CHAPTER 23 #2
As if by agreement, their feet drifted to a halt at the top of a bridge. Emma looked across the once-familiar river, the bridges, the colleges lining the banks. Now the lights of the Night City played over them all.
“My theory is, there used to be more flow between the mortal world and ours. Back when people really believed in magic. And as that belief drained away, the Night City shut up on itself…”
“And stayed as it was?”
“That’s immortals for you. A mishmash of olde worlde nonsense, and no sign they want to update. You won’t find such a thing as a union anywhere about. Forget constitutional monarchy, or having a vote. Feudal fairyland here has the political sophistication of a bucket.”
She nudged Emma’s leg with a combat-booted foot and grinned. “Come on, new girl, don’t look so grim. There aren’t many things that make up for the bad here. But the Library is one of them.”
She raised reverent eyes to the far end of the bridge, where the Library’s dome glowed in the moonlight. Their feet crunched down the shadowed path toward it.
“I’ve been there before. As a mortal.”
“Then you haven’t really been.” A smile like a wisp of smoke curled across Saskia’s face.
She tapped one of the Library doors. It swung open under her touch. Emma was about to protest about locks and security cameras, then stopped herself. Human rules no longer applied.
“The Library is the only place the mortal world and the Night City exist together. As equals.”
The reception was buzzing with life. A figure in a monk’s cowl trailed by, taloned feet scritching over the marble floor.
Groups stood debating and waving books at one another.
Emma saw several silver collars like her own.
Saskia ushered her through the crowd and into the dim glory of the reading room beyond.
“We can walk around the mortal streets and buildings out there. But we don’t own them. We pass through, leaving marks mortals can’t see. And most of our own spaces are like pockets, hidden from mortal eyes and feet.”
“Like the Court.”
“Right. But here”—Saskia turned soft eyes upon the shadowy shelves—“it’s both.
Magic and mortal, at the same time. Like two floor plans laid over the same space.
Technically, we have our own rooms with our own books, but really there’s nothing to stop a mortal wandering in.
They can stroll into a room that shouldn’t exist in their world, and which won’t be there again when they come back the next day.
Centuries of scholars have found this place baffling. ”
Her voice was full of glee.
Emma remembered her first visit to the Library with Nat.
Walking into reading rooms she’d never been able to find again.
The way the readers had glanced up at her, all sporting the timeless academic uniform of tweed patches and beetle brows, as though she were the first person they’d seen in a century.
Perhaps she had been.
And in a place where the two worlds overlapped, Emma realized, there might be more odd edges like that. Frayed seams, tiny gaps where a patient, determined person might wriggle through to the mortal world, leaving their debt behind.
“We’re mostly meant to come at night, after the mortals are gone. Since they can actually see us here, and we stick in their memories.”
“They can see me here?” said Emma, her heart lifting. “Remember me properly, in the daylight?”
Nat came to the Library all the time. He could bring her mother. And together, surely, they’d find some way around her debt to the Night City—
“Don’t get your hopes up.” Saskia led them up a warped staircase.
“The punishment for courting mortal attention here is something fierce. I’ve had to make a run for it before, when a mortal’s got too close.
Only the Sister and the Librarian are allowed to talk to them, and that’s because of their jobs. ”
“Shelving books?”
“They’re more like guardians. The Library’s precious to the City. One of the few things I like about our ruling power.”
“Why?”
“Because a proper appreciation of books is a mark of decency. Oh, why’s it precious to the City, you mean?
Best ask the Librarian. He explains better than I can.
I was going to drop you at his study up ahead.
I’ve a few more books I wouldn’t mind borrowing, and I don’t want to have to drag you round with me.
” She pointed to a door in the shadow of a tapestry.
Emma felt a flash of warmth in her chest. She realized that she did not want Saskia to go.
Instinct urged her to trust this spiky-haired, spiky-tongued stranger.
In fact, it told her that she already trusted Saskia.
That she could ask the question burning in her throat.
Emma lowered her voice. “Saskia—the Turnbulls. Do you know anything about them?”
“Only to stay away from them.”
“The Judge said that they made a bargain with the Night City, and made me part of it. But they’re only mortals. Boys. How would the Turnbulls even know the Night City exists? What would they bargain for? I thought—you had all of those books—maybe you’d know where to look…”
“Yeah, I could take a look for you. Maybe.” Saskia inspected her chipped nail polish with an air of unconcern. “It’s not like I’m going out of my way. Whatever.”
Behind her, the little door flew open. The scent of toast floated out.
“Child. It is you.”
The Librarian’s delight cleared the gritty feeling from Emma’s throat. The Turnbulls had owned enough of her thoughts.
“And young Saskia. Well met, both. Will you take some tea with me?”
Saskia begged off, but Emma stepped into his study.
Tea sounded excellent. And she would not feel guilty for having a second purpose.
The Librarian knew so much of the Night City and the contents of the Library.
If there was a secret weak spot in the City’s barriers she might creep through, or a book that told of illicit crossings to the mortal world, he would know it.
But she could not let him know what she intended.
With his scattered wits, he might let it slip.
And he would suffer punishment along with her, if it was found she had escaped and that he had given her the tools to do it.
She saw him dragged away by Boars, bruises flaring under his brocade waistcoat, childlike eyes puzzled at the hurt.
She could not bear to think of it. It was safest for them both to keep her hunt hidden.
The Librarian bowed her into the best armchair in his study: the one that still had both arms. He shuffled about with an air of joy, fetching teacups and fussing at butter dishes.
Books were piled in a waist-high labyrinth.
A little old-fashioned Primus stove sat atop a desk, a smoking toaster beside it.
“You carry your token, child?” A dish of hot buttered toast was put down in front of Emma. She fell on it, tearing with her fingers.
“Yes,” she said, through a dripping mouth. Butter was so good. She wiped her hands on her cloak, thinking an apology to the Sister, and pulled out the slip of parchment with the fanged eye.
The Librarian settled in the armchair opposite. “That is well, child. Keep it with you always.”
He filled Emma’s teacup. The stream of tea wavered as he poured, but Emma would have bitten out her tongue rather than say anything.
“Though you would have nothing to fear from the Boars here, in any case.”
Emma raised an inquiring eyebrow, her mouth too full of her third slice of toast to attempt speech.
“The Boars do not come to the Library,” the Librarian said. “It is not permitted.”
“That sounds very final,” she said.
“It is.” A frost hardened the Librarian’s eyes. “They are creatures of violence. They have shown they do not respect this place, or the knowledge it contains. The City may find them useful elsewhere, but it will not stand for that here.”
“Yes, Saskia said the Library was important to the Night City. But not why.”
“Why, child? This is its very heart.”
“Not the Court?”
“The Court is its golden bauble. But this is its holy place. Where knowledge lives, and where mortals come to seek it. One the Night City’s greatest gift, the other its greatest fascination.”
Emma wondered why she had once thought him vague. When his wits focused, as now, she almost shivered in their beam.
“At Court, the Night City rules. Here, it loves.” He waved at the stacks around him. “Think of the books, child. Books are dear to the City, for they contain knowledge, and knowledge is its power.”
The Night City loved books for the knowledge they contained.
So even if a book contained secrets the City might not want shared—like how to flee its boundaries—what were the chances it might let that book survive anyway, from a pure love of knowledge?
She knew that someone, at some time, must have found a path from the Night City back to the mortal world.
And people wrote things down. All she had to do was find the right book.
“There are so many books here,” she said, pouring milk into the Librarian’s cup. “I remember you told me, once. Every work ever printed.”
“And many before the printed word. The collection here is like no other.”
Emma tried not to sound eager. She stirred his tea, then turned to her own. “So how might you find one? If you were looking for something in particular, I mean?”
The Librarian let out a louder wheeze than usual. Emma realized after a moment that it was a laugh.
“Might I but solve that.”
“What do you mean? Librarian?”
He seemed to pull himself back into the room with great effort. “Forgive me, child. It falls to the Librarian to find what is lost. The one book I cannot find. It fills my thoughts, my dreams…”
He trailed into silence. After a while, Emma leaned forward. “Librarian? One book lost isn’t so bad. I’m sure everyone has forgotten about it by now.”
“I cannot. All I am is bent toward it. Such were the terms of my return.”
“Return?”
He clasped her wrist, sending her teacup toppling to the floor. She felt the strange set of the bones in his lumpy hand, the splayed spokes grinding against her wrist.
“Librarian?”
He had been about to say something. About his book hunt, perhaps, and the “terms” that required it?
That had sounded like a bargain, to Emma’s ears.
And what had he meant, talking about his “return”?
A return to where, or from where? Could he have meant the mortal world?
Emma felt an electricity in her chest. An escape story, not hidden in an unknown book, but right before her.
“I am tired.” The Librarian looked smaller, suddenly. Tiny as a coin lost down the back of a sofa. He released her wrist. “So tired…”
He had sunk into vagueness, and Emma knew she would get no answer from him.
But she still had the Library. She could approach it like her research project.
Scientifically, methodically. Catalogue the areas to look, then survey in squares until the species she wanted to observe appeared.
She folded another slice of toast in four and put it whole into her mouth.
It was a good enough plan.
She stood. “Shall I leave you to rest?”
He nodded, apparently too exhausted to speak.
Emma closed the study door. She could not think of the pain in the Librarian’s voice or she would start to cry. No, she would focus on her plan. The Library held every book ever printed. As much knowledge as a building could contain. It would have the secret to returning to the mortal world.
Emma straightened. The book-lined archway at the end of the corridor was calling her. With or without the Librarian’s help, the knowledge she sought was somewhere in these rooms.
She had work to do.