But during that year at the White Pig Inn, she’d learned to listen. Learned to read a room, to sense when the air had shifted. Men could unleash storms, too.
The grumbling echo of the thunder faded, and only silence remained in its wake.
Silence, and the creaking of the ancient lanterns in the wind. No other click issued.
Foolish—foolish to read such things so late. And during a storm.
Yrene swallowed. Librarians preferred the books remain within the library proper, but …
She slammed shut The Song of Beginning, shoving it into her bag. Most of the books she’d already deemed useless, but there were perhaps six more, a mixture of Eyllwe and other tongues. Yrene shoved those into her bag, too. And gently placed the scrolls into the pockets of her cloak, tucked out of view.
All while keeping one eye over her shoulder—on the hall behind her, the stacks to her right.
You wouldn’t owe me anything if you’d used some common sense. The young stranger had snapped that at her that fateful night—after she’d saved Yrene’s life. The words had lingered, biting deep. As had the other lessons she’d been taught by that girl.
And though Yrene knew she’d laugh at herself in the morning, though maybe it was one of the Baast Cats stalking something in the shadows, Yrene decided to listen to that tug of fear, that trickle down her spine.
Though she could have cut down dark stacks to reach the main hallway faster, she kept to the lights, her shoulders back and head high. Just as the girl had told her. Look like you’d put up a fight—be more trouble than you’re worth.
Her heart pounded so wildly she could feel it in her arms, her throat. But Yrene made her mouth a hard line, her eyes bright and cold. Looking as furious as she’d ever been, her pace clipped and swift. As if she had forgotten something or someone had failed to retrieve a book for her.
Closer and closer, she neared the intersection of that broad, main hallway. To where the acolytes would be trudging up to bed in their cozy dormitory.
She cleared her throat, readying to scream.
Not rape, not theft—not something that cowards would rather hide from. Yell fire, the stranger had instructed her. A threat to all. If you are attacked, yell about a fire.
Yrene had repeated the instructions so many times these past two and a half years. To so many women. Just as the stranger had ordered her to. Yrene had not thought she’d ever again need to recite them for herself.
Yrene hurried her steps, jaw angled. She had no weapons save for a small knife she used for cleaning out wounds or cutting bandages—currently in the bottom of her bag.
But that satchel, laden with books … She wrapped the leather straps around her wrist, getting a good grip on it.
A well-placed swing would knock someone to the ground.
Closer and closer to the safety of that hallway—
From the corner of her eye, she saw it. Sensed it.
Someone in the next stack over. Walking parallel to her.
She didn’t dare look. Acknowledge it.
Yrene’s eyes burned, even as she fought the terror that clawed its way up her body.
Glimpses of shadows and darkness. Stalking her. Hunting her.
Quickening its pace to grab her—cut her off at that hallway and snatch her into the dark.
Common sense. Common sense.
Running—it would know. It would know she was aware. It might strike. Whoever it was.
Common sense.
A hundred feet left until the hallway, shadows pooling between the dim lanterns, the lights now precious islands in a sea of darkness.
She could have sworn fingers lightly thudded as they trailed over the books on the other side of the shelf.
So Yrene lifted her chin further and smiled, laughing brightly as she looked ahead to the hallway. “Maddya! What are you doing here so late?”
She hurried her pace, especially as whoever it was slowed in surprise. Hesitation.
Yrene’s foot slammed into something soft—soft and yet hard—and she bit down her yelp—
She hadn’t seen the healer curled on her side in the shadows along the shelf.
Yrene bent, hands grappling for the woman’s thin arms, her build slender enough that when she turned her over—
The footsteps began once more just as she turned the healer over. As she swallowed the scream that tried to shatter out of her.
Light brown cheeks turned to hollowed husks, eyes stained purple beneath, lips pale and cracked. A simple healer’s gown that had likely fit her that morning now hung loose, her slim form now emaciated, as if something had sucked the life from her—
She knew that face, gaunt as it was. Knew the golden-brown hair, nearly the twin to her own. The healer from the Womb, the very one she’d comforted only hours earlier—
Yrene’s fingers shook as she fumbled for a pulse, the skin leathery and dry.
Nothing. And her magic … There was no life for it to swirl toward. No life at all.
The footsteps on the other side of the stack neared. Yrene stood on trembling knees, taking a steadying breath as she forced herself to walk again. Forced herself to leave that dead healer in the dark. Forced herself to lift her bag as if nothing had happened, as if showing the satchel to someone ahead.
But with the angle of the stacks—the person didn’t know that.
“Just finishing up my reading for the night,” she called to her invisible salvation ahead. She sent up a silent prayer of thanks to Silba that her voice held steady and merry. “Cook is expecting me for a last cup of tea. Want to join?”
Making it seem like someone was expecting her: another trick she’d picked up.
Yrene cleared five more steps before she realized whoever it was had again halted.
Buying her ruse.
Yrene dashed the last few feet to the hallway, spotted a cluster of acolytes just emerging from another haze of stacks, and hurtled flat out toward them.
Their eyes widened at Yrene’s approach, and all she whispered was, “Go.”
The three girls, barely more than fourteen, caught the tears of terror in her eyes, the sure whiteness of her face, and did not look behind Yrene. They did not disobey.
They were in her class. She’d trained them for months now.
They saw the straps of her satchel wrapped around her fist and closed ranks around her. Smiled broadly, nothing at all wrong. “Come to Cook’s to get tea,” Yrene told them, fighting to keep her scream from shattering out of her. Dead. A healer was dead—“She is expecting me.”
And will raise the alarm if I do not arrive.
To their credit, those girls did not tremble, did not show one lick of dread as they walked down the main hall. As they neared the atrium, with its roaring fire and thirty-six chandeliers and thirty-six couches and chairs.
A sleek black Baast Cat was lounging in one of those embroidered chairs by the fire. And as they neared, she leaped up, hissing as fiercely as her feline-headed namesake. Not at Yrene or the girls … No, those beryl-colored eyes were narrowed at the library behind them.
One of the girls tightened her grip on Yrene’s arm. But not one of them left Yrene’s side as she approached the massive desk of the Head Librarian and her Heir. Behind them, the Baast Cat held her ground—held the line—as the Heir Librarian, on duty for the night, looked up from her book at the commotion.
Yrene murmured to the middle-aged woman in gray robes, “A healer has been gravely attacked in the stacks off the main hall. Get everyone out and call for the royal guard. Now.”
The woman did not ask questions. Did not falter or shake. She only nodded before she reached for the bell bolted onto the desk’s edge.
The librarian rang it thrice. To an outsider, it was no more than a final call.
But to those who lived here, who knew the library was open day and night …
First ring: Listen.
Second: Listen now.
The Heir Librarian rang it a third time, loud and clear, the pealing echoing down into the library, into every dark corner and hallway.
Third ring: Get out.
Yrene had once asked, when Eretia had explained the warning bell her first day here, after she had taken a vow never to repeat its meaning to an outsider. They all had. And Yrene had asked why it was needed, who had installed it.
Long ago, before the khaganate had conquered Antica, this city had passed from hand to hand, victim to a dozen conquests and rulers. Some invading armies had been kind. A few had not.
Tunnels still existed beneath the library that they had used to evade them—long since boarded up.
But the warning bell to those within remained. And for a thousand years, the Torre had kept it. Occasionally had drills with it. Just in case. If it should ever happen.
The third ring echoed off stone and leather and wood. And Yrene could have sworn she heard the sound of countless heads popping up from where they bent over desks. Heard the sound of chairs shoved back and books dropped.
Run, she begged. Keep to the lights.
But Yrene and the others lingered in silence, counting the seconds. The minutes. The Baast Cat quieted her hissing and monitored the hall beyond the atrium, black tail slashing over the chair cushion. One of the girls beside Yrene sprinted off to the guards by the Torre gates. Who had likely heard that bell pealing and were already running toward them.
Yrene was shaking by the time quick steps and rustling clothing drew near. She and the Heir Librarian marked each face that emerged—each wide-eyed face that hurried out of the library.
Acolytes, healers, librarians. No one out of place. The Baast Cat seemed to be checking them all, too—those beryl eyes seeing things perhaps beyond Yrene’s comprehension.
Armor and stomping steps, and Yrene clamped down on the weeping relief at the approach of half a dozen Torre guards now stalking through the open library doors, the acolyte at their heels.
The acolyte and her two companions remained with Yrene while she explained. While the guards called for reinforcements, while the Heir Librarian summoned Nousha, Eretia, and Hafiza. The three girls remained, two holding Yrene’s trembling hands.
They did not let go.
11
Yrene was late.
Chaol had come to expect her at ten, though she had given no indication of when she might arrive. Nesryn had left well before he’d awoken to seek out Sartaq and his ruk, leaving him here to bathe and … wait.
And wait.
An hour in, Chaol began going through what exercises he could manage on his own, unable to stand the silence, the heavy heat, the endless trickle of water from the fountain outside. The thoughts that kept sliding back to Dorian, wondering where his king was now headed.
She’d mentioned exercises—some involving his legs, however she’d manage to accomplish that—but if Yrene didn’t bother to arrive on time, then he certainly wouldn’t bother to wait for her.
His arms were trembling by the time the clock on the sideboard chimed noon, little silver bells atop the carved wood piece filling the space with clear, bright ringing. Sweat slid down his chest, his spine, his face as he managed to haul himself into his chair, arms trembling with the effort. He was about to call for Kadja to bring him a jug of water and a cool cloth when Yrene appeared.
In the sitting room, he listened as she entered the main door, then halted.
She said to Kadja, waiting in the foyer, “I have a matter of discretion that I need you to personally oversee.”
Obedient silence.
“Lord Westfall requires a tonic for a rash developing on his legs. Likely from some oil you dumped into his bath.” The words were calm, yet edged. He frowned down at his legs. He’d seen no such thing this morning, but he certainly couldn’t sense an itch or burning. “I need willow bark, honey, and mint. The kitchens will have them. Tell no one why. I don’t want word getting around.”
Silence again—then a door closing.
He watched the open doors to the sitting room, listening to her listen to Kadja leaving. Then her heavy sigh. Yrene emerged a moment later.
She looked like hell.
“What’s wrong?”