandra shrugs. Better she thinks that Cassandra is some nobody upstart than real competition, and thus to be dealt with as such.
“You know, if you’ve brought me here to—”
She takes in a breath and stops, halted by the view in front of her.
Eveline gives her a satisfied look. “Yes, it’s rather impressive, isn’t it?”
The back of the bookshop falls away into the entrance of a cave. Dark and wet, condensation shining on stone, the cave continues into a black abyss, with rickety stairs to lead the way. All at once, the damp, earthy scent makes sense. Another tributary bookshop, paying homage to the river.
“I’ll lead, shall I?” Eveline says.
Cassandra follows, glancing back to make sure that the doorway is still free from obstruction. Just in case she needs to run—not that she would know where to run to. That tight, itchy, trapped sensation washes over her again. She tries to shake it off as she descends.
Underfoot, the ground gives way to slippery rock, punctuated by more stairs. The last few steps seem relatively recent by comparison, the wood garishly bright with varnish.
Then she sees it.
The lake stretches vast across the cave, ink-black water lapping quietly at its edge. The walls are striped with chalky waterlines, running thick towards the bottom, as though a giant has been scrawling with a huge crayon. Cassandra searches for the other side, but the darkness swallows it.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Eveline says.
She blinks. Her feet are wet to the ankles, one foot poised to wade further into the lake. But the decision to step in at all is missing from her thoughts.
“The river gives, but it also takes. And if you’re not careful, it can take quite a lot.”
Cassandra takes a step back. It’s just water, she tells herself. But the impenetrability of its surface gives it a glassy darkness, as though she could fall into it and disappear forever. It’s a far cry from her own little sanctuary of river.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on you, as I’m sure you know. We all have, in our own way. You’ve done an admirable job of tidying up Chiron’s bookshop.” She pauses. “But I’m afraid that bookshop wasn’t meant for you.”
Cassandra gives her a sideways glance. “So I’ve heard.”
Maybe she should be thanking Lowell. After all his needling, Eveline’s accusation feels little more than another line in the conversation. How are you? How’s the weather? What’s it like to take a bookshop that doesn’t belong to you?
“I’m glad to see you understand the situation,” Eveline continues. “So perhaps you and I can come to an arrangement.”
Very carefully, Cassandra takes another step back, further away from the glassy lake. “Chiron entrusted the bookshop to me.”
“And of course he was just trying to do his best,” Eveline says, shrugging. “But his best, alas, falls short of what is necessary.”
“So you think you can do better.”
“I think a bookshop is a heavy burden for one who is not equipped to bear it.”
The same conversation, if not word for word, then beat for beat, as Lowell’s. Where Lowell had been commanding, relentless, Eveline makes it all sound so reasonable. Isn’t this weight so tiring? Why don’t you set it down? Let me lighten the load for you.
Except the load is Chiron’s bookshop, and this is no altruistic offer.
Cass Holt would tell Eveline exactly where to stick that offer, and how far, but Cassandra swallows it back.
She’s already seen how Lowell, never one to mince words, has cast himself as a pariah—and that’s with Sharpe’s impeccable reputation.
Cassandra still has too much to lose, too many favours to fall from, to risk being so overtly rude.
Chiron would have a more effective, eviscerating put-down that still fell in line with societal niceties, but that particular subtext isn’t a skill she’s ever needed to reach for.
Why would she, when she had her reputation to wield?
“I take it you’ve been struggling to handle unusual requests?” Eveline says.
“The impossible books,” Cassandra says.
“They are paradox books,” Eveline corrects. “A chance to… smooth the course of history. Or it was, once upon a time. What do you think you’re doing, when you hold a book touched by the river? What do you think you’re really holding?”