Sophie had walked these catacombs many times, but this time her every step was accompanied by a sense of tingling dread that she could not fully define. Why was Eldritch taking them to this place? And what could they possibly find there? They stopped at the familiar iron door, which had survived the collapse of the street. A beam of warm light shone from above onto the word overhead: Quire.
Sophie held her father’s hand, which was shaking. She had stood at this door before, but it was clear from the look on his pale face that he was on alien soil. “I don’t have the key,” he said softly.
“Let me,” said Peter, who had followed them there. Sophie watched as he knelt down and picked the lock with his slender fingers. It was astonishing to see how carefully he moved, how he almost seemed to be speaking to the lock as he worked. It reminded her of her own work mending books.
The lock clicked open. Peter pulled back the heavy door, which screeched on its neglected hinges. “After you,” he said, stepping back.
Light flooded into the small chamber, illuminating motes of ancient dust that spun and eddied in the quiet air. Sophie stood with her father, holding his hand. Together, they stepped into the chamber, which had no smell, save the cool petrichor of damp stone. The room was filled with stone shelves, upon which lay the dusty remains of forgotten corpses—now only scraps of bone and cloth. On a shelf in the back of the room lay a woman with dark skin and darker hair, now streaked with gray. Her face was smooth and unblemished, her expression peaceful. She looked like nothing so much as a person asleep.
Sophie stared at the woman who looked so familiar to her. “It’s really her,” she whispered. She peered at the woman’s features, for the first time truly understanding what her father meant when he said they were so alike. It was like looking into her own future. And her past.
Sophie’s father clutched his daughter’s arm. “Impossible . . .” Sophie could hear his breath trembling. “She’s dead. She should be turned to dust.”
“What is death but a slumber from which one cannot be roused?” Madame Eldritch said, more gently than Sophie had learned to expect from her. “This woman is asleep. She need only be awoken.” The woman placed a hand on Sophie’s shoulder, drawing back her hair to expose the necklace around her throat.
Sophie looked down at the necklace. “The dispell bell . . .” she said.
Madame Eldritch smiled. “All charms guaranteed.”
Sophie stared at the bell, hardly daring to believe what the woman was telling her. She reached behind her neck and unhooked the chain, then rolled the round bell between her fingers. Sophie turned back to the figure of her mother, resting so placidly atop the stone. She looked like a princess from a story, awaiting her prince. Sophie stepped toward her mother, the bell gripped tightly in her hand.
She raised the bell over her mother’s face and rang it. This time, for the first time, the bell responded with a light chime.
The sound hung in the air for a moment, reverberating off the crypt walls. The next moment, the woman before Sophie opened her eyes. She did not gasp and sputter as one snatched back from death. She opened them gently, blinking into the sunlight above her. She reached up an ink-stained hand to stifle a yawn. “Where . . . where am I?”
The woman sat up, staring at her tattered clothes. She looked at the crypt around her, rubbing her eyes as if unsure whether she was truly awake or still dreaming. And then she saw Sophie’s father. “Augustus?”
Sophie’s father let out a pained cry and very nearly staggered to the floor. “Coriander!” He ran toward her and swept her up in his arms, holding her tight. “My Coriander!”
That Sophie’s mother was surprised by this reception was plain enough. “Augustus, what has happened to you?” she exclaimed, staring at his drawn face, his thin gray hair. “You look so very old.” She could not, of course, see the streaks of gray in her own hair or the lines around her own eyes—for though Madame Eldritch’s charms had protected her from death, they had not spared her the toll of time. “Where are we?” she said, pulling away to peer at the crypt. “And what am I doing in these rags?”
“You were asleep for a very long time, my love,” Sophie’s father said, still holding her close. “But it’s over now. It’s over.”
It was clear that Coriander was beginning to remember more and more things. She let go of him, new panic in her face. She looked down at her chest, a jagged tear where Prigg’s blade had pierced her body. “Where is the book?” she gasped, clutching her rags. “And Prigg?”
“The books are destroyed,” Augustus said softly. “Prigg, too.” He turned toward Sophie. “All thanks to her.”
The woman’s eyes finally found Sophie, who was watching very quietly in the shadows. Coriander was startled by the sight of this twelve-year-old girl, her dress charred and ragged, her face so much like her own. She let go of Augustus and stared into Sophie’s eyes, blinking, confused. “But who is this girl?”
Sophie’s chin quivered as if it might break. “Mama?” she said, tears welling in her eyes.
At this single word, the woman’s expression bloomed into astonishment—for there are some things no mother can ever truly forget, and among them is the voice of her child. “Sophie?” she cried, and she rushed to her and took her in her arms. “My little baby.” She pulled Sophie tight to her breast, rocking her back and forth.
Sophie Quire had spent her entire life imagining what it might feel like to be held by her mother—but no amount of imagining could ever have prepared her for the feeling now as this woman wrapped her up in her arms, squeezing her so tightly that it hurt, so tightly that all the pain and struggle and fear and doubt spilled out of her like water from a dam. “Mama,” Sophie said, tears soaking her face and neck. “I thought I would never see you.”
“I’m here now, child,” her mother said. “I’m here now.”
If Sophie’s mother did not understand the exact circumstances of her being there in that cold crypt with her now-grown daughter and aged husband, she at least understood that it was no trivial thing that had brought them together in this place. Augustus joined in the embrace, and the three of them—father, mother, and child—held one another in the stillness of the crypt. Sophie looked toward the open door, remembering Madame Eldritch and Peter, but she found that they had been left alone.
Coriander pulled back from them, one hand on each of their shoulders. “My curiosity can only take so much,” she said. “You must tell me how I came to be in this place, barefoot and bleary-eyed, with the two of you looking at me as though I’d returned from the dead—which, if my rags are any judge, I probably did.”
Sophie sniffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “I’m afraid it’s a rather nonsensical story.”
The woman smiled, running her thumb along Sophie’s cheek. “Those are my very favorite kind.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
THE CITY of TALKING BOOKS
When the dust finally settled on Bustleburgh, the people emerged from the wreckage to treat those who had been injured by the Zeitgeist. Scrivener Behn and the remaining pilgrims—many of whom were versed in the secrets of old medicine—worked ceaselessly to tend to the wounded. Though many Bustleburghers were at first wary of these strange residents, they soon became grateful for their help.
Sophie’s own burns from the Zeitgeist were not so easily treated, and she carried the scars on her neck and arms for the rest of her days. Over time, however, she developed a fondness for the places where the flesh rippled and twisted like dark mountain ranges. She had discovered for herself the truth known to adventurers the world over: The bigger the scar, the better the story.
Peter and Sir Tode decided to stay on to help rebuild the city. The fire that had spread so savagely managed to destroy almost every new building in Bustleburgh, leaving exposed the older stone towers and tunnels that had been buried and forgotten. Slowly, the people of Bustleburgh rediscovered the ancient city that they had worked so hard to forget.
Madame Eld
ritch did not remain long in the new city. Having seen the Last Resort rescued from the Uncannyon, she resolved to return to that place in search of Taro. Scrivener Behn and some of the pilgrims had offered to accompany her on this adventure, but she demurred, claiming that some journeys were meant to be made alone. By the following morning, she was gone. What Madame Eldritch encountered in those unknown depths, and whether she rescued Taro, is a story for another day.
But I would be remiss if I did not mention the books. You see, all of the above changes were nothing compared with what happened to the storybooks in Bustleburgh—a thing so curious that it has since made the city quite famous. Though the Four Questions had been completely destroyed, the other books in the Pyre had survived. When the Zeitgeist was at last vanquished, and its charred remains were scattered across the streets and rooftops, it was discovered that all the books had been changed in one small but remarkable way:
They were alive.
I mean this in the most literal sense possible. Imagine, if you will, tens of thousands of books all flopping about on the streets like beached fish. Some of the heavier volumes taught themselves to walk on the ends of their covers. A few smaller books managed to take flight like birds. This life was not limited to locomotion—for every one of the books, when opened, would also begin to speak its contents aloud to whoever would listen. The voice of each book was different, and (if accounts are to be believed) quite dramatic—complete with sound effects and colorful characterizations. By nightfall, the entire city was ringing with the voices of a thousand different stories.
At first, the people of Bustleburgh were understandably alarmed by this infestation of moving, talking nonsense. Many people tried to tear up or burn the books out of fear. But this revulsion soon gave way to a certain kind of fascination due to one immutable truth known the world over as Scheherazade’s Law: It is impossible to kill someone who is in the middle of telling you a really wonderful story.
Men and women were suddenly reminded of the stories they had once loved as children. And soon people were bringing books back into their homes—caring for them as they would pets or even friends. As you might imagine, this did much to reinvigorate the book trade, and Quire & Quire soon found itself overflowing with customers, all eagerly searching for new books to read. Sophie’s mother and father took to their work with clear delight—trading books back and forth, ceaselessly exchanging thoughts and ideas and opinions. Sophie thought she might be glimpsing what it had been like so many years before when her parents had first been in love.
“One thing that I cannot understand,” Sophie said one afternoon while shelving books in her newly expanded work space, “if the Pyre was meant to destroy nonsense, why did it attack this city? Why these people?”
Sir Tode climbed onto a stool next to her. “I have seen my share of magic in my days, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that it cannot be depended on to do anything one expects.” He shook his shaggy head. “Perhaps there’s more magic to these so-called common folk than we realize.”
Sophie thought she might understand what he meant by this. For all the hours she had spent repairing books, she knew that stories were much more than words on a page. Stories lived inside those who read them. It was like Sophie with her mother: She might not have remembered her mother’s face or voice or touch, but those things were a part of her all the same. “Maybe that was Prigg’s real folly,” she said, drawing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Magic cannot be removed from the world, because the world—every speck of it—is magical. It is simply a matter of whether or not we can see it.”
It was some months later when a new and wholly unexpected visitor came to the shop. It happened one quiet evening as Sophie was seated at the workbench, mending a book of limericks that had hurt its spine by leaping from a very tall height, Akrasia curled up at her feet. “Hold still,” Sophie said to the protesting book. “I can’t stitch your pages if they’re flapping about.”
There was a creaking behind her, and she turned to the bookshelf to see that it had been opened. Professor Cake was standing there, his hands atop his ostrich-spine cane, a pipe in his mouth. “Hello, Sophie,” he said. “I trust I’m not intruding.”
“Professor!” Sophie cried, leaping from her stool. She raced across the room and wrapped him in a great big hug. “I feared I might never see you again.”
“There, there,” he said, patting her on the back in a way that suggested he was not entirely accustomed to being greeted so informally. “I’ve been caught up with some important business.”
“Greetings, Professor,” Akrasia said, approaching and bowing her head. “I hoped we might meet once more.”
The Professor knelt down and patted Akrasia’s shoulders, his knotted fingers finding the scars where the beast had lost her wings. “Dear me,” he said. “Feels like something’s missing there. Perhaps we should do something about that?”
“Wait,” Sophie said, stepping back. “Does Peter know you’re here? We have to find him and—”
Before she could even finish her sentence, the door of the shop burst open. “I heard . . . the . . . Professor!” Peter cried, very out of breath.
“Indeed, you did!” Professor Cake said, laughing. “And you wasted no time coming to investigate.” He peered at the boy, not unfondly. “I see you have dispensed with the blindfold.”
Peter looked at the ground, then shrugged. “I guess I’ve found something worth looking at.” His gaze darted to Sophie, and she felt a sort of shiver move down her spine. As the more astute readers among you might have observed, a special fondness had formed between the two of them—the sort of fondness that might one day grow into the stuff of legend and song.
Sir Tode appeared at the door a moment later. “Ah, Professor!” he said upon seeing the old man. “I was wondering when you might pay us a visit. A monster slain, a city restored. You’ll have to admit, our Sophie’s done quite well for herself.”
“And why shouldn’t she?” The Professor said warmly. “She is, after all, the Storyguard.”
“Not anymore,” Sophie said. “The books have been destroyed. There is no Storyguard.”
The man drew his pipe from his mouth. “Is that what you think, child?” He took a heavy breath. “It is my duty to inform you that you are sorely mistaken. You cannot stop being the Storyguard any more than I can stop being Professor Cake. That the Four Questions were destroyed is immaterial. Those books were but a tool to help you in your task—a task that you executed with remarkable courage and unwavering determination. A task, I might also add, that is far from over.” He waved his pipe like a wand. “Tell me, what do you know of the League of Maps?”
Sophie and the others looked at one another. “Er, afraid it doesn’t ring a bell,” Sir Tode said.
Professor Cake’s face turned to scandal. “We must remedy that at once.” He reached into his vest and removed a paper folded and marked with a blue wax seal. “Come. Your ship awaits.”
Peter’s eyes went wide. He started to reach for the paper but stopped himself short. “Professor, we can’t go,” he said, lowering his hand. He turned to Sir Tode. “I promised Sir Tode I would help him find a cure for his curse, and that’s what we’re going to do.” He looked down at his friend. “It’s time.”
The old knight wrinkled his furry brow. “Yes, well . . . It’s not every day the Professor asks for our help. Maybe one small digression couldn’t hurt?”
Peter looked at Sir Tode, and a grin broke across his face. “One more adventure?”
Sir Tode nodded. “One more adventure.”
“Excellent!” Professor Cake clapped his hands. “You will leave at once!”
“But, Professor?” Sophie said, looking back through the bookcase at the shop—its shelves and rafters and floors lined with books hopping and flitting about. “What about my parents?”
“What about them?” Professor Cake said in the tone of someone very unaccustomed to thinking of anyone’s parents. He offered a w
arm smile. “Something tells me they should like some time alone. And haven’t you grown a bit large for these four walls, Sophie Quire?”
Sophie did not say farewell to her parents before leaving the bookshop behind. Instead, she left a simple note on her workbench:
My tale is not yet told.
I will return.
Fondly,
Sophie Quire,
the Last Storyguard
She knew they would understand.
And so it went in Bustleburgh. The city that had set out to destroy stories had been transformed into a haven for books of all kinds. And as the population read more stories, the city itself began to change. At first the changes were small: a few sprites hovering over the dusky river, or a falling star on the horizon. But then more changes came. The Wassail lost its murky darkness and shone clear once more. The eyes of gargoyles shifted as one passed beneath them. Birds sang in three-part chorus. Mirrors reflected strange visions. Old, neglected wells started granting wishes. More than a few house pets took to uttering prophecies. As the city changed, so did the way people saw it: Old maids became crones, and naughty children became imps; the strongest men were hailed as giants and the fairest ladies called enchantresses. The once-level roads shifted and settled into twisting alleyways full of long shadows and narrow corridors—every one of them eventually leading to a small bookshop in the heart of the town.
I would like to tell you that Quire & Quire remains open to this day, but that would be untrue. The shop closed eventually, and its marvelous talking books soon made their way to other lands and other readers. Most of these books have grown shy in their old age, preferring to sit quietly on the shelf. But if ever you find a very dusty book on a very-out-of-the-way bookcase, put it to your ear and listen closely. What do you hear? The faint rustle of pages, the creak of an old spine, and the hushed song of a story waiting to be read.
Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard Page 30