by Olivie Blake
“Surely you must feel some obligation,” said the man. “A scholar like yourself, you must think it valuable to have access to the Alexandrian records.”
Reina stiffened; Atlas had always said the Society was known among certain groups, but still, she hated to think the place she prized so mightily could be referenced with such open disregard.
“What good are the archives,” the man pressed, catching the look on her face, “when only a small percentage of the world’s magical population can ever learn from them? At least the artifacts contained in this museum are offered to the whole of the mortal world.”
“Knowledge requires caretakers,” said Reina flatly. “And if that’s all—”
“There are better ways to care for knowledge than to hide it away.”
Another version of her might have agreed with him. As it was, though, she spared him half a glance.
“Who are you?”
“It’s not who I am, but what I stand for,” said the man.
“Which is?”
“Freedom of information. Equality. Diversity. New ideas.”
“And what do you think you will gain from me?”
“The Society is inherently classist,” said the man. “Only the highest trained medeians will ever reach its rank, and its archives only serve to secure an elitist system which has no oversight. All the world’s treasures under one roof,” he prompted, “with only a single organization to control its distribution?”
“I,” Reina said, “have no knowledge of anything you speak.”
“True, you are not a member yet,” the man agreed, dropping his voice. “You still have time to make other choices. You are not bound to the Society’s rules, nor to its secrets.”
“Even assuming any of this were true,” Reina muttered, “what would you want from me?”
“It is not what we want from you, Miss Mori, but what we can offer you.” The man slid a card from his inside pocket, handing it to her. “Someday, should you find you are trapped by the choice you’ve made, you may contact us. We will see to it that your voice is heard.”
The card read Nothazai, either the man’s name or his pseudonym, and on the back, THE FORUM. A reference, of course, to a subversion of everything the Society was. The Roman Forum was a marketplace of ideas, the most celebrated meeting place in the world. It was the center of commerce, politics, and civility. In short, where the Society cloistered itself behind closed doors, the Forum was open to all.
But there was a reason the Library of Alexandria had been forced to hide in the first place.
“Are you truly the Forum?” Reina asked neutrally. “Or are you simply the mob?”
When she glanced up, he—Nothazai—had not looked away. “It is no secret what you can do, Reina Mori,” he said, before amending, “At least, it is no secret what you could do. We are citizens not of a hidden world, but of a global economy; an entire human race. It is a troubled world we live in, ever on the brink of progress and regression, and very few are given the opportunity to make true changes. Power like the Society’s does not elevate this world; it only changes hands, continuing to isolate its advantages.”
It was an old argument. Why have empires and not democracies? The Society’s version of an answer was obvious: because some things were unfit to rule themselves.
“You think I can contribute nothing from where I stand, I take it?” Reina prompted.
“I think it is obvious you are a blend of broad dissatisfactions, Miss Mori,” said Nothazai. “You resent privilege in all its forms, including your own, yet you show no desire to unmake the present system. I think someday you will awaken to your own conviction, and when you do, something will compel you forward. Whoever’s cause that will be, I hope you will consider ours.”
“Do you mean to accuse me of some sort of tyranny by proxy?” Reina asked. “Or is that an unintended consequence of your recruitment tactics?”
The man shrugged. “Is it not a proven fact of history that power is not meant to exist in the hands of the very few?”
“For every tyrant, there is a ‘free’ society which destroys itself,” said Reina, who knew enough ancient history to grasp the faults of hubris. “Power is not meant for those who misuse it.”
“Is not the worst tyranny that which perceives itself to be noble?”
“Greed is greed,” said Reina flatly. “Even if I accepted your perception of the Society’s flaws, why should I believe your intentions any different?”
Nothazai smiled. “I only suspect, Miss Mori, that you will soon change your position on the matter, and when you do, know that you will not be left to your own devices. Should you require an ally, you have one,” he offered, and bowed low.
The symmetry of the moment reminded her of something.
“Are you some sort of Caretaker?” she asked him, thinking of Atlas Blakely’s card. Inexplicably, she remembered what Atlas had said about the others who might have taken her place; a traveler, as he had specifically mentioned, whatever that meant.
Were the members of the Forum merely Society castoffs?
“No, I am nothing important. The Forum cares for itself,” said Nothazai, and turned away before pausing, doubling back half a step. “By the way,” he added in an undertone, “perhaps you know already? The Tokyo billionaire Sato has just won parliament’s special election, displacing the incumbent candidate.”
The mention of Aiya was startling, though Reina tried not to let it show. “Why should Aiya Sato matter to me?”
“Oh, she doesn’t, I’m sure. But it’s very interesting—she was the one who uncovered the incumbent councilor’s corruption. Almost as if she had information the government itself did not. The incumbent denies it, of course, but who to believe? There is no other evidence aside from Sato’s own dossier, so perhaps we’ll never know.”
Briefly, Reina recalled what Aiya had summoned during their brief interaction in the reading room: an unmarked book. Reina quickly blinked it away, obscuring it. Even if this man were not a telepath, there were other ways to prod inside her head.
“Assassinations,” Nothazai said. “Development of new technology that enters mortal copyrights, but never public domain. New weaponry sold only to the elite. Space programs developed in secret for warmongering nations. Biological warfare that goes unreported; illness that wipes out the unmentionables, left to the fringes of poverty.”
“You blame this on the Society?” Broad claims, and as far as Reina considered feasible, unknowable ones.
“I blame the Society,” Nothazai clarified, “because if it is not its job to cause such atrocities, then why not undertake the effort to prevent them? Inevitably, it must stand to gain.”
Somewhere in the administrative offices, a small fern dying of thirst let out a thin, wailing scream.
“Someone always gains,” said Reina. “Just as someone always loses.”
Nothazai gave her a brisk look of disappointment.
“Yes, I imagine so. Good day, then,” he said, and slipped back into the museum’s flow of traffic, leaving Reina to look down at his card.
An odd thing, timing. She’d had a feeling, hadn’t she? That something would disrupt the peace she’d found within the Society the moment she stepped outside its walls. It was a narrow window to reach her without the Society’s wards; only a matter of hours remained before her return, which was much too specific to guess.
Could this, like the installment, have been another test?
The idea that anything would keep Reina from initiation into the Society was enough to reflexively curl her fingers, crumpling the card within them to a stiff, unwelcome ball.
The others could do with power what they wished. She tossed the card into the bin and strode out into the cold, ignoring the seedlings that sprouted up between cracks in the sidewalk. The argument itself, that she should turn on the Society in order to save the world, was ludicrous. Look at her talents, for instance. Wouldn’t the Forum be the first to have her sacrifice her au
tonomy, all to sustain a planet that had irresponsibly overpopulated itself? There was such a thing as asking too much, and she had known the demands of others all her life.
Depending who viewed it, Persephone had either been stolen or she had run from Demeter. Either way, she had made herself queen. The Forum, whatever they were, had misjudged Reina poorly for being free of principle, when in fact her principles were clear: she would not bleed out for nothing.
If this world felt it could take from Reina, so be it. She would gladly take from it.
VI: THOUGHT
LIBBY
Libby slammed the apartment door shut, turning to find Ezra waiting expectantly in the living room behind her.
The unfortunate thing about Manhattan apartments was the incredible lack of having any other space to be. That, and thin walls. Not being overheard by someone was probably never going to be an option so long as she lived in this city. She’d ruled out privacy the moment she signed the NYUMA student contract, which was a fact that moving in with her first year R.A. three years later had not improved. Funny that.
“I take it you were listening,” Libby said gruffly, and Ezra slid one hand in his front pocket, buying time before his response.
“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Listen, Lib—”
She knew what was coming next. For one thing, it wasn’t as if she’d come home to the promise of sex and chocolates or whatever. The fight had begun the moment she walked in the door, and two days later, it still hadn’t been resolved. The fact that he needed her to beat the same dead horse was starting to feel inhumane to both of them (and the horse).
“I already told you,” she sighed, cutting him off, “I’m not going to tell you anything, Ezra. I can’t.”
“Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear,” he replied, too sharply, and then he grimaced, recognizing the combative undertones in his own voice. “Look, I don’t want to fight about it again—”
“Then don’t.”
She paced away from the door, suddenly desperate for motion. He followed, ceaselessly orbiting her until she thought she might choke.
“I’m just worried about you, Libby.”
“Don’t be.” A softer tone would help, probably.
Not that she had one to spare.
“What am I supposed to do? You come back after six months without warning and you can’t even tell me where you’ve been. Now you have people knocking on the door upsetting you, and you’re trying to… to what? Hide them from me?”
“Yes. Because this has nothing to do with you,” said Libby, still brusque with impatience. “I’ve always known you didn’t trust me, Ezra, not fully, but this is getting out of hand—”
“This isn’t about trust, Libby. It’s about your safety.” This again. “If you’re in over your head somehow, or if you’ve gotten caught up in something—”
She tightened a fist. “So you think I’m stupid. Is that it?”
“Libby, don’t. You’re my girlfriend; you’re important to me. You, for better or worse, are my responsibility, and—”
“Ezra, listen to me carefully, because this is the last time I’ll say it.”
She took three steps to close the distance between them, slamming the book shut on the last argument she planned to have today.
“I am not,” Libby said flatly, “yours.”
She didn’t wait to see if he would argue. The look on his face suggested that whatever came next, she wasn’t going to enjoy it. She thought about packing a bag, summoning her things. She thought about screaming or crying or making demands; making a mess, in general.
But in the end, it was all so exhausting she simply turned and pulled open the door, planning nothing beyond the certainty of walking through it.
Immediately: a coat would have been a good idea. She shivered in the dark, glancing up the block toward Nico’s apartment. A thought, definitely, but if there was ever anyone to be unsympathetic—or even sympathetic, but in an enormously unhelpful way—it would be Nico, who had loathed Ezra on sight.
Not to mention that if she went to Nico, she’d have to discuss the visitor she’d just received.
“Elizabeth Rhodes?” the woman had asked in her Bronx accent. If not for the expensive scarf tied around her natural hair, she might have looked like one of those campaigners who stopped people on the street to talk about the environment or veganism, or possibly the hazards of imperiling their immortal souls. “If I could just have a moment of your time—”
Libby shivered and turned left, heading for the train station.
She wondered why they had not been warned that other organizations might come recruiting. Atlas had mentioned the Forum’s existence, fine, but he’d left out that for two days of their initiation period, they would be vulnerable to interception.
Was it a trial of some sort, as the installment had been? Was her loyalty being tested?
“Miss Rhodes, surely you’ve thought about the natural elitism of the Society’s mere existence,” the woman, Williams, had said. “No one else in your family is magically trained, are they? But I wonder,” Williams mused softly. “Could the Society have saved your sister if they had ever shared what they had known?”
It was a question that Libby had asked herself hundreds of times before. In fact, for a time it had left her sleepless, particularly when she was first approached by NYUMA. The thoughts, torturous and destructive, were always the same: If she had only known more, or if she had just been trained sooner, or if someone had told her earlier…
But she already knew the answer. For years, she’d researched at length. “There is no cure for degenerative diseases,” she replied, with the confidence of someone possessing dismal, intimate knowledge of the fact.
Williams had arched a brow. “Isn’t there?”
It was a trap of some sort. Whether it was a test or not, it was certainly a trap. Someone was toying with her personal history, manipulating her with it, and Libby didn’t care for it. If there was one thing she’d learned from working alongside Callum, it was that feeling too much or too fully only meant she wasn’t thinking with her head.
It wasn’t the Society’s fault, Libby had argued in response, that capitalism prevented medeian healthcare from being available to mortals. If medeian methods were priced according to empathy, then yes, fine, perhaps one could blame the research for existing privately—but it would have gone through both the mortal and medeian corporations first; it would have come at so inflated a cost that even if a cure existed, it would have bankrupted her family to try and use.
“So your sister deserved to die, then?” asked Williams blankly.
Which was when Libby had slammed the door.
She had not spoken about Katherine to anyone in years. She thought of her sister from time to time, but only distantly, as something she kept at arm’s length. As a measure of sanity, she had ruled out wondering whether something could have been done; in fact, she had already driven herself half mad considering it. The idea that a stranger might have suddenly brought everything to the surface felt a bit manipulative, and certainly unwelcome.
Was this the Society’s doing? They would know about Katherine Rhodes, whom Libby had called Kitty as a child, and whom her parents had rightfully adored. Katherine, who had died at sixteen to Libby’s thirteen, wasted away in a hospital bed at the whims of a magicless body that slowly killed her. The administrators at NYUMA, when asked, had told Libby her abilities had likely not come to fruition until after the stress of losing her sister had faded away. Katherine, they said, had been ill for years, requiring most of the attention from her parents, and thus Libby would not have focused on her abilities even if she had noticed she had them. It would take work to catch up, they said.
“Could I have saved my sister?” she asked, because survivor’s guilt was sharpest in retrospect.
“No,” they told her. “Nothing exists to reverse the effects of her illness, or even to slow it.”
It had taken Libby two years of m
anic research to prove them right, and then two more to finally lay thoughts of her sister to rest. She might not have managed it at all if not for Nico; “Oh, buck up, Rhodes, we’ve all got problems. Doesn’t mean you get to waste the time she never got,” was his take on the situation—confessed to him at the height of finals delirium, and clearly a massive mistake—at which point Libby had slapped him, and eventually Ezra had intervened. Nico was placed on probation and Libby told herself she would beat him in every class if it killed her.
She kissed Ezra for the first time that same night.
The Society would have known all that, minus the inconsequential details of her personal life. They would have known about Katherine, so maybe this was a test, but it wasn’t as if the circumstances of her origin story weren’t easily discoverable information for anyone who wanted them. A late-blooming medeian with a dead sister? Not terribly complicated to put the pieces together, particularly for an organization with comparable resources. Either the Society knew precisely what to taunt her with in order to test her loyalty, or the Forum had wanted to give her a compelling reason to doubt the Society.
Either way, there was only one place Libby currently wanted to be.
She passed through the doors to Grand Central and took the stairs, finding the medeian transports to take her back to London. It was technically too early to return—they’d all been told not to do so until tomorrow—but she had helped build their security, hadn’t she? Twice over. Nothing in the wards sufficiently defended against her entry; for all intents and purposes, it had been more of a polite request than a mandate in any official capacity.
She passed the entry rooms, heading for the reading room, but stopped at the sound of voices; a low wave of sound, meaning hushed tones. She frowned, listening closer for the particularities, and turned swiftly, making her way to the painted room.
Ah, so she had not been the only one to come running back, then.