Sophie folded her arms. “I’d like to have a word with him before he does. I want to find out how he came to be in possession of The Book of Who.”
Peter wrinkled his nose. “The book of what?”
“Not ‘what,’” Sophie said. “Who.” She marched over to Peter and dug a hand into his bag. She pulled out the book in question. “Your Professor didn’t even tell you what it was called?”
Sir Tode, who had made himself comfortable by the fire, perked up. “Indeed, he did not—he only told us it was in need of repair.”
Peter snatched the book from her grasp with surprising speed. “It’s just a book,” he muttered, stuffing it back into his burgle-sack.
“Just a book?” Sophie rolled her eyes. “Madame Eldritch was ready to kill you for it. And I’d wager she’s not the only person.” She had both hands on her hips now. “Maybe that’s why your Professor didn’t tell you the book’s name—he was afraid you’d open your big mouth and let the wrong people find out about it.”
“Like you did much better?” Peter said. “If I recall, we just rescued you for the second time in a week.”
Sophie stomped her foot. “The first time didn’t count!”
“Don’t be embarrassed.” The boy stretched back in his chair. “You’re not the first damsel in need of the great Peter—”
Peter’s final words were cut off by a primal scream as Sophie lunged for the boy with open hands in an attempt to strangle him dead. Peter dodged the attack but not before tipping his chair backward. Soon the two of them were rolling across the floor, shouting insults and threats.
Now, I would like to report that Sophie proved Peter’s perfect equal in terms of physical strength and fighting prowess, but this would be a lie. Sophie had never fought with anyone in her life, whereas Peter Nimble was a seasoned expert. Indeed, his biggest challenge was finding a way to restrain Sophie without accidentally running her through with his silver blade—a task he finally managed by tying her legs and hands with a bit of spare rope from his bag.
“You untie me this instant!” Sophie cried, pulling uselessly against her restraints. How the boy had managed to tie the knots with only one hand and while wearing a blindfold was beyond her.
Peter gave an exaggerated yawn. “I’m sure someone as brilliant as you can figure out how to untie a few little—” He stopped short and leapt to his feet. “Professor!” he said, his voice suddenly timid. “We were only playing.”
Sophie craned her neck to see that he was now speaking to an old man with a white beard and spectacles. The man was wearing a patchwork robe and entirely too many scarves. In one hand he held a cane made from the skull and spine of what looked to be a very large bird, in his other, a steaming pot of cinnamon tea. “Gracious, Peter,” he said in a tone somewhere between shock and amusement. “I see you’ve made our guest feel at home.”
Ten minutes later, Sophie, Sir Tode, and Peter were seated in comfy chairs, holding mugs of hot tea and eating candied scones. The teapot, which seemed entirely too small to serve three people, somehow never went empty, even as Professor Cake—for, indeed, it was Professor Cake—refilled their cups. For his part, the Professor seemed contented to smoke his churchwarden pipe, which he refilled from time to time with chipped tobacco from his vest pocket.
Perhaps sensing that Peter and Sophie would be biased in their accounts, Professor Cake had asked Sir Tode to kindly relate their adventures thus far. Sir Tode gave a faithful—if somewhat embellished—account of the skirmish in front of the Pyre, Sophie’s disappearance from the bookshop, and the rescue on the highway. Sir Tode had a dramatic flair for stories, and he was soon standing atop the table, reenacting the final battle against Taro. “. . . and just as the hideous monster was charging toward us,” he concluded, “we dove through the bookcase and landed here, right as you found us!”
Professor Cake clapped, puffing on his pipe. “An excellent tale—and well worth the wait.” Sophie noted that the smoke did not have the sweet, sticky aroma of the pipes in the oubliette. Instead, it had a warm, earthy smell, like the first day of autumn, or the ground after a summer rain. “I must confess that I had become worried. You two were a bit slower with the task than I had hoped.”
“That’s her fault,” Peter said through a mouthful of scone. “She tried to run off with your book.”
Sophie gritted her teeth. “I was kidnapped. And it’s not his book.” She put a protective hand on The Book of Who. “It belonged to my mother.”
The Professor raised an eyebrow. “Your mother was an exceptionally gifted woman.”
Sophie stared at him. “You knew her?”
The Professor made a noncommittal shrug. “I knew of her. Her work as a bookmender was unparalleled. I daresay more than a few volumes in this library were saved by her hand.”
Sophie stared at the endless rows of bookcases. “So all these books belong to you?”
“Not exactly.” Professor Cake released a helix of smoke. “The library is mine, but the books belong to others. Have you noticed that every one of these bookcases is unique—as if it were built by someone different?”
Sophie peered along the far wall and saw that he was right. No two cases were alike in size or construction. “It’s as though they were all taken from different places.”
“Indeed,” the Professor said. “It’s less that these shelves were taken from different places . . . and more that they are still in those places.” He winked in a conspiratorial manner. “This library is something of a browsing collection, if you catch my meaning.”
Sophie shook her head. “I really don’t.”
Peter snorted from his chair. “That must be hard for you.”
“I would thank you to mind your tongue,” Professor Cake said flatly. “If I recall, it was not so very long ago that I found you in a very similar state of ignorance on all manner of subjects—including this library.” He shot the boy a penetrating look, which, even though Peter still wore his blindfold, seemed to hit its mark.
The boy dropped his head. “Sorry, sir.” His voice was very small, and Sophie felt an unexpected pang of sympathy.
She cleared her throat, hoping to return to the subject at hand. “So you’re saying that these bookcases are somehow in two places at once?”
“Take the bookcase you entered through.” The Professor gestured with his pipe to the bookcase that had led them from the curiosity shop. “When you look through that case, what do you see?”
Sophie got up, keeping The Book of Who tucked under one arm. She approached the case and peered past cobwebs and dusty books to see the shadowy form of the abandoned curiosity shop—the strewn wares, the toppled cabinets, the shattered front door. She was relieved to see that Taro was no longer there.
“The bookcase is like a doorway between two places,” she said. She looked at the books scattered along the shelf before her, all of them facing the wrong direction. “And that’s why the books are turned around—because we’re seeing the shelf from the backside!” She laughed, delighted at her own discovery.
Sir Tode rapped a hoof on the table. “By Jove, I think she’s got it!”
Professor Cake took up his cane and rose from his chair. “Books from every corner of the map, all in one room. I call it my Looking-Glass Library.”
Sophie walked along the rows, her eyes aglow with wonder. “So every one of these cases leads to a different place?” She caught glimpses of stern academies and shining palaces and dusty studies and quaint bookshops from all over the world—some seemed abandoned, while others were teeming with people. She ran her hands along one of the shelves. “You could go anywhere from here.”
The Professor leaned on his cane. “In theory, yes, but that’s not exactly the purpose. Most of these people have no idea that my library exists.”
Sophie reached a new bookcase and stopped. The case was a little taller than she was and had no books on it. It looked into a cramped shop with an old workbench. Seated at the bench was a man with h
is head in his hands. He looked very old. Sophie stared at the man, a pain stinging her chest. “Papa?” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
It was the middle of the night. The shop was closed. He should have been in bed. But, instead, he was sitting there at the workbench . . .
Alone.
Professor Cake joined her side. “He can neither hear nor see you, I’m afraid. From where your father sits, this is only an empty bookcase against a solid wall.”
Sophie had spent a lifetime at that workbench and never once suspected what lay just beyond those shelves. “Sometimes when I was working,” she said softly, “I would get gooseflesh all up my neck and arms—and it felt as though someone were watching me. And other times I would lose books. I’d set them on that shelf and have them go missing . . . only to reappear mysteriously hours later. Papa would accuse me of being careless.” She turned toward the Professor. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
The Professor gave a sheepish chuckle. “I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused you. It seems I cannot pass an unfamiliar book without giving it a quick read.” This was a gross understatement: Professor Cake, like all true readers, was an incurable book filch.
Sophie was unable to look away from her father. “But why do you have a bookcase from our shop? The books we sell aren’t magical or special . . . They’re just stories.”
The man peered at her over the rim of his spectacles. “My child, you of all people should know that there is no such thing as just a story. Though, admittedly, some stories are more valuable than others.” He glanced meaningfully at The Book of Who tucked under her arm. “For many years now, your little shop has been the only thing standing between Bustleburgh and complete ruination. It is for that very reason that I sent Peter and Sir Tode to give you The Book of Who.”
“You sent us to do what?” Peter called from the table.
“Far be it from me to contradict you, Professor,” Sir Tode said, approaching. “But our mission, so far as I understood it, was to get the book repaired and bring it back to you.”
“Yeah.” Peter folded his arms. “She just tagged along. Like a pest.”
“As well she should have!” Professor Cake said. “It would have been unconscionable for her to simply surrender The Book of Who to a pair of bandits. She is, after all, the Storyguard.”
Sophie stepped back, clutching The Book of Who. She had not told Peter and Sir Tode what she had read about herself in the book. And she had certainly not told the Professor.
“What is he talking about?” Peter said. “Why did he call you that?”
Sophie kept her eyes on the Professor. “How . . . how did you know?”
The man made the satisfied face of someone proved correct in a deduction. “One develops a sense for such things.” He drew deeply on his pipe and released a long curl of smoke. “The truth is, I have assembled you all here for a very specific, very important purpose. A purpose that has everything to do with that book and the troubles plaguing your city.”
Sophie held The Book of Who tighter. She could feel her heart pounding against the cover. She thought of the thousands of books amassed in the Pyre, all waiting to be burned. “You want me to save Bustleburgh,” she said.
The Professor shook his head. “No, my child. I want you to save the world.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TWO WEEKS’ TIME
Perhaps you’ve heard the riddle of the dreaming king? It goes something like this: Two brothers happen upon a king asleep beneath a tree in the forest. The brothers suspect that the king is dreaming about the forest, and that they themselves are merely characters in his dream. The first brother insists that they wake the king to discover if this is true. The second brother insists that they let the king keep sleeping, for fear that when the dream ends, they will die. And thus we have our dilemma: Should one concede a mad notion for fear that it might be true?
Sophie Quire found herself facing a similar dilemma. Professor Cake had just told her that she was somehow meant to save the world—a notion that was absurd beyond words. But some part of her feared that if she dissuaded him of this delusion, he might take back The Book of Who and send her home. And so she found herself in the unfortunate position of having to play along. “You want me to save the whole world?” she said.
Professor Cake chuckled. “Not the whole world—if such a thing even exists! I merely want you to save the world in which you reside. All of the hinterland empire, from the lofty Splint Mountains to the Grimmwald wilds to the marshes beyond. Every place you know of or have heard of is a part of your world. And it is this that you must save.”
Sophie noticed Peter’s confused expression, and she assumed that he was just as confounded by this prospect as she was. But she was wrong. “That’s ridiculous,” he blurted out, raising his blade. “If anyone is saving anything, it should be me and Sir Tode. We don’t need some know-it-all tagging along.”
Sophie glared at him. “I’d rather be a know-it-all than a blindfolded baboon.”
“Children,” Sir Tode said. “There’s no need for name-calling.”
“Tactless though he may be, Peter does make a valid point,” Professor Cake said. “That’s why he and Sir Tode will be there to help you. There is no telling what dangers you may encounter on your quest. While not lacking in spirit, you are, I hazard to say, not much of a fighter.”
Sophie thought of the way Peter had bested her in combat and felt her cheeks go warm. “But, Professor,” she said, “you still haven’t told us what we must do. Or what danger threatens the—” She corrected herself. “Threatens my world.”
“I should think you of all people would know,” Professor Cake said, refilling his pipe with fresh tobacco. He struck a small tinderbox and lit the bowl. “Could you please tell me what your father is reading so intently at his stool?”
Sophie looked through her own bookcase, and the sight of her father again filled her with a pang. He was hunched over the workbench, staring at a large poster covered with small black print. The individual words were hard to make out in the shadows, but she could see the header at the top: NO NONSENSE! “It’s a notice for Pyre Day,” she said. “They’ve been posting them all over the city.”
“Precisely,” Professor Cake said. “In two weeks’ time, your city will set fire to an enormous stockpile of storybooks—tales gathered from every corner of the hinterland empire. And when that happens, your world as you know it will be lost forever.”
“I don’t understand,” Peter said. “How can burning a bunch of books hurt things in the real world?”
“The real world,” Professor Cake repeated with a tone of notable contempt. “The very notion is absurd. Worlds and everything in them are made real by the stories that inhabit them.” He turned and paced along the shelves, his cane tapping the wooden floor. Sophie and the others followed him. “Stories are not mere diversions to occupy us on rainy days,” he said. “They are a type of magic spell—perhaps the most powerful in existence—and their effect is to summon possibilities.” As he walked, he gestured at the rows of different shelves, each one looking into a different place. “Every time the spell is cast, the impossible becomes a little more possible.”
Sophie was trying her best to follow his meaning. “So every time someone reads a story,” she said slowly, “they’re actually casting some sort of . . . magic spell?”
“Precisely. Suffice it to say, if one hopes to live in a world of wonders, he had better locate himself in a place where wondrous stories abound. And if those stories were to suddenly disappear—well, that would be bad for everyone involved.”
“How bad?” said Sir Tode, who was right behind Sophie.
The Professor drew on his pipe and pointed to a bookcase across the way. “You can see the results for yourself.” Sophie peered at the case, which seemed to be a very large, ornately carved barrister’s bookcase. Only now it was completely empty. On the other side of the case was a roomful of children, all of them seated at li
ttle tables, furiously working sums on slates.
“It’s a school,” Sophie said. She studied the faces of the children, all stony and scowling. “They look miserable.”
“You are looking at what was once the finest school of alchemy in the world. That was before the authorities did away with all the stories. Now they’re concerned with something called economics. A much less efficient way to make gold, if you ask me.”
He pointed his cane to another empty bookcase a bit farther down. “This bookshelf used to inhabit a chapel. Now it’s a factory.” Sophie approached it and saw men and women working in some sort of enormous building. Instead of a river wheel, which she had seen in Bustleburgh, this factory had a blazing furnace in the middle. Men ceaselessly shoveled black coal into the fire beneath the furnace. White steam hissed out the top of the machine, which rattled and shook. “What is that thing?” she asked.
“That is a steam engine,” Professor Cake said. “I daresay Bustleburgh will learn of them soon enough.”
Sophie stared at the workers—their faces were black from the soot. As with the schoolchildren, their expressions were grim and lifeless. “Their eyes . . .” she said. “It’s like the spark has gone completely out of them.”
“And it has. These poor souls are the Dead Certain—mindless cogs in the ever-grinding wheels of progress.” He turned away from the sight, as if looking upon it pained him.
“So you’re saying that when Pyre Day comes, it will somehow make Bustleburgh like these other places?” She didn’t really need to ask the question; already she had seen that same lifeless look on the faces of some of her customers and neighbors.
“When a population loses its stories, it loses its capacity for wonder—what remains is a life of drudgery and toil. Every day, it seems, I come upon another bookcase that looks into a world devoid of wonder. I fear Bustleburgh is next.” He fixed his gaze upon her. “Unless you stop it.”
Sophie stepped back from him. “But how?”
He tapped The Book of Who with his cane. “That book you carry with you is part of a set called the Four Questions. They contain information about every piece of magic that has ever existed—people, objects, places, and events. They were created a very long time ago as a way to help protect stories from harm.”
Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard Page 10