The Speaker

by Traci Chee

  “Have you been to the village yet? You’d better say no, you came straight home to your mother.”

  “No,” he said, “I came straight here to my mother.”

  She pinched his chin lightly, though the look in her eyes told him she’d noticed he didn’t call it home. “Good boy,” she said.

  Would she still think he was good, if she knew how many people he’d killed?

  And not all of them because he had to?

  He didn’t think she’d ever be able to look at him again, if she knew.

  Archer squeezed her hand, still clasped over his forearm.

  The light passed over them.

  “You should go, though,” Emery said. “Tomorrow, if you feel up to it. She’ll want to see you.”

  She.

  Annabel—soft and light as cream, with blond curls and a quick laugh. He remembered her slippers leaving soft prints on the floured floor of the bakery. She’d creep up to him while he was browsing the shelves, and when she was near enough she’d let out a laugh and clasp her arms around his waist, and instead of flinching, he would gently place his hands over hers.

  “She’s with someone.” His mother’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Aden Asir. You remember—”

  Archer watched his breath fog the window. “Yeah.” Aden had been one of his friends: handsome, popular, honest eyes and black hair continually falling into his face when he laughed.

  Emery smiled through closed lips. “I thought you should know before you went down there, so you wouldn’t be expecting—”

  “I wasn’t.”

  She looked at him knowingly, the way only parents and people who’ve changed your diapers can. “I just didn’t want you to have that kicked-dog expression you do right now.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Anyway,” she said briskly, “it sounds as if you’ve moved on too, haven’t you? Sefia, is that her name?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You didn’t say where she was.”

  Archer’s hand went to his neck again. “I don’t know.”

  “Oh.” Emery’s voice fell. She folded her hands, trying to hide her disappointment. “Well, I’d like to meet her one day. To thank her for saving my boy.”

  Archer nodded, though the lump in his throat made it difficult to breathe. “I’d like that too.”

  They stayed there a while longer, mother and son standing side by side while ships passed at sea, before Emery shuffled him off to bed, tucking him in and planting a kiss on his forehead. “Sweet dreams, my boy.”

  As he lay there staring up at the ceiling, he hoped his mother’s touch would be magic, like in the stories, and with a single kiss she’d erase all his nightmares, all his memories of the worst parts of himself, and he’d be washed clean again.

  But when he finally drifted off to sleep, in a bed that no longer felt like his own, the dreams returned. He woke, drenched in sweat, arms and legs twisted in the sheets, reaching for a worry stone that wasn’t there.

  As she’d done countless times when he was younger, Emery ran in. She sat on the edge of his mattress and tried to hold him, murmuring, “Shh. Shh.”

  But he wouldn’t let her. Didn’t want her strong pillowy arms or her pity or her assurances that everything was okay, that he was home. Nothing was okay. And he was far from home.

  CHAPTER 38

  The Traitors’ Daughter

  A servant arrived in the morning, or what Sefia thought was the morning—without natural light, she couldn’t be sure—with a tray of steamed breakfast buns, tea, and a glass of fruit juice. She had little appetite, however, and picked fitfully at the meal, wondering what would happen next.

  Would Tanin and the Administrators question her?

  Keep her in isolation?

  Torture her? She shuddered to think what Dotan, with that cold simmering rage, could do to her.

  Instinctively, she straightened. Whatever they did, they would not break her.

  Soon she heard voices outside. As the door opened, someone whispered, “Run along, Tolem. Your Master doesn’t want you around her.”

  Sefia caught a glimpse of the Apprentice Administrator’s black hair and thick spectacles before he dashed off.

  An old man shuffled into the room, his long robes dusting the floor. Sefia recognized him from the Book—his hair white as snow, with liver spots speckling the backs of his arthritic hands.

  “Erastis?”

  “My dear,” the Master Librarian said warmly, clasping her hands. “You look just like your mother. Though I suspect you’ve something of your father to you as well.”

  Unlike Tanin, when Erastis mentioned her parents, she could detect no twinge of sadness, no regret, only the fondness of memory. Sefia was grateful for that.

  “Are you ready to be out of these stuffy chambers?”

  “Tanin told me to wait.”

  For someone who looked so fragile, Erastis’s grip was surprisingly strong as he tugged her toward the door. “And you will,” he said, leading her into a cold stone corridor with bare electric bulbs fastened to the walls, “in the Library with me.”

  “No blindfold?” Sefia asked.

  “Would you like one?”

  “No, but won’t Tanin—”

  “The Second will indulge me.” He patted the back of her hand.

  The Second? Her mother’s title. Had Tanin been demoted to Apprentice? Of another division?

  Did she still have the authority to hold up her end of their deal?

  “Tell me,” Erastis interrupted her thoughts, “did you enjoy the book I sent over?”

  “That was from you?”

  “Of course it was.” He chuckled. “Did you enjoy it?”

  “I didn’t understand most of it,” she admitted.

  “Ostis is a complicated text.”

  “Then why did you—”

  “That was the book your mother was holding the day she met your father. Their notes are all over it.”

  Sefia couldn’t believe she hadn’t remembered. The diagrams, the underlined passages, the commentaries that trailed along the margins like vines. They’d been written by her parents? She fought the urge to go racing back to her room, to snatch up the book and run her finger over the words, tracing every letter, every line her parents had written so many years ago.

  “They weren’t supposed to write in the books,” Erastis continued, “but they were so brilliant I didn’t stop them.”

  They wandered through the winding halls out of the Administrator’s Office to the upper levels of the Main Branch, where at last they reached the Library. Sefia had read about it, of course, but nothing in her imagination could have prepared her for this.

  The steps fanned from the center of the room, beckoning her toward alcoves into which she felt she could disappear for hours, days, even months—wandering among the shelves like an explorer, tracking her parents’ writings as if they were elusive, legendary creatures, always disappearing just as she thought she’d found them. She could imagine withdrawing a volume from the shelves and curling up in an overstuffed armchair, while the bronze statues of past Librarians read over her shoulder. Or, on particularly good nights when the reading wouldn’t let her go, perhaps she might light one of those electric lamps and sit alone at a curved table, awake long into the night while the rest of the world dreamed around her.

  It’s the perfect place for a reader, she thought. Then, guiltily, It’s the perfect place for me.

  “Well, my dear?” Erastis asked.

  “It’s marvelous.”

  At one of the tables in the center of the room, a young woman stood. She had light brown eyes and round cheeks, with a pinched face that made her look a bit piggish. “Master,” she said.

  “Ah, June. Please meet Sefia, the daughter of my Apprentice before you.”

&n
bsp; June’s expression puckered. “The traitors’ child?”

  Sefia flexed her hands. Did June know why she was here? That she was still keeping the Book from them?

  “Be civil, June,” Erastis chided gently. “We can’t be held responsible for the mistakes of our parents.”

  Sefia glanced toward the chalkboards and the closed vault beyond.

  “Have you brought it back?” June asked, undeterred.

  “She’s here,” the Master Librarian said before Sefia could answer. “That’s a start.”

  June went to fetch him a cup of tea, and Sefia trailed her finger along the edge of the table, where an old book had been laid out like a scientific specimen, its cover stripped off, its bindings bare.

  “Curious, are you?” Erastis asked.

  “What are you doing to it?”

  “Making repairs.” He accepted the cup June brought him, inhaling the steam as he watched Sefia lean over the volume, hands clasped behind her back. “You’re cautious too, I see. More cautious than your father was at your age. You know he used to sneak in here at night to meet your mother? He didn’t think I knew, but of course I did . . . Come. Would you like to observe as June and I repair this Fragment?”

  The Apprentice Librarian scowled.

  “You mean I can—”

  Tanin wouldn’t have wanted her to. But Erastis seemed to operate according to his own rules. “You may browse instead, if you wish,” he said.

  “No, I’d like to watch.” After a moment, Sefia added, “Thank you.”

  She studied the Librarians as they bent over the book, scraping glue from the spine, flattening creased edges with a folding bone, their movements swift and sure. Once that was done, they summoned their magic, and as their hands passed over the speckled paper, blots of mold dissolved and disappeared.

  Quickly, Sefia blinked. In the Illuminated world, she could see them disentangling strands of gold from the pages, drawing them away as gently as if they were pulling sugar. As they left the book, the streams of light dispersed into the shifting sea of gold.

  “Is this Transformation?” Sefia asked.

  “Indeed,” June answered in a clipped tone. “And it’s rather difficult, so please be quiet. You’ve interrupted my lesson enough already as it is.”

  Transformation, Sefia had learned from the Book, was the third tier of Illumination, used to change the properties of different objects, turning salt into gold, imbuing swords with a thirst for blood.

  She squinted, trying to distinguish threads of ink from threads of mold. “What happens if you remove the wrong thing? Or too much?”

  “Poof.” Erastis flicked his fingers.

  “I see.”

  “Yes, you do, don’t you? I knew there was something of your father to you.”

  She almost smiled, until she remembered her father had betrayed Erastis. Before her emotions could work themselves out, however, the Master Librarian took her hand. “Would you like to try?”

  It seemed like there should have been a rule against teaching outsiders Illumination. Apparently, that didn’t matter to Erastis. “Yes,” Sefia said eagerly.

  June blew a loose strand of hair from her face. “Master, she’s the enemy.”

  “Once she was, but perhaps she won’t always be.”

  Despite June’s glowering, Sefia joined them at the book. Under Erastis’s guidance and his Apprentice’s snippy corrections, she was soon excising strands of mold from the pages and returning them to the ocean of light, which washed them away like footprints in the sand.

  She was so good at it that after an hour, June no longer glared at her whenever she spoke, and when the Apprentice went to fetch the tea, she returned with a cup for Sefia too.

  Sefia had never had a teacher before, never had anyone she could share her magic with. It was challenging and thrilling, and she wondered at how like a family these Librarians were, how ordinary in their affection for each other, despite their extraordinary talents.

  She could have hated them for what they’d done, for being part of an organization that had hunted her for her entire life.

  But how much hunting had they done, really?

  Apparently, Erastis hadn’t left the Main Branch in over a decade, and June, as devoted to him as a granddaughter, never left his side. How much responsibility did they share for what Tanin had done to her father? For what Rajar’s impressors had done to Archer? For the war against Oxscini?

  She shook her head. She couldn’t allow herself to think about that. If she did, she might waver. And wavering was something she couldn’t do. Not now. Not here, in the heart of the Guard. In one clean sweep, she lifted a patch of mold from the page in front of her and was pleased to note June’s admiring glance.

  If she could only stay like this, a few years wouldn’t feel long at all.

  CHAPTER 39

  Reasons to Stay

  The bakery had not changed. Flour dust still collected in the corners of the windowpanes. The door still had a cracked lower edge where unwary customers stubbed their toes on the threshold. Archer smiled. He’d stumbled through the doorway too, the first time he’d come to the bakery.

  Riki nudged him. “Go in already.”

  This time he didn’t trip.

  Annabel sat behind the counter, weaving knots into a set of counting strings. Her golden curls were tied back with a blue ribbon that matched her eyes. “I’ll be with you in a moment . . .” But when she looked up, her voice died away on her lips. Her eyes filled with tears as her gaze passed over him: his neck and shoulders, his hands flecked with scars, down to his feet and back up to his face. The counting strings cascaded from her fingers as she rushed out from behind the counter and flung herself into his arms.

  Automatically, Archer’s hands went to her waist, and it was as if they’d never been separated, they fit together so perfectly.

  Because even after all this time, he knew her. He knew her shapes and the smell of her hair. And from the way she clung to him, he knew she knew him too.

  For the first time since coming back, he felt like he was home.

  Dashing tears from her eyes, Annabel released him. “Calvin,” she said. “I can’t tell you how many . . . Every time someone walked through that door, I thought . . . for months . . .”

  By the windows, Riki stood with her hands behind her back, watching them delightedly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  Archer winced. He had everything to be sorry for. But that part of his life was walled up inside him, and he could never share it with her.

  He could feel her studying him, assessing his differences. He shifted his weight. “You look well.”

  Annabel pursed her lips. Taking a step closer, she reached up to cup his face in her palm. He almost leaned away, but didn’t.

  “What happened out there, Calvin? You’re—”

  She’d done this, exactly this, so many times before. He remembered the pressure of her fingers, the pillows of her hand, her skin silky with flour.

  “Different,” he finished for her.

  “Yeah. But not as different as you’d like everyone to believe.”

  He caught her hand and brought it down. “How’s Aden?” he asked.

  Annabel stuffed her hands in her apron pockets. “He’s fine. I guess you heard . . .” She glanced over at Riki, still beaming at them from the windows. “I waited for you. I waited. But everyone was saying . . . Even your mother . . . They talked about you like you were already dead.”

  “You don’t have to explain. I was dead.”

  Drawing a curl behind her ear, she tilted her head at him curiously.

  “I came back, though.” He smiled. “This girl, Sefia, she—”

  “A girl?”

  “Sefia,” he repeated. “She saved
me.”

  For a moment Annabel looked unsettled, but she composed herself quickly, courteous as ever, smoothing her expression with a smile as she peered out the window. “Is she here?”

  “She didn’t come.”

  “Oh.”

  “He says she’s pretty,” Riki added unhelpfully.

  Archer glared at her.

  But Annabel just smiled as she sashayed behind the counter again. “He deserves a pretty girl, I think. Can I get you anything? Are you here for your usual order?”

  Riki nodded as Annabel pulled loaves from the shelves. “And a cake! For Calvin.”

  “Of course! Dad can whip one up by tonight. I’ll drop it off myself, if you like.”

  “You don’t have to—” Archer began.

  “It’s no trouble.”

  At the same time, Riki nodded eagerly. “Why don’t you stay for dinner too?”

  Annabel blushed. “Oh, I couldn’t—”

  “Sure, why not?” Archer said.

  They looked at each other, confused.

  Then she laughed, and her laughter reverberated inside him, shaking loose the dusty corners of his memory. How comfortable his little life had been. An apprenticeship in the lighthouse. A family. A girl at the village bakery. Would it be so hard to make this his life again?

  “Okay.” Annabel finished pulling bread from the shelves. “I’ll tell Aden I’m busy.”

  “Why don’t you invite him?” Archer asked.

  With an exaggerated sigh, Riki loaded the loaves into their basket and headed for the door.

  Annabel flattened her hands on the counter. “He usually works nights at the tavern, but I can see if he’s available.”

  “Great.” Archer began counting out coins.

  She laughed again. “I am not taking your money, Calvin Aurontas. It’s not every day a boy comes back from the dead.”

  He backed up to the door, fumbling for the handle. “Should I pick you up?”

  “I’ll be perfectly safe. It’s not like it was . . .” She trailed off. “Actually, if Aden’s coming, he’ll want to catch up with you.”