“You’ve got it.” Geryon sounded satisfied. “I should have known you would be a quick study. Now, hold on to it, and I’ll let go of your eyes.”
Something flowed out of Alice, down from inside her skull and out between her lips like a whispered breath. She blinked, and when she opened her eyes again the brilliant comet and the starlit night were gone. There was only Geryon, shadowy in the gaslight, still holding her wrists and smiling under his whiskers.
“Still got that thread?” he said.
Alice nodded. It tingled in her mind, a phantom limb holding a phantom line.
Geryon let go of her wrists and sat back. “Try giving it a little tug. Pull it toward here, toward the world. Just a touch.”
“All right.”
Alice’s hands ached with cramps, but her mental grip was still strong. She pulled on the thread, tugging in the direction she thought of as “reality.” It resisted at first, then gave a little, and there was a little pop from beside her. She felt a sudden pressure on her knee, and there was a well-remembered quirk.
The swarmer stood quietly, its claws dimpling her skirt, its body cocked at an angle that seemed almost quizzical. Its tiny black eyes gleamed. It took all of her self-control not to jump up, or to grab the vile little thing and hurl it against the wall.
“I thought I killed those things,” Alice said, keeping her voice as calm as she could.
“And so you did. I’d quite like to hear how you managed it, incidentally. But that was inside a prison-book, and in there, matters are a bit different. Time doesn’t progress, you see. It just goes round and round.” Geryon shrugged. “Think of it like a novel. If a character dies on page four hundred, he’ll still be alive if you flip back to the beginning.”
“So it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d drowned?”
“It would have mattered a great deal to you, I suspect. As far as the book was concerned, when it went round again, you would just be gone, never to be seen again. To follow the analogy, as a Reader, you’re not part of the story, you just insert yourself into it for a while.”
The swarmer shifted, its claws pricking Alice’s thigh. Sh
e gritted her teeth.
“But what is this thing doing here?”
“You brought it here,” Geryon said. “The thread you hold leads back to the prison-book. When you defeated the Swarm, you formed a bond between its essence and your own. It is yours now, and will be for all time. It will lend you its strength, fight your enemies, die for you if need be, and be ready to spring into action again afterward.”
“But—” Alice looked down at the swarmer’s glassy black eyes. Her stomach churned.
“This is the power of the Reader,” Geryon went on. “The prison-books give us the power to bind another being to our will. You’ve taken your first step, and I congratulate you. But there’s a long way to go yet.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A SECOND CHANCE AT A FIRST IMPRESSION
I STILL SAY THEY’RE CREEPY,” Ashes said.
“I don’t think you get to decide what’s creepy,” Alice said. “You’re a talking cat. You’re creepy. This whole place is creepy.”
“Hmph.” Ashes’ fur bristled with indignation.
From where Ashes perched on top of the nearest bookshelf, Alice supposed she presented a rather odd picture, walking down the library alleys followed by a train of walking books, like a mother duck and her ducklings. One would have to peek underneath to see the quartet of obedient swarmers supporting each volume on their backs, legs moving in perfect synchronicity. They reminded Alice of ants working together to carry a pebble many times their own size.
Mr. Wurms, for reasons only he knew, had requested the contents of an entire shelf, so the string of books stretched for some distance behind her. Alice led at a cautious pace, a large portion of her attention devoted to keeping the swarmers moving. Ashes, sulking along beside her, didn’t seem to approve of the way she was using the little creatures.
“What if you told them all to jump into the pond?” Ashes said. “Would they do it?”
“They would, but I wouldn’t. I don’t need to be cruel to them.”
“True. They’re already your slaves, how much crueler do you need to be?”
Alice shot him a sharp look. “I didn’t ask for this, if you’ll recall. Some brilliant half-cat decided it would be a good idea to show me a prison-book for laughs.”
“And got soaked for his troubles,” Ashes said, tail lashing. “Don’t think I’m likely to forget it.”
“Be quiet for a minute,” Alice said. “This is a tricky bit.”
They’d arrived at Mr. Wurms’ table. The bespectacled scholar didn’t look up, so Alice began building a tower of the books beside him. This was a more difficult exercise than it at first appeared, since the swarmers had a tendency to unbalance the stack while placing the next volume on the top. She almost had it until one of the little creatures tripped on the slipcover of a Swedish dictionary and brought the whole lot tumbling down. The swarmers scattered like an exploding dandelion puff, except for the one the dictionary landed on, and Mr. Wurms looked up with an irritated expression.
“Sorry, Mr. Wurms.”
He sniffed and went back to his work. Alice bent and lifted the dictionary off the creature, whose rubber-ball-like physiology had kept it from being seriously damaged. It gave a pleased quirk and hopped to its feet, then vanished with a tiny pop as Alice released her mental grip on the thread. She restacked the books with her actual hands, trying to ignore Ashes’ snide chuckling. When she was done, she cleared her throat and said, “What’s next, Mr. Wurms?”
He glared at her with eyes like pools of smeared paint behind his thick glasses. Alice wasn’t sure it wasn’t her imagination, but she thought Mr. Wurms’ attitude toward her had gotten steadily worse in the days since she’d learned the first rudiments of her power from Geryon.
“Here,” he said, handing her a scrap of paper covered in his neat handwriting. It was a set of directions to a shelf, and a list of titles. “Find these and bring them back.”
“Are there magic scraps in them?” Alice said.
“Never mind what’s in them,” Mr. Wurms said. “Just do as you’re told.”
Ashes slipped past her, rubbing against her ankle, and curled up underneath the table for a nap. Alice turned away with an inward sigh and headed back into the maze of shelves.
After lunching on a packet of sandwiches she’d brought from the kitchen, Alice settled down in a quiet spot to spend some time practicing with the swarmers. A soft tug on the thread called one into being with a soft pop, and a harder yank created a cascade of the little things. They stood in a semicircle around her, bright black eyes staring, quirking softly and waiting obediently for orders.
Though it wasn’t really like she gave them orders, exactly. It was more like she’d acquired another limb. All she had to do was think, and the creatures would rush to obey, though getting them to do precisely what she wanted was sometimes as difficult as threading a needle.
She made them rush one way, then another, running full tilt into a bookshelf and bouncing off in an explosion of rubbery little bodies. They were almost impossible to injure, Alice had found. Any attempt to squash them just sent them bouncing off in another direction, like a rubber ball, and they always rolled back to their feet in moments, ready for more.
Those beaks were sharp too. She’d thrown them the wrapping from one of her sandwiches as a test, and they’d torn it to shreds in seconds, filling the air with flying bits of paper. Alice shuddered to think what would have happened to her and Ashes if they’d been caught.
Today she was trying to get them to climb a bookshelf. The wood was too hard for their little claws to grip, and they weren’t good jumpers, but Alice had hit on the idea of piling them up in a sort of pyramid. They climbed onto one another’s backs rea
dily enough, but keeping the whole structure stable required paying attention to all of them at once, and the first few times she tried it, they quickly collapsed into a pile of squirming, bouncing bodies.
Eventually she managed to keep them steady enough that a single intrepid swarmer managed to scurry up to the very top of the pyramid and clamber onto a shelf higher than Alice’s arms could reach. She waved to it, grinning in triumph. The swarmer stood stolidly, looking back at her, waiting for further instructions.
Alice let all the rest of them vanish, with a noise like someone cooking popcorn, and regarded the one on the shelf.
“They’re already your slaves,” Ashes had said. “How much crueler do you need to be?”
It wasn’t like slavery, though. Not really. The swarmers didn’t even exist when she didn’t call on them, so it wasn’t like they were waiting around and getting bored. It’s more like . . . having a dog. One of those clever dogs that can herd sheep and do tricks when you whistle. For all she knew, the little things loved bouncing around and running into walls for her. Maybe I should feed them. Geryon hadn’t mentioned anything about that; all his instructions had focused on making the swarmers do what she wanted them to.
Ending’s voice purred at the back of her mind. “He is a Reader. His magic is based on cruelty and death. It is his nature.”
I’m a Reader too. So . . .
She shook her head, with a frown, and focused on the swarmer. According to Geryon, she ought to be able to reach into it and see through its eyes. Trying that with a whole batch of them had left her with an instant headache. I ought to be able to manage one, though.
Alice closed her eyes and reached out to the swarmer with her mind. She could feel it, a little silver mote in the inner darkness, connected to the shining thread that wrapped back around Alice herself and led back to the prison-book. Alice shifted her attention into that little mote, working hard not to open her real eyes and instead letting the swarmers’ senses flow into her. All at once, she found herself looking down at a girl in a blouse and a dust-covered skirt, with a long straight scar cutting through the freckles on her cheek.
It works! Alice clamped down on her excitement, not wanting to lose the fragile connection, but she couldn’t help a little giggle. I’ll never have to worry about having a mirror.
She tried moving the swarmer. It was disorienting, swinging its point-of-view around while her real body insisted she was standing still, but she fought through a wave of something like seasickness and kept at it. Before long she had it scampering back and forth across the shelf, brushing dust from the books as it passed. She could do more than see through it too—the tiks of its claws on the wood sounded loud in the swarmer’s own ears, and she even thought she could smell the dust up close.
I didn’t even know they had ears. They must be buried under the fur somewhere.
Turning back to herself, she caught sight of something moving, farther down the aisle. Anything in motion was brighter and more obvious through the swarmer’s eyes, while stationary objects faded slightly, like a painted backdrop. She made it run to the edge of the shelf and look down, expecting to see one of the ubiquitous library cats.
It wasn’t a cat. It was Isaac, coming toward her.
Alice hurriedly let the swarmer disappear and opened her real eyes, wobbling a little as she settled back into her own body. She brushed some of the omnipresent dust off her skirt, squared her shoulders, and turned to face him.
Without the flickering light of a fire behind him, he was considerably less intimidating than he’d seemed that first night. His long, flaring coat was a shabby thing, a blue-gray trench coat so covered in tears and patches that it might conceivably have served in the trenches. It was several sizes too large for him, and the hem trailed on the ground, raising a slow-motion tsunami of dust.
He might be a little older than she was, Alice decided, but he wasn’t any taller. He had a pointed nose, dark, intelligent eyes, and a mop of ragged brown hair.
She crossed her arms and glared at him the way Miss Juniper had glared at her when she’d turned in a page of bad French. To her delight, he wilted like a cut flower.
“Hello,” he said. There was, Alice decided, something mouse-like in his expression, a quiver around the eyes that made him look like he was ready to flee at any moment.
“Don’t you ‘hello’ me,” Alice said, still channeling her old tutor. “I could have been killed!”
Isaac held up his hands defensively. “It’s not my fault! How could I know you were a Reader?”
Alice sniffed. “That’s still no excuse. You said you were going to use me as bait.”
“That was a joke,” Isaac said miserably. “More or less, anyway. Look, would it be any help if I apologized?”
“It would be a start.”
“I’m sorry that I said I would use you as bait. And for the rest.”
He wore such a kicked-puppy expression that Alice felt herself softening a little. It was true, of course, that he’d had no way of knowing she was a Reader, since Alice herself had had no idea at the time. And it was all part of Geryon’s plan, in a way.
That thought made her a little uneasy. Isaac was not part of Geryon’s plans. Ending had brought him to look for the book she called the Dragon, and she and Ashes were concealing him from the old Reader. Alice didn’t know why, but the very fact that they were keeping it a secret meant that Geryon probably would not approve. She got that stomach-twisting feeling again.
“All right,” Alice said, eyeing Isaac cautiously. “I didn’t die, no thanks to you. But I’m still not sure I should be talking to you.”
“Ending said she was going to explain,” Isaac said.
“She did.” The hair on the back of Alice’s neck prickled at the memory of the deep, rumbling voice and the luminous feline eyes. She wondered if Ending was watching them right now, from some hidden shadow. Pushing the pieces around the board . . . “At least, she explained a little bit. You’re looking for a book, and it’s hidden somewhere in the library.”
Isaac nodded eagerly. “Not just hidden, but guarded as well. Ending told me she’d find help, and she brought me you. I didn’t understand at first, but once I realized you were one of us it all made sense.”
“Who said I was going to help?”
Isaac blinked. “Ending did.”
“She made me a proposition,” Alice agreed, “but I haven’t decided on it one way or the other.”
“But you’ve got to help!” Isaac protested. “Otherwise—” He stopped abruptly.
“I’m not sure I should,” Alice said. “I’m Geryon’s apprentice, after all. What I really ought to do is tell him you’re here.”
“Listen.” Isaac’s voice dropped until it was almost a whisper. “You can’t trust Geryon. If he made you his apprentice, it’s only because he wants something from you.”
“That’s what Ending said. But as far as I can see, I haven’t got any special reason to trust her. Or,” Alice added, “you. Geryon’s helped me, and I can’t imagine what he could want from me that he couldn’t get for himself.”
“You don’t know him,” Isaac said darkly.
“And you do?”
“Yes!”
“How? From hiding in his library?”
There was a long pause. Isaac bit his lip, glancing sidelong at Alice.
“What are you going to do?” he said.
“I’m not sure yet,” Alice said, frowning. “I need to think about it.”
“Well, think quickly, all right? I think we may be running out of time.”
“You may be,” Alice said. “I belong here.” She sounded as haughty as she could, but the worry in Isaac’s face took some of the sting out of it. She re-crossed her arms uncomfortably. “I’d better get back to work.”
“If you do . . . make a decision, come and tell me, all rig
ht? Ending can help you find me.”
Alice sighed. “All right.”
A little color returned to Isaac’s face, and he let out a long breath. Alice gave him a little nod and turned back the way she’d come.
“Alice?”
She looked over her shoulder. “What?”
“Was that your creature I saw on the shelf? From the prison-book?”
“The book you let me get trapped in, you mean?” Alice said.
Isaac winced. “Yeah.”
“Yes. One of them, anyway.”
“Ashes told me what happened in there.” Isaac scratched the side of his head, further mussing his already ruffled hair. “He was still angry about getting wet, but I thought what you did was brilliant.”
“Oh.” Alice frowned again, not sure what to say. “Thanks?” she ventured.
Isaac smiled, quick and furtive, and turned away in a whirl of fluttering canvas and flying dust. Alice stared after him for a moment, before walking back toward Mr. Wurms’ table.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EAVESDROPPING AGAIN
AFTER SHE FINISHED FINDING books for Mr. Wurms, Alice returned to the house for an early dinner. Her stomach was rumbling, in spite of the sandwiches. Geryon had told her that using magic took up a lot of energy, and that she would need to be sure to eat a healthy diet. It didn’t make her tired, exactly, but spending too long at it without a break gave her mind the same dull, foggy feeling she got when she forced herself through too many pages of algebra drills.
She found Emma standing in the front hall. If it had been anyone else, Alice would have said she was waiting for someone, but in Emma’s case it was probably because Mr. Black had parked her there after some task and forgotten to give her any further orders. Alice told her to go back to her room and lie down, then headed down to the dining room herself to get something to eat.
Since she’d discovered the true nature of Geryon’s household, Alice had become more comfortable with the invisible servants who cooked the meals and cleaned the table while her back was turned. Whoever the shy creatures were, they were masters of their craft, though to Alice’s tastes, their range of menus was a little old-fashioned. She wondered if she could ask Geryon to speak to them about a few modern touches, and perhaps a few more fresh vegetables.
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