‘Mary.’ My mouth is dry. I swallow. ‘You’re the Bard. You run the library.’
She smiles, and dimples spring into her cheeks. ‘Guilty as charged.’ She nods at Tom, and he releases me. My legs tremble as I look at her clothes questioningly. ‘Ah, the robes. I can understand your confusion. Tom’s idea. It works quite nicely. Of course, when we encounter Blotters, they can tell something’s slightly off. Instinctive—something to do with the ink that bonds them to the Creators, we think. But they also know not to question a Teller, so it makes getting around the Draft undetected a little easier.’
‘You’re going to drive us to the library,’ I say.
‘Yes. We can get you across the border. Now, come on. It won’t be long before Blotters realise you’re here. We don’t have much time. Tom, can you get Jay inside?’
‘Yes, ma’am!’
‘Wait,’ I say.
Tom halts.
‘How did you know we were here?’ I ask.
‘Sylvia and some of her lot arrived earlier,’ says Mary. ‘Told us you were coming and you might need some help. So we’ve been listening to some of the Teller broadcasts. Not much out there about you for now—they obviously want to keep you quiet. But we heard one of them telling a story about a false Blotter and his slut in Draft Three—his words, not mine—killing innocent people. The best route into Draft Four is the underground railway, so we parked up here last night to wait for you.’
There’s warmth in her face and mischief in her eyes, and it reassures me. So I climb into the vehicle and settle down on the floor by the partition at the back. Tom hauls one of Jay’s big arms over his equally broad shoulders and pulls him to his feet. With a grunt, he places him down on the ground beside me and plucks a dart from Jay’s neck.
His hood is down now, and when he smiles at me I see a shock of blond hair, a big, cheerful mouth that’s slightly too wide for his face, and glinting eyes the same colour as Mary’s. He jumps onto the pavement beside her.
‘Ready?’ she says.
I glance at Jay, noting the peaceful expression on his face and the comforting rise and fall of his chest. I touch his shoulder, and he makes a low sound in his throat. He’s not going to be happy when he wakes up. But we’re okay.
I smile. ‘Yes.’
‘See you at the library.’ Mary winks then pulls down the metal door, plunging us into darkness.
Part Three
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Jay
I breathe in sharply.
My head is throbbing. My heart’s beating fast.
I open my eyes. Spots dance across my vision, and after I blink a few times, a high ceiling comes into focus. I’m lying down on something soft. And this isn’t right.
Where the fuck am I?
I jolt upright.
I’m on a bed. There’s a door opposite, and the floor is made of small black-and-white chequered tiles. My muscles tighten. This room doesn’t feel as if it belongs in the Outer Drafts. It reminds me of the Citadel.
My throat constricts as it all comes back to me. The Tellers, the big vehicle, the gun, and Elle. There’s a hard weight pressing down on my chest. Where is Elle?
I throw myself off the bed. The room sways, and I slam my hand onto the edge of a scratched bedside table, gripping the varnished wood to steady myself. I move the other to my heart and rub the tattoo branded over it.
She’s not dead. She can’t be dead. I’d fucking know if she were dead. I would know. She’s not. No fucking way.
I’m breathing fast, and the room’s swimming around me. I swallow hard, pushing down the panic. I need to calm the fuck down. I can’t protect her if I can’t get control over myself. I close my eyes for a second. Then I look around properly.
I’m in a bedroom that could belong to the Citadel in the Final City. I’m leaning next to a high bed with a thick cream quilt and swirling leaves carved in its black headboard. There’s a gold candlestick by my spread palm, and the doorknob is made of gleaming brass.
But there are chips in the chequered floor tiles. There’s an ink stain on the scuffed desk. White plaster peels from the walls, and there’s a hard pool of candle wax beside the handprint I just left in the dust.
This room is a stale memory of whatever it once was.
When I steady my breathing, the air is damp and heavy. There are no windows. I’m underground. And is that a book on the other bedside table?
It doesn’t make sense. I have no clue where I am.
All I know is that I need to find Elle. I push away the thought of what the Tellers might be doing to her. We’re bound by ink. I was supposed to kill her. If she were dead, surely I’d feel it. Surely this unbearable pressure in my veins would lessen. Surely my chest wouldn’t hurt so fucking much.
I walk to the door. Someone is approaching, so I flatten myself against the wall, blinking hard to keep my focus. I get ready to kill something.
The door opens, and blood pumps hot through my body as I grab the invader. Beyond the thudding heartbeat in my ears, there’s a familiar voice, distorted and breathless. But my body moves faster than my mind.
I’ve thrust her against the wall, wrists pinned above her head, before it all crashes into focus.
Except I didn’t kill her, did I? My hands aren’t squeezed around her throat. She isn’t screaming. I didn’t hurt her, even though I have instinctively killed and hurt people bigger than her.
So maybe I did know it was her. Maybe I just wanted to feel her skin against my skin. Maybe I just wanted to hold her against the wall and feel the reassuring heat of her body pushed against mine.
Her breath is hot and fast on my neck. ‘Jay, what are you doing?’
Our gazes lock, and the soft relief ebbing through my body turns into something more familiar. Something more hostile.
She’s not hurt. In fact, she looks far from it. She smells like soap and honey, and her skin has been scrubbed clean of all the grime from the river. Her long hair is damp. She’s changed clothes too, and she’s wearing a simple beige dress that skims the tops of her knees.
I grit my teeth to stop myself from completely losing my shit. ‘What. The. Fuck?’
‘We’re at the library.’
‘The Tellers—’
‘They weren’t Tellers.’
‘What?’
‘Jay, I can see you’re feeling a little confused—’
‘Oh, you can tell?’
‘—but I’m going to need you to calm down.’
‘How about I’ll calm the fuck down when you tell me what’s going on?’
I tighten my grip around her wrists, but she doesn’t flinch. ‘It was The Bard, the one Maggie told us about. Mary and her brother. They were dressed as Tellers. They brought us here.’
I rest my forehead against hers as I process what she’s saying. She’s fine, we’re at some library, we were somehow taken here by two Darlings dressed up like Tellers. She’s safe. She’s not dead.
And they obviously take me for an idiot.
I slowly meet her gaze. ‘They shot me.’
‘It was a tranquiliser. They were under the impression you might be a little . . . difficult.’ Her amber eyes glint, and irritation prickles beneath my skin.
‘Is this amusing to you?’
She bites her bottom lip and composes her features. ‘I shouldn’t have left you on your own. I’m sorry. I really am. We got here a couple of hours ago. I didn’t know when you were going to wake up.’
‘Right.’
‘And Sylvia and some of the others are already here, so I was—’
‘So a whole bunch of your crazy Circus folk have seen me unconscious. Bet that gave you all a good laugh.’
‘Jay, that’s not what happened, at all—’
‘Which one shot me? Mary or her brother?’
‘What? That’s not important.’
‘Well, I want to know.’
‘They only did it to defend themselves. They helped us.’
&nbs
p; ‘Which. One?’
She tries to push me away, but I don’t move. I want her to feel helpless. I want her as angry as I am right now. When a pink flush creeps over her cheeks and neck and her eyes narrow, I feel a burst of satisfaction that I’m having the desired effect on her.
But then she sighs. ‘Look, I’m not going to tell you just so you can decide which one of them you’re going to be more of an arsehole to. So just . . . get over it. Okay?’
‘Get over it?’
‘Yes.’
I glare at her, and she glares right back, her eyes fierce and curious and challenging as if she’s wondering what I’m going to do next. And I don’t fucking know what I’m going to do next. Why is she so annoying?
I exhale as I release her wrists, and some of the frustration escapes me in a long, weary breath. Yeah. She’s made a mug out of me. But she’s safe. The Tellers didn’t get her. I didn’t fuck up as badly as I thought.
‘I’ll just have to be an arsehole to both of them then, won’t I?’ I say.
‘I wouldn’t expect anything less of you.’ The corner of her lip lifts. Then she takes a small step forwards and presses her forehead against my chest. Confused, I touch the back of her neck. Somehow, holding her and feeling her warmth, the tension in my muscles ebbs away.
‘You . . . er . . . you okay?’ I mumble into her hair.
She pulls away, and her eyes catch mine. Something raw and vulnerable flickers behind them. I stare at a spot of peeling plaster on the wall behind her, not wanting to see that emotion. She clears her throat and smiles, and it’s as if I imagined it.
‘Yes. I was waiting for you before I went to get the book I’ve been looking for. Do you want to come with me?’
I rub the back of my neck. Do I want to walk around some book-filled terrorist base with her weird Circus friends while looking for a message from the First Twist?
I exhale. ‘Yeah. Okay.’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Jay
I follow her across the room, and my eyes linger on the thin material of her dress as it skims her legs. She glances over her shoulder when she reaches the door.
‘Hey, my eyes are up here.’
‘Yeah. But your arse is down there.’
She stares at me. I stare back. My lip twitches.
‘I take it you’ve cheered up then?’ she says.
‘Not sure, really.’
Have I cheered up? Yeah, the hot anger has subsided into something cooler. But I’m not sure if that constitutes as feeling cheerful. I don’t want to kill something anymore, but I don’t want to be around any of her Circus friends either.
I halt in the doorway as her bare feet slap against the tiled floor. The cold, persistent feeling of wrongness spreads in my chest. It could be dread. Dread about that vulnerability I caught in her eye, maybe. Or dread that I don’t belong here, and soon, she’s going to realise it. Dread that I probably can’t save her.
But there’s something else as well. Something more imminent. I look down the long, narrow corridor, registering the fancy-looking candle holders in the walls, and the high ceiling, and the chequered floor tiles. This doesn’t feel like Draft Four. It feels like the Final City. A sense of the Creators seems to hang in the musty air.
When Elle realises I’m not following her, she turns, and her brow furrows. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I dunno. This place. It reminds me . . .’ I frown and look up and down the corridor, the candles flicking shadows along the walls.
‘Of the Citadel?’ she says.
‘Yeah.’
‘Me too.’
‘It feels . . .’ The words catch in my throat, and I shake my head. ‘What is this place?’
‘I told you, we’re at the library.’
‘But why is it here? Was it always a library? How—?’
A slow smile spreads across her face, and I give her a hard look.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Just . . . you,’ she says. ‘So curious for a Blotter.’
I fold my arms. ‘And you, so annoying for a Twist.’
But she’s right. I am curious. Curious about this place. Curious about the things she can do. Curious about her. I thought it would all disappear once I released my tension inside of her, but it hasn’t. It’s still here, persistent and relentless and irritating. And it’s getting even worse.
Curiosity never did anyone any good. It never did me any good. This story doesn’t end well for either of us.
‘I like that you’re curious,’ she says.
‘Oh, shut up.’ I catch up with her in a few strides, and a smile plays on her lips again.
‘I don’t know for sure why the library is here,’ she says. ‘I have a theory. Mary probably knows more. You should ask her.’
‘Are you trying to get me to make friends, little Twist? Because I don’t make friends.’
‘That’s surprising. You’re always so pleasant to everyone.’
‘Funny.’
‘Am I not your friend?’
I run a hand over my mouth. ‘No. You’re an annoying pain in my arse.’
Her laughter fills the dark, and I smile like an idiot as we walk through an arched doorway into an empty hall. I look up at the high, domed ceiling. The air tastes like must, and I’m sure we’re underground.
But how can a building this big be underground? And why would it have a domed ceiling? Why would the Creators have made it? And why would it exist in Draft Four?
It makes no sense to me.
‘How would you know what the inside of the Citadel was like anyway, little Twist?’
‘My father told me stories—’
‘Right. Course he did.’
‘—and they show it sometimes, on the billboards.’
We walk through one of the doorways into another corridor. There are voices coming from a room at the end. I tense.
As if sensing the shift in my mood, Elle shoots me a warning look. It would be adorable if I hadn’t seen her create tornados with her words or set a room full of Blotters alight with a match.
‘Be nice,’ she says.
When I don’t reply, her eyes narrow.
‘Jay . . .’
I raise my hands. ‘Fine. Just so long as—’
‘Thank you.’
She walks through the arched doorway without letting me finish.
We’re in a candlelit room that looks like one of the council meeting rooms in the Citadel. Unlike the Citadel, though, where twelve oil paintings are displayed around the room in ornate gold frames, the far wall is a mural of the sea. Cobwebs drape from the chandelier that hangs from the ceiling. And my breath mists in front of my face.
There are five people sitting at the long oval table in the centre, and they all fall silent and turn to face us.
‘Ah, so the Blotter awakens,’ says Sylvia.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ I say.
I recognise two others from the Circus too. Anita, the woman with long dark hair who ran the infirmary, and Rami, who smiles warmly at Elle. I narrow my eyes and step closer to her. There’s something about this guy that rubs me up the wrong way.
‘Jay, it’s so nice to finally meet you.’ A woman with wavy brown hair stands up and walks over, her hand extended. ‘I’m Mary.’
She looks as if she’s in her mid-twenties, with irritatingly curious eyes the same colour as her long-sleeved turquoise top.
When I don’t shake her hand, she drops her arm to her side and nods to the blond guy at the table. ‘This is my brother, Tom,’ she says.
He grins. ‘All right, mate,’ he says.
‘Sorry about the tranquiliser,’ says Mary. Elle tenses beside me. ‘One of our book thieves used to work at one of the Creators’ menageries before we took them on.’
I drag my teeth over my bottom lip. ‘You were the one who shot me.’
The atmosphere in the room changes, and Tom slowly gets up, his chair scraping against the mosaiced floor tiles. His eyes darken. He looks as if
he’s preparing himself for a fight he could never win even though he is almost as big as me. It pisses me off. Yeah, I’m annoyed at being shot, but I’m not going to hurt her. I may be a monster, but only because I was written that way.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘We okay?’
Elle is practically holding her breath beside me, and that pisses me off too. Is that seriously what she still thinks of me?
I exhale. ‘Yeah. We’re okay.’
Mary smiles. ‘Good.’ She turns to Elle. ‘You were looking for a story written by the First Twist?’
‘Yes,’ she says, and she sounds almost urgent before she smiles, composing herself. ‘Yes. Please.’
‘Great! Let’s go.’
Elle lightly touches my arm then follows Mary out of the room. Feeling Sylvia’s eyes on me, I head after her into a narrow corridor. The muscles in my jaw tighten when I walk into the vast space at the end.
There are books everywhere. They climb up the circular walls on either side of me, leather-bound and dusty. The shelves creak beneath their weight. I’ve burnt books during black market raids, but I’ve never seen so many in one place before. Not even in the Citadel. I think there may have been rooms like this there, but they were restricted—open only to the Creators.
My heart pounds, and my mouth is completely dry. This is wrong. Yet I can’t look away from the labyrinth of dark, narrow paths that lead through the forbidden ink and parchment. Elle disappears into it.
‘It’s quite something, huh?’ says Sylvia as the others walk past.
I swallow hard. ‘How . . .?’
‘A Blotter asking questions. I never thought I’d see the day. You going to stand there gawping, or you going to step up and help your girlfriend? She’s going to need your support in a minute.’
I close my eyes and breathe out slowly. I hate this woman. Then I fall into step beside her. I run a hand over my mouth. ‘Raven,’ I say. ‘She’s not here.’
‘No.’ Sylvia’s eyes darken. ‘Neither is Lucy. But they’re tough. They’ll get here.’
We follow the others into a small room. The ceiling is so low my head almost brushes it.
A Circus of Ink Page 22