The Forbidden Library

by Django Wexler

  Tonight, though, she found herself unable to enjoy her meal, and she finished quickly and went up to her room. Her mind was full of Ending and Isaac, both warning her that Geryon was not to be trusted and demanding that she trust them instead. But Geryon had been nothing but kind to her—except for that one moment in the room full of pillows, but that had been important for her training—and the thought of keeping secrets from him while living under his roof made Alice deeply uncomfortable.

  On the other hand, Ending clearly knew something about Vespidian, and the fairy was the only link she had left to her father. If I don’t help her, and he finds this book and leaves, I may never be able to track him down again. Her father might be dead, though she hadn’t been able to banish a tiny germ of hope from the darkest corners of her mind. But the thought of never knowing for certain made Alice want to scream.

  In an attempt to quiet the tumult in her mind, she lay on her bed, closed her eyes, and summoned a single swarmer. Reaching in to see through its eyes was easier now; she surveyed her room from this new perspective: her trunks in the corner, the pair of stuffed rabbits on the windowsill, the haphazard stack of books she’d borrowed from the library on the nightstand. At her command the swarmer jumped off the bed, bounced, righted itself, and peeked out the half-open door and into the hallway.

  I wonder how far it can go? Geryon hadn’t said anything about it. Alice sent the swarmer out toward the servants’ stair, its claws tik tik tiking on the floorboards. From its low vantage point, all the doors looked like enormous, looming portals, and the gas lamps were distant glows far overhead. When she got to the stairs, Alice stared through the creature’s eyes at slab-like steps descending, apparently endless, into a deep abyss.

  She hesitated a moment, then determined to give it a try. It was liberating, being in someone else’s body; no matter what happened to the swarmer, she had the snug certainty that she could always let it vanish and find herself lying in her own bed. In her mind’s eye, she could see Ashes’ disapproving glare, but she banished him with a thought. I’m a Reader. This is what being a Reader is.

  The swarmer tried the first step, and Alice realized immediately that descending was going to be tricky. The step was nearly as tall as the little creature’s whole body, and its short, bird-like legs didn’t come close to reaching the first step. The best Alice could manage was to make it balance on the edge, then hop down, but the swarmer’s natural instinct was to tuck its legs in and bounce rather than to land on its feet, and she felt it roll dangerously close to the edge of the next step before it popped back up again.

  Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, she thought, eyeing the mountain of steps. Still, she wasn’t the sort of girl who gave up easily. Another hop took her down one more step, and another, until she thought she was getting the hang of it. She was just getting into a nice rhythm when the swarmer’s claw slipped on a smooth spot in the wood, sending it tumbling. Alice was too surprised to right it in time, and the little thing curled itself into a ball and hit the next step hard enough that the bounce took it down two more and sent it bounding back into the air.

  The view from the swarmer’s eyes, spinning wildly as it caromed down the stairs, was enough to turn Alice’s stomach, and she hurriedly abandoned its senses and opened her real eyes. For a few moments it was a struggle not to vomit, staring fixedly at the ceiling and reminding herself that it was not her who had been falling down the stairs. Once she had her rebellious gut under control, she reached out for the swarmer again, cautiously, ready to will it out of existence if it was badly hurt.

  To her surprise, it was standing placidly on the second-floor landing, apparently no worse for wear. They really are like little rubber balls, Alice thought. Then she laughed out loud as another thought occurred to her. It seemed a little—undignified, perhaps, but after all, there was no one to see, and it would certainly be easier than going down the steps one at a time.

  A moment later, the swarmer sprinted to the edge of the landing and took a flying leap off the first step, tucking its legs away and hitting the fourth step down with such force that it bounced nearly to the low ceiling. This time Alice stayed with it, laughing out loud at the sensation of caroming down the stairs like a stray tennis ball, bouncing at an angle off the landing wall and on down another flight of stairs, ricocheting wildly between the banister and the wall.

  The swarmer was now three stories below her, on the ground floor, and as it got to its feet Alice noticed that the distance was having an effect. If moving the swarmer was like moving a limb she’d never known she had, it now felt as though that limb was wearing a lead weight. It wasn’t painful, but it took effort, and the weight got heavier the farther away the creature got.

  At the moment, it was still bearable, and she looked around with the swarmer’s eyes to orient herself. The bottom of the servants’ stairs let out into the passage beside the kitchen, and the door had apparently been open, because the swarmer had bounced right through it and off the opposite wall. In one direction, the kitchen was as dark and silent as always. The other way led to a door that was always closed, which led into the boiler-room domain of Mr. Black.

  Except, tonight, it wasn’t closed. There was a narrow gap between the door and the door frame, just wide enough to admit the body of the swarmer. Gaslight from inside spilled out of the narrow opening. Shuffling a little closer, Alice could hear voices, just on the edge of comprehensibility.

  Vespidian! She was sure she could make out the fairy’s nasal drone, and the deeper voice of Mr. Black. Before she could think about it, she’d sent the swarmer through the door, hopping over the lintel and pushing through the gap. The door swung where she brushed it, very slightly, and gave a creak that sounded very loud in the little creature’s ears. Alice stopped, and spent a moment listening, but the sound of conversation drifted up undisturbed.

  The feeling of weight was getting stronger the farther she went, but she could hear the drone of the fairy’s wings now, and a crackling sound that might have been a fire. A short corridor led past a gaslight and turned a corner, and then she was facing another flight of stairs. At the bottom, outlined in a glowing doorway, stood Mr. Black, with the smaller figure of Vespidian hovering in the air in front of him.

  “. . . you’re sure the map works?” the fairy said, in his high, nasal voice.

  “I got it straight from the Bone Oracle,” Mr. Black rumbled. “It had better work, considering what it cost me. She drives a hard bargain, but I called in a couple of old favors. I couldn’t try it in the library, but it shows the start of the path, no problem.”

  “That doesn’t mean much,” Vespidian said dubiously. “It’s only inside the labyrinth that things get tricky.”

  “Don’t use it, then,” Mr. Black spat. “Search every book by hand, for all I care. As long as I get what’s coming to me.”

  “All right, all right,” the fairy said. “No need to get huffy. Let’s have it, then.”

  “No.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath, and a long silence. Alice perched the swarmer on the edge of the first step, straining to hear.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean that it’s about time for a show of good faith on your part.” Mr. Black waved one huge finger in the fairy’s face, and Vespidian buzzed backward. “I’ve done everything you wanted, haven’t I? I got you in here, I kept you secret, and now I’ve got you the map. I even tipped you off about the girl and her father, for all the good it did you.”

  Alice’s breath froze in her throat, and the swarmer wobbled.

  “Once I hand it over”—Mr. Black waved at the door behind him, where the fire was burning—“there’ll be nothing keeping you from grabbing this book you want so badly and scurrying back home. So you go and tell your master that Mr. Black wants what he’s owed, and he wants it now. Once he delivers, then you can have the map, and good luck to you. Until then . . .”
He crossed his enormous arms and waited impassively.

  Vespidian buzzed from side to side in agitation for a moment before regaining his composure and hovering in front of the big servant’s face. His voice had the snide tone Alice remembered from the night in her kitchen.

  “I thought we had moved beyond this level of dealing,” he said. “Haven’t we learned to trust each other?”

  “You may have learned to trust me. I don’t trust you farther than I could throw you.” Mr. Black grinned maliciously under his bristly beard. “Which might actually be some distance, now that I come to think about it.”

  “Very well,” Vespidian said. “I shall have to consult my master. You realize, of course, that every day that passes increases the risk of discovery?”

  “You’d better hurry, then, hadn’t you? I’ll be—”

  That was when Alice, leaning the swarmer forward to catch every word, felt it lose its footing. It tumbled forward, automatically tucking into a ball, hit the step with a thump, and bounced high into the air. Alice hurriedly let go of the silver thread in her mind, letting the little creature snap back into nonexistence. Her world went black, and she felt a moment’s panic before she realized she was only lying with her eyes closed. When she opened them, the cracked paint of her ceiling stared back at her.

  Mr. Black had told Vespidian where to find me. She felt anger welling up inside her again. He sold me to that vile little fairy, and that made Father go off on his trip, and then . . .

  She had to find the book Ending had called the Dragon. And it sounds like Mr. Black has a way to do it. She had to get hold of that map, whether it meant breaking the rules or not.

  Alice rolled out of bed and hunted for her shoes, already working on a plan. She had an idea, but she thought she’d need help, and there was only one place she was likely to get it.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE LAIR OF MR. BLACK

  THE SUN WAS DROPPING behind the encircling forest by the time Alice emerged from the library with Isaac in tow. He paused on the threshold, one hand on the great bronze door, and shivered. Alice looked over her shoulder.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “Nothing.” He let the door close behind him with a hollow bang, and huddled deeper into his threadbare trench coat. “It’s cold.”

  The chill was rising fast as the sun disappeared. Alice tried not to think about the last time she’d been out of the building after dark, and how that night had ended with her fighting for her life in the world of the Swarm. Gaslight shone from the windows of the house, glowing cheerily through the curtains.

  “You’re sure we won’t run into anybody?” Isaac said.

  “There’s nobody to run into, aside from Mr. Black,” Alice said. “Geryon stays in his rooms, and Emma doesn’t go anywhere she hasn’t been told to go.”

  “All right.” Isaac took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Lead the way.”

  They were only stealing into the kitchens at night, not trying to sneak across enemy lines, and Alice felt that the theatrics from Isaac were a little unnecessary. But as they skirted the edge of the lawn, keeping them under the shadow of the trees, she admitted to herself that the stakes for Isaac were considerably higher than for herself. After all, if they were caught, she didn’t think she’d get more than a stern talking-to, but she had no idea what would happen to Isaac if Geryon or Mr. Black found him in the house. They wouldn’t really . . . hurt him, or anything like that. Would they?

  Alice chewed her lip, and looked back at Isaac with a little more respect. Though she was loath to admit it, the thought of facing down Mr. Black alone made her knees a bit wobbly, and she was glad she’d been able to convince Isaac to come along.

  Alice edged up to the back door, pulled it open a crack, and peeked inside. Isaac tensed up again, ready to bolt, and his nervousness threatened to infect her. She told herself not to be silly.

  The kitchen was empty, as usual, with all the pots, pans, and utensils clean and hanging in their places. Isaac entered cautiously, staring around as though he’d never seen anything like it before, and Alice found herself wondering if he really hadn’t. She knew nothing about him, she realized, not even where he came from, or if he was someone’s apprentice or on his own. She shook her head and fought down the surge of curiosity. Later. This is not the time.

  “All right,” she whispered. “Mr. Black’s rooms are down here. I think he’d keep the map in the furnace room, which is at the back. If we’re lucky, he’ll be in bed or something, and we can just creep by and find it.”

  “And if we’re not lucky?”

  “Then I’ll cause a distraction, and you find the map and get out before he comes back.”

  Isaac frowned. “You’re sure he called it a ‘map’? We don’t really know what we’re looking for.”

  “He definitely said map.”

  “What if I can’t find it?”

  “Then we’ll . . . have to figure something out.” Alice had to admit it wasn’t the best plan in the world, but it was all she’d been able to come up with on short notice. “Are you ready?”

  He nodded.

  Alice eased the door open, hoping it wouldn’t creak. It swung inward silently, revealing a short corridor and the stairway where she’d perched the swarmer. In the flickering gaslight she saw a large, square room at the bottom, crowded with bushels and crates of stuff—baskets of nails, crates of soap-flakes, huge bottles of oil and cleansers, wrapped bundles of candles. At the back of it, the door to the furnace room was open, letting out a dull red glow that bathed the stone-flagged floor in crimson light. As she watched, a shadow moved across it.

  “He’s in there,” she whispered to Isaac.

  “All right.” Isaac peered doubtfully down the stairs. “So you’ll distract him, and I get in there.”

  “Right.”

  “Let’s hope he hasn’t hidden it, or locked it up.” Isaac got an odd, faraway look in his eyes for a moment, as though staring at something on the far side of the wall. “I’m ready.”

  Alice nodded tightly. She took the staircase one step at a time, wary of any noise. Once she reached the bottom, she crept around the piles of supplies to the opposite corner of the room, where she’d be out of view from the furnace-room doorway.

  She closed her eyes and reached out, and found the silver thread of the Swarm waiting. Gathering it up, she gave a gentle tug, and a half-dozen swarmers popped quietly into existence by her feet. They greeted her with a chorus of quirks, which she stilled with a hasty mental command.

  Carefully, she extended her vision into one of them, keeping her real eyes closed. She navigated the swarmer around the pile of supplies and toward the door to the furnace room, ordering the others to follow a few paces behind. The little bird-like creature scurried across the floor until it had a good view of Mr. Black, sitting at his workbench and working on something with a pair of heavy iron clippers. From her point of view a few inches off the ground, she couldn’t see the top of the table.

  The swarmer crept closer, until it was only a few feet from the huge man. Before she could go any farther, he gave an enormous snort and shoved his chair back from the workbench, one enormous hand coming down with shocking speed to snatch the swarmer off the floor. Alice felt a moment of sheer terror and had to remind herself that it was not her actual physical body in danger. One of the swarmer’s eyes had a close-up view of Mr. Black’s hairy, pockmarked face, and the trails of smoke leaking from his nostrils.

  “What have we got here?” he said, his voice echoing oddly as it came both through the swarmer and through Alice’s real ears. “What in the Pit are you supposed to be?”

  He gave the swarmer a squeeze. If he’d been holding a rat, the pressure of those sausage-thick fingers would have shattered its bones and crushed it into a gooey paste, but the swarmer was roughly the consistency of a hard rubber
ball and it simply continued to stare at him. Mr. Black put his head on one side, then smiled.

  “Tough little bastard, ain’t you?” He turned toward the furnace. “Let’s see how you like a little fire.”

  “Get him,” Alice whispered.

  The other five swarmers rushed forward, charging beak-first like a wedge of medieval lancers. The needle-sharp points struck Mr. Black around the ankles, piercing the thick leather of his boots. At the same time, the swarmer he was holding twisted in his grasp and sank its beak into his hand, in between his fingers and thumb.

  The huge man roared like an animal, so loud that Alice retreated from the swarmer’s senses and clapped her hands over her ears. He threw the swarmer he was holding against the wall, hard, and it ricocheted off like a tennis ball and rolled across the floor. The others ran for it, just ahead of his reaching hands, and scurried back toward the door.

  As she’d hoped, Mr. Black followed. Alice kept the swarmers in a group until Mr. Black cleared the doorway. He charged, head lowered like an angry bull, and they scattered. He aimed a kick at one that moved a bit too slow, and sent it ricocheting off the wall to land among the crates with a crash of splintered wood. Mr. Black roared again and went after the others, who scurried and dodged to stay ahead of him.

  Go, Alice willed Isaac, and she was gratified to catch a glimpse of him darting toward the furnace room. Mr. Black was in a rage, kicking over boxes and smashing neatly piled stores to get at the swarmers. Alice began to smile. It was almost fun, trying to keep ahead of him—the swarmers could get under and around things he would trip over, and even when he caught up, his swats and kicks did the durable little creatures no real damage.