“Yes, miss.” Silas lit the oil lamp in the corner, then went to draw the curtains. It was strange to see him perform such mundane tasks. His pale, slender form looked ethereal in the twilight, barely human. “I have served Master Thorn in every capacity these past six years.”
I’m even eating meals made by a demon, she thought in dismay. Nevertheless, she owed Silas her life. It didn’t seem right that he should wait on her hand and foot. “Would you . . . would you like to join me?”
He paused, head tilted. “Do you wish me to?”
Elisabeth hesitated, unsure what to say.
He considered her through his lashes. “I do not eat human food, miss—not without a reason. To me, it tastes of nothing but ash and dust.” He tugged the curtains shut. Before they closed, she noticed that his breath didn’t fog the glass. “But I will dine with you, if you wish.”
Had she offended him? It was always so difficult to tell. “In that case, I won’t trouble you.”
He nodded and made to leave.
“It’s very good,” she blurted out. “I’ve never eaten this well except in Ashcroft Manor, and I’d prefer to forget about that. You’re an excellent cook, though I have no idea how you manage it, if you can’t taste anything.”
Silas drew up short. She winced, hearing the clumsy words over again, but he didn’t look insulted by her blundering praise. If anything, a hint of satisfaction showed on his alabaster features. He nodded again, more deeply this time, and vanished into the shadows of the hall.
• • •
The next day she entered the parlor with a second stack of books to find that in her absence every inch of it had been dusted and polished, the rug beaten, the sheets removed from the remaining furniture; the windows’ diamond-shaped panes sparkled between the mullions. A sweet aroma hung about the room, which Elisabeth traced to the new bouquet of lavender in the hearth. Even Lady Primrose found nothing to criticize, and resorted to a few noncommittal sniffs before she reluctantly fell silent.
Elisabeth passed another unsuccessful afternoon reading. Two days stretched into three, and she found herself no closer to an answer. At times her attention wandered while she climbed through the rafters of Nathaniel’s study, and she paused to watch him add an ingredient to the glass cauldron, which was still sending up purple smoke, or conjure a flock of hummingbirds that darted around him in iridescent flashes of viridian. The light sifting down from above outlined his shoulders and feathered his unruly hair. Sometimes, when the sun grew hot, he took off his waistcoat and rolled up his sleeves. Then she saw the cruel scar that wound around the inside of his right forearm, starker here than in the dim hallway of the inn.
He continued to ignore her, but it was not, Elisabeth found to her surprise, an unfriendly feeling silence. It was a great deal like being back in Summershall, companionably going about her business with other librarians doing the same nearby. She didn’t want to examine that thought too closely, for it seemed wrong that a sorcerer’s study should feel so curiously like home.
Clothes arrived courtesy of Silas, a parade of silk dresses in shades of cerulean, rose, and striped cream. After trying them on and wondering at the novelty of having clothes that didn’t show her entire ankles, Elisabeth guiltily moved the blue dress to the back of her wardrobe. The color no longer reminded her of a warden’s uniform, but instead of her time spent as a prisoner in Ashcroft Manor. She had had nightmares of it since, her memories of the past several weeks blurring together into phantasmagorical horrors—lying helplessly in the thrall of Lorelei’s glamour while Ashcroft struck the Director down in front of her, or while a uniformed attendant tightened leather straps around her legs, Mr. Hob standing unblinkingly nearby. She woke from these dreams sweating in terror, and took hours to fall back asleep afterward.
Her breakthrough occurred on the third evening of her research, and it happened entirely by accident. She was taking notes in the parlor when a fight broke out between Lady Primrose and a Class Two named Throckmorton’s Peerage, who had been spitting wads of ink at the other grimoires on and off all afternoon. Finally, Lady Primrose’s nerves reached their limits. The parlor briefly transformed into a dervish of flying dust and flapping pages; then Throckmorton shunted itself beneath a cabinet, desperate to get as far away from the vengeful Lady Primrose as possible, who was emitting a high, thin shriek, like a teakettle.
“I can’t say I feel sorry for you,” Elisabeth said sternly, crouching on her hands and knees to haul Throckmorton back out like a misbehaving cat. “You should know better than to tease another grimoire.”
Then she saw it: the flash of a metal object wedged behind the cabinet, the sunlight striking it just so. Whatever it was, it looked as though it had slid down and become lost, trapped against the wall. Elisabeth reached for it, and instantly snatched her fingers back in shock. The object was freezing cold to the touch. She wrapped her hand in her skirt and tried again, this time carefully lifting the object into view.
It was a small hand mirror, its ornate silver frame elaborately scrolled and swirled. But it wasn’t an ordinary mirror. Icicles hung from the edges of the frame, and a layer of frost clouded the glass. When Elisabeth peered closer, she saw no hint of her own reflection. Ghostly, unfamiliar images flowed across the mirror’s surface, moving beneath the frost.
First the mirror showed her an empty salon in an unfamiliar house, its colors reduced to pale suggestions by the ice. She sucked in a breath when a child ran laughing across the salon, pursued by a nursemaid. Then the image swirled, replaced by an office in which a man sat signing papers, and again, showing her a drawing room in which one woman played the piano while another embroidered nearby. Elisabeth stared, entranced. Those were real people. Judging by the angle, she was seeing through the mirrors of their rooms.
She held the mirror close to her face. Every time she exhaled, her breath fogged the ice, and soon a clear spot melted away at the center, bringing forth a flush of color from the images. The tinkling notes of the piano filled the parlor, as if it were being played behind a shut door in Nathaniel’s house just a few rooms away. A lonely ache filled Elisabeth’s chest.
“I wish you would show me someone I knew,” she whispered to the glass. “I wish,” she said, “that you would show me my friend Katrien.”
The piano music stopped. The woman frowned and looked up, directly at Elisabeth. Her eyes widened, and she flew from the stool with a shriek. Elisabeth didn’t witness the rest. She was still processing the fact that the woman had been able to see her when the image swirled again. This time, it looked into her own room in Summershall.
Her room—and Katrien’s. Katrien sat on her bed, flipping through scribbled sheaves of notes. Crumpled pieces of paper covered Elisabeth’s old quilt and gathered around the edges of the room like snowdrifts. Some of them sat on the dresser, against the mirror, written in a deliberately illegible scrawl. Katrien was clearly up to something.
Elisabeth’s throat tightened. The mirror shook in her hand. She hadn’t expected it to obey her request. If the Collegium found out that she had used a magical artifact, she would never be permitted back inside a Great Library. Not only that, she didn’t know how the mirror worked, or where it drew its magic from—it could be dangerous to use. She should put it back where she’d found it and never touch it again.
But this was Katrien—truly Katrien, right in front of her. And she didn’t have the strength to turn away.
“Katrien,” she whispered.
Katrien sat bolt upright, then spun around. “Elisabeth!” she exclaimed, rushing to the dresser, her face filling the mirror. “What’s happening? Are you a prisoner?” She paused to take in Elisabeth’s surroundings. “Where are you?”
“I have so much to tell you. Wait! Don’t go!”
“I’m not going anywhere! But, Elisabeth, you’re fading—you’ve gone transparent—”
The frost was creeping back in. She breathed on the mirror again, but it was no use. This time, the frost di
dn’t recede. As she scrambled for a solution, a different idea occurred to her. In the Great Library, Katrien had access to resources that Elisabeth did not.
“I need your help,” she said into the rapidly diminishing circle. “I don’t have time to explain, but it’s important.”
“Anything,” Katrien said grimly.
“There’s a grimoire called the Codex Daemonicus. I think it’s a Class Five or Six. I need to find out where I can locate a copy—”
The last section of frost crystallized into place, and the mirror’s surface turned milky white. Elisabeth had no way of knowing whether Katrien had heard her. She sat back, squeezing her eyes shut against frustrated tears.
She kept the mirror close for the rest of the day, hidden beneath the armchair’s cushions, checking it periodically. But its magic seemed to have been exhausted. It showed her nothing, only a blank white oval. She lay awake in bed that night, watching a strip of moonlight travel across the ceiling, wondering what to do. The mirror sat on the covers beside her, its icy chill raising goose bumps on her bare arms. Katrien at once seemed close enough to touch and farther away than ever before.
Perhaps I should go to Nathaniel, she thought. He’ll know if there’s a way to restore its magic.
She dismissed the idea at once. Nathaniel seemed willing to tolerate her efforts to expose Ashcroft, but only under the condition that she didn’t involve him in any way. He might take the mirror from her, especially if it turned out to be dangerous, or if he feared that she would break it. Better to wait and see if the magic returned on its own.
Nathaniel . . . she still didn’t understand him. He wasn’t being unkind to her, but he obviously didn’t welcome her presence, either. Her arrival had disturbed him for some reason—his argument with Silas had made that clear enough. They never shared meals together, and he only spoke to her when absolutely necessary. When they weren’t in his study, he avoided her completely.
Perhaps he didn’t want to encourage her. He might not be interested in women, as the ladies had suggested during the dinner at Ashcroft Manor, or he could be like Katrien, who possessed no interest in romantic matters whatsoever. Either might explain why he’d never courted. But she hadn’t mistaken the way his eyes had darkened the other morning, or the tension that had suffused the air between them.
She flipped over beneath the covers, restless. She imagined padding down the hallway in her nightgown and knocking on Nathaniel’s bedroom door. She pictured him answering in the dark, his hair tousled with sleep, his nightshirt unlaced down the front. When she finally drifted off to sleep, it was to the memory of how soft his hair had felt in Summershall, and the callused brush of his fingers when he’d touched her hand.
• • •
When she awoke the next morning, the first thing she did was sit up and seize the mirror, her hair falling around it in a tangled curtain. The magic was back. Images moved beneath the frost again. But before she could invoke Katrien, a knock came on the door. She shoved the mirror beneath the blankets, holding her breath.
Silas slipped inside with breakfast. His yellow eyes traced over her, but if he sensed anything amiss, he said nothing. Elisabeth thanked him hurriedly as he brought the tray over, and upon realizing that her thank-you had sounded rather peculiar, seized a pastry and stuffed it whole into her mouth. Nothing about this performance seemed to surprise him, as he bowed and departed without comment. She waited several long moments after he had gone, certain that his senses were far keener than a human’s. Then she scrambled to retrieve the mirror, ignoring the bite of its frozen metal.
“Show me Katrien,” she commanded, and breathed against the glass.
The mirror swirled. Katrien was sprawled facedown on her bed, partially burrowed into the crumpled balls of paper. After Elisabeth had said her name several times, she snorted awake and rolled straight onto the ground. Elisabeth winced at the thump she made on the rug.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Katrien stumbled over to the mirror, squinting in the morning light. “I was going to ask you the same question, but I see you’re eating breakfast in bed.”
“I’m safe, for now.” Elisabeth hesitated. “Katrien, you look . . .”
Pale. Overworked. Exhausted. She cursed herself for not noticing it the other day. The bags beneath Katrien’s eyes and the grayish pallor to her brown complexion spoke of far more than just one night’s worth of lost sleep.
Her friend glanced over her shoulder at the door, and paused for a moment as if making sure no one was outside. “Director Finch has been running the place like a prison,” she confessed, lowering her voice. “The wardens perform random room inspections every few days. He’s doubled the amount of work apprentices have to do, and we get thrown in the dungeon if we don’t finish it.” She rubbed her wrist, where Elisabeth glimpsed the swollen marks of a switch. “If you think I look bad, you should see Stefan. But don’t worry. This won’t last for much longer.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d tell you, but I’m worried we’ll run out of time again. Trust me. I have the situation under control.” She leaned closer. “So, I managed to have a look at the records last night.”
Elisabeth sat up straighter. “Did you find it?”
Katrien nodded. “There were only two copies of the Codex Daemonicus ever written. One went missing hundreds of years ago, and the other is shelved somewhere in the Royal Library.”
“So Ashcroft must have the missing copy. . . .” She trailed off, thinking hard. She had found out from Silas that the Royal Library was one of the spired buildings overlooking the river, a short walk from Hemlock Park.
“Elisabeth,” Katrien said.
She looked up to find the frost creeping back across the mirror, swallowing up Katrien’s face. Elisabeth’s heart leaped to her throat. “Only sorcerers are allowed into the Royal Library,” she said rapidly. “And scholars, if they receive permission from the Collegium—but they have to have credentials. I need to find a way in.”
“That’s easy enough,” Katrien replied. “Get a job there as a servant.”
“But they’ll never let a servant study a grimoire.”
“Of course they won’t let you. You realize what you have to do, don’t you?”
Elisabeth shook her head, but her mouth had gone dry. Truthfully, she knew what Katrien was going to tell her, and she didn’t want to hear it.
“I know you don’t like it, but there’s no other way.” Her friend’s voice was fading quickly. “You have to find out where the Codex is shelved in the Royal Library. You have to get in there,” she said, “and then you have to steal it.”
NINETEEN
FINDING A JOB at the Royal Library proved less challenging than Elisabeth had anticipated. As it turned out, a maidservant had quit just that morning after a giant booklouse skittered up her leg, and the Royal Library was in need of an immediate replacement. Elisabeth demonstrated to the steward that she would be an ideal candidate by lifting up one end of a cabinet in his office, uncovering a booklouse underneath, and stomping on it, much to the delight of a young apprentice who happened to be passing by. She then sat down opposite the steward’s desk and answered a number of job-related questions, such as how quickly she could run, and whether she strongly valued keeping all ten of her fingers. The steward seemed impressed that she found all of his questions perfectly reasonable. Most people, he explained, walked straight out the door.
“But this is a library,” she replied in surprise. “What do they expect—that the books won’t try to bite off their fingers?”
After her interview with the steward, she had to meet with the Deputy Director, Mistress Petronella Wick.
Elisabeth had never heard of a Deputy Director, but she gathered that the Royal Library was large enough to need one. She instantly understood upon entering the office that she was in the presence of an exceedingly important person. Mistress Wick wore the indigo robes of a decorated senior librarian, clasped hi
gh about her throat with a golden key and quill. Her hair had turned silver with age, but that didn’t diminish the elegance of her artfully piled braids. She had dark brown skin against which her white eyes appeared almost opalescent, and her posture was so impeccable that Elisabeth felt her own gangliness fill the room like a third presence. She was certain Mistress Wick could sense it, though she was clearly blind.
“You may be wondering why you have been brought before me,” said Mistress Wick without preamble. “Here in the Royal Library, even the position of maidservant is a great responsibility. We cannot let just anyone enter our halls.”
“Yes, Mistress Wick,” Elisabeth said, sitting petrified in front of the desk.
“It is also a dangerous job. During my time as Deputy Director, several servants have been killed. Others have lost limbs, or senses, or even their minds. So I must ask—why do you wish to work in a Great Library, of all places?”
“Because I . . .” Elisabeth swallowed, and decided to be as honest as she could. “Because I belong here,” she blurted out. “Because there’s something I must find, and I can only find it here, among the books.”
“What is it you wish to find?”
This time, she spoke without hesitation. “The truth.”
Mistress Wick sat silently for a long time. Long enough that Elisabeth grew certain she would be turned away. She felt as though her very soul were being examined; as though Mistress Wick could sense her true intentions for coming here, and at any moment would summon a warden to arrest her on the spot. But then the Deputy Director rose from her chair and said, “Very well. Come with me. Before you begin your training, you must visit the armory.”
They exited the offices and walked together down a pillared hallway, their footsteps echoing from the vaulted ceiling high above. Reinforced glass cases were set into alcoves along the walls, casting strange, differently colored glows across the flagstones. The cases did not contain grimoires. Instead, they held magical artifacts: a skull radiating emerald light, a chalice filled with a draught of night sky, a sword whose pommel was twined with morning glories, the flowers blooming, dying, and blooming again as Elisabeth watched, their fallen petals crumbling away to nothing. She forced herself not to slow down, mindful of Mistress Wick’s hand resting on her shoulder. But when she passed the next case, she drew up short in surprise.
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