Fatima nodded. “It’s true! Fedya tries to get me to eat something every time I deliver Gouty Ben’s Weekly Digest there. ‘Come on now, eat a little baklava,’” she said in a wheedling voice that made the other apprentices laugh. “‘How are you going to grow strong enough to drive a chariot if you don’t put some flesh on your bones. What, you don’t like a little baklava? What is it about you apprentices not liking my baklava!’”
The other apprentices snickered.
“I don’t trust myself to even walk near the Inky Pot,” said Mathilde. “It smells too good. It’s like Fedya is casting a spell and trying to pull in unsuspecting apprentices.”
A friend of Amo’s leaned down the table from where he sat nearly at the other end. “Hey, did you say you were looking for Marcus?”
Dorrie nodded, hopeful.
“I saw him walking past Master Casanova’s office before dinner.”
“Thanks,” said Dorrie, relaxing. Marcus really liked Master Casanova. It made sense that he’d go to talk to him if he was feeling upset.
“Uh…Dorrie,” said Fatima slowly “The Inky Pot is right near Master Casanova’s office.”
Fifteen minutes later, Dorrie skidded to a stop beneath a small swinging sign with a picture of a steaming copper kettle on it. Below it, black letters spelled out “The Inky Pot.” She wrenched open the door. The heady delightful aroma of coffee wafted past her.
Where the Sharpened Quill was low and snug, the walls of the Inky Pot soared to a lofty height. Instead of worn, warm wood, the Inky Pot glowed with brass and silk. Along one wall, floaty red-and-orange drapes made little private tents around gatherings of carpeted benches and low wooden tables. More of the benches ran along the opposite wall, in front of which stood more tables. Along a third wall ran racks hung with newspapers, mud tablets, scrolls, and pieces of parchment.
Dorrie glanced wildly among the few lybrarians at the little tables but couldn’t spot Marcus. She drew back when she noticed a man with a stiff upbrush of graying hair behind a marble counter in the center of the room. He was filling a plate from tiered platters piled high with cakes and pastries. Two glistening copper canisters with bronze taps steamed gently on either side of him. Heart hammering, Dorrie wondered if the man was Fedya. She had turned to leave when she heard Marcus’s voice.
“—Fedya! You shouldn’t have.”
Dorrie whirled back in time to see Marcus’s hand sticking out from inside the endmost curtained tent and Fedya standing nearby, the plate he’d been filling extended. The pastries dripped tantalizingly with something sweet and sticky looking. Dorrie was horrified to feel her mouth watering.
Marcus took the plate, and Fedya moved on. Dorrie wasted no time. Sprinting across the room, she swatted at the pastry Marcus had lifted to his mouth, sending it sailing across the table and onto the floor.
He stared at her, outraged. “What is wrong with you?” He reached for another.
“You can’t!” said Dorrie, trying to bat that one away as well.
“Cut it out!” he hissed, fending her off. “You are a guest in a civilized establishment.”
“You don’t understand!” Dorrie hissed back urgently.
“What? That Fedya’s baklava is delicious?” Marcus took an enormous bite.
“No!” whispered Dorrie. “That Fedya is trying to poison you!”
At Dorrie’s words, Marcus’s face went slack. The rest of the pastry dropped from his limp hand onto the plate. His eyes rolled back in his head, and his back arched.
“Marcus,” cried Dorrie, wondering if she should punch him in the stomach.
Marcus’s fit stopped as abruptly as it began. He shook his hair out of his eyes, reached for the pastry again, and stuffed the rest of it in his mouth. “You kids. With your crazy stories. I’ve been eating these all day. Fedya thought they might help my ennui.”
“Your what?”
Marcus stared out at the darkening sea through a nearby window. “My ennui, my feeble zestlessness.”
Dorrie snorted. “What are you talking about?”
Marcus took another bite of the baklava, showering the newspapers spread all over the table in flakes of pastry. “Fedya’s given me some books. I’m exploring a life of nonattachment.”
“You look pretty attached to that baklava.”
“Please. Me and my shredded heart have turned our backs on the world.”
“I,” said a hulking lybrarian in a feathery headdress who was sitting nearby, without looking up from his mud tablet. “I and my shredded heart.”
Marcus shot the lybrarian a dirty look and then looked back out the window. “Marcus and his shredded heart are going to spend all our time here from now on. Drink coffee, breathe, maybe write a short poem now and then, stare at things.”
He looked farther out to sea than Dorrie had thought possible.
“What is a wave?” Marcus said hoarsely.
“I hope that’s not your first poem.”
He glared at her. “You should get a job writing sympathy cards. Really. You have a knack.”
“Look, I’m sorry about Egeria having a boyfriend. But she was way too old for you anyway. She’s sixteen!”
“I’m almost fifteen!”
“Marcus, your birthday is in eight months.”
“Bang!” Marcus said in disgust, crossing his arms and sinking back into the cushions. “With his hair and his shoulders and his face!”
“He can’t really help having a face,” said Dorrie.
“And did you notice he chuckles? Who chuckles? And did you see the way he put his arm around her?”
“Well, she is his girlfriend.”
“Another great card in the making. How do you do it?” Marcus lifted another piece of baklava to his mouth.
Halfway there, it jerked sideways out of his hand and plopped onto the table.
Ebba slid onto the bench opposite them, breathing hard, one hand clutching her slingshot. “Don’t eat the—”
“Can a man not eat his ninth piece of baklava in peace?” bellowed Marcus, reaching for it again.
Ebba dove to intercept him.
“Cakes? Coffee for the newcomers?” said Fedya at Dorrie’s elbow, smiling pleasantly.
“No!” said Dorrie and Ebba far too loudly, their eyes wide and Ebba’s hands splayed over the slingshotted piece of baklava.
Fedya raised his eyebrows slightly.
“No…no…thank you,” gulped Dorrie.
Fedya bowed slightly and strode away whistling, doing a good job—Dorrie thought—of hiding his dark intentions.
She turned back to Marcus. “You can’t just sit here for the rest of your life.”
“Even if it will be really short,” said Ebba.
“I’m not ‘just sitting here,’” said Marcus. He refocused his gaze. “I’m gazing out the window despondently.”
“That doesn’t even sound fun,” said Ebba.
“Plus, we all have to turn in our practicum registrations by eight o’clock,” said Dorrie. “If we don’t leave soon, we’ll be stuck taking library building maintenance!”
Marcus suddenly lunged for one of the newspapers on the table and held it up in front of his face. It was a copy of Gouty Ben’s Weekly Digest.
Turning her head, Dorrie saw that Bang, Egeria, and a couple other young lybrarians were seating themselves at another table.
Marcus’s finger poked through the newspaper page—and then Marcus’s eyeball appeared. “Is nowhere safe from him!”
“Um…Marcus,” said Ebba.
“Really?” came Marcus’s voice. “This is the time to shout my name?”
Dorrie saw that Ebba was staring at an illustration just below Marcus’s darting eyeball.
“Sorry,” Ebba said, “but I think you should look at this side of the newspaper.”
&
nbsp; Marcus snorted. “Haven’t I seen enough already?”
Dorrie peered at the illustration. It showed a thin, mournful young man in a chiton holding a drum.
She read the headline below it out loud. “Philosopher Cries Foul on Newfangled Music. Lawsuit Filed Against Timotheus.”
“Disgusting!” said Marcus. “Bang totally meant to do that with his hair.”
“Did you hear me?” said Dorrie. “That drummer you taught how to play seventies rock music is in trouble.”
“I can hear him chuckling from here!” choked out Marcus.
“Would you pay attention,” said Dorrie. “Charges of theft, assault, and something called hubris have been lodged against musician Timotheus of Miletus, currently a resident of the outskirts of Athens.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he has to spend a night or two in ancient jail,” said Marcus. “Can’t you see I’m coping with bigger problems here?”
Dorrie felt a tick of guilt. She, Marcus, and Ebba had been at the party in ancient Athens where Marcus had met Timotheus. They’d been there looking for the torn-out History of Histories page that had gone missing there. “Don’t you feel responsible?”
“No, I feel like I need to get out of here,” said Marcus standing, the newspaper still in front of his face. “Cover me.”
They had just made it to the door, Marcus having smashed into only two chairs along the way, when it was thrown open.
A woman entered, dressed in black-and-yellow running shorts and a black, sleeveless shirt with “Messenger” embroidered across the front in yellow gothic letters. She waited until she had the full attention of the room. “One of our mission lybrarians has found Mr. Gormly. Dead.”
Dorrie’s heart seemed to contract. Though she’d been furious with Mr. Gormly for betraying her and the Lybrariad, she’d never wanted him dead.
“Where was he found?” said Egeria.
“In a culvert that dumps into the Passaic River,” replied the messenger. “One of his pants pockets was slashed open and the other not, which Hypatia is certain means—”
“The Foundation found Petrarch’s Star in the first pocket they tried,” the lybrarian who’d corrected Marcus’s grammar finished grimly.
The messenger nodded. “Hypatia has called an emergency meeting of the staff.”
Dorrie felt ill as an image rose before her of Mr. Gormly dying alone and scared.
As the lybrarians scattered, Dorrie, Marcus, and Ebba hurried to the Celsus, stuffed their practicum requests into the little bit of room left in Mistress Wu’s mailbox, and then raced for the attics.
Though the fire burned as cheerily as ever in the brick fireplace, clearly the news had preceded them. Many of the apprentices hunkered around the flames looked frightened. Even Millie’s usual glower had a nervous edge to it.
“I was sure the Lybrariad would find it first,” Saul said from where he sat slumped in one of the armchairs.
“I heard Lybrarian Della Porta talking to another lybrarian in front of the mailboxes,” said Izel. “Before they all went into their meeting. He said if the Foundation has already rebuilt Whim’s Gift, it could start causing reversals any day now.”
All the apprentices stared at her.
“What’s a reversal?” asked Dorrie, slowly lowering herself onto a sofa.
“It’s when a mission the Lybrariad has accomplished gets undone,” Mathilde said.
“How does that happen?” asked Marcus.
“Well, the Lybrariad is active in over four hundred centuries. Even small changes in the past can have unintended consequences for the future,” said Mathilde. “Every once in a while, something a lybrarian does in an early century changes some small detail that affects a mission in a more future time, and suddenly, the history books say the mission didn’t happen.”
“Reversals are really rare,” said Saul.
“Accidental ones have been rare,” said Izel. “But Lybrarian Della Porta’s talking about the Foundation causing them on purpose. They could cause hundreds of them. He said if the Foundation travels to the right time, it could even undo a crux mission.”
There was a murmuring among the apprentices.
“What’s a crux mission?” asked Dorrie.
“A mission that changed history in a huge way,” said Saul.
Izel hugged herself as if cold. “All the Foundation would have to do is go back in time and prevent one of the crux missions that seriously diminished its power and it would be back in business.”
“But that’s, that’s…cheating!” said Dorrie.
“Well, wasn’t the Lybrariad sort of cheating first?” said Marcus.
Dorrie’s thoughts whirled. “But not to gain power for themselves or hurt anyone!”
“So now can the Foundation punch a hole in Petrarch’s Library and turn us all into zombies?” asked Kenzo, sounding equal parts afraid and excited at the prospect.
“They don’t turn people into zombies, nitwit,” said Millie.
“Well, not the kind with flaking faces anyway,” said Mathilde. “Though come to think of it…when the Foundation was in power in our wherens, they did do their best to make anyone who wasn’t in their special circle sort of brainless. People had no written history, and memory is only so long, so it was easy for the Foundation to insist that having the Foundation in charge was best for everyone and that everyone would be destroyed by the Four Wolves if the Foundation wasn’t there to protect them.”
“Who were the Four Wolves?” asked Marcus.
“Hunger, Pestilence, War, and Whim.” Mathilde ticked the names off on her fingers.
“Whim?” repeated Dorrie.
“Giant invisible being the Foundation claimed made the universe,” said Mathilde. “Fond of smiting people. Most people believed it lurked around waiting for a chance to catch them breaking the Foundation’s rules or forgetting to leave out the right amount of blood or gold for a midnight snack.”
“Whim,” Dorrie repeated, her thoughts winging back to when the lybrarians had visited her in Passaic. “As in Whim’s Gift.”
“Exactly,” said Mathilde.
“How do you know so much about that Foundation stuff anyway?” Fatima asked Mathilde.
Mathilde waved her hand vaguely. “I might have taken the Archivist’s History of the Foundation practicum once.”
“You took a practicum with the Archivist?” said Dorrie. “Last quarter, you told me he was crazy.”
“He is.” Mathilde blushed ever so slightly. “I circled the wrong practicum on my registration form.”
Dorrie pressed closer to Ebba. “What are the lybrarians going to do now?”
“Missions. Lots of them,” Izel said importantly. “Every available lybrarian is being pressed into service. Lybrarian Della Porta said—”
“Does Lybrarian Della Porta ever stop talking?” broke in Marcus.
Most of the other apprentices laughed, but Izel merely flicked a long, dark strand of her hair over her shoulder, a knowing little smile on her face.
“Maybe Mr. Biggs will tell them something useful at the Lybrarians’ Council tomorrow,” said Saul.
Dorrie’s heart suspended operations for a moment. She’d almost forgotten about the Council. And Mr. Biggs. And the fact that she’d have to see him again. Her gaze drifted to her thumbnail. She stared, sure now. The blackness was definitely retreating.
That night, Dorrie rode the ragged edge of sleep for hours, unable to fall in. Again and again, the image of Mr. Biggs’s little vial at the bottom of her backpack made her heartbeat quicken. She had no doubt that Savi was going to be given an important mission, like hunting out an entrance to the Stronghold. What if he needed her power to succeed? What if they needed to get somewhere that only she could take him? Listening for a moment to Ebba’s even breathing, she got out of her bed and crouched beside it to pu
ll out her backpack.
After digging out the vial, she padded out to the den. By the light of the fire, she unscrewed the vial’s little cap and peered inside. A few drops of liquid still clung to its walls. For a moment, she had the urge to upend the vial and drink them down.
Quickly, she replaced the cap and looked around. Izel’s embroidery basket still sat by the fire. Dorrie helped herself to a length of heavy red embroidery thread. She looped the floss through the chain that connected the vial to its cap and knotted the ends into a loop large enough to slip over her head. She hesitated. The little metal vial dangled before her, dull even in the firelight. Quickly, she dropped the loop of floss over her head and tucked the vial into the neck of her pajamas.
She glanced out the window. In the far distance, she could just make out the dark hump of Crackskull Island.
Chapter 9
Lybrarians’ Council
The next day, fifteen minutes before the Lybrarians’ Council was set to begin, the Celsus’s main meeting room was already jam-packed. Seated in the back of the room on narrow wooden benches with the rest of the apprentices, Dorrie thought that for lybrarians, the room’s occupants were doing a pretty good job of making a lot of noise.
She glanced at Marcus. He had his arms crossed and was staring moodily at the spot where Egeria and Bang sat together several rows ahead. Though Dorrie had hoped Savi would return to Petrarch’s Library for the Council, he hadn’t yet appeared.
Up in the front of the room near the towering statue of Athena, Hypatia sat behind a long table, facing the crowd with Mistress Wu at one elbow and Francesco at the other. Another dozen people sat with them.
Dorrie nudged Ebba. “Who are those other people up front?”
“Petrarch’s Library’s Board of Directors,” said Ebba, turning her slingshot over in her hands.
“What’d you bring that for?”
“In case Mr. Biggs tries anything.”
“Mistress Wu better not see you aim that anywhere,” warned Mathilde.
Hypatia stood, her blue silk chiton rustling, and the din of conversation subsided. “Welcome, all.”
Dorrie listened avidly as Hypatia told the lybrarians who had journeyed from distant branch libraries about the Foundation’s rise in the future wherens to which Petrarch’s Library was not yet connected and the Foundation’s plan to colonize the past again.
The Ninja Librarians: Sword in the Stacks Page 8