Page 82 of Deadly Maiden

Paradoxically, I’m suddenly afraidhewill get hurt.

I will leave, soon. I must.I’ll say goodbye to Landos, resolve whatever my parents left me, and go.

“Soon. I promise.” I take his hand, draw comfort from his warmth, in the movement of his fingers as he clasps mine. “The breakfast was wonderful.”

“It was.”

With the diversion, it’s a half hour later before we reach those library doors. A path lined with topiary shrubs in large pots then a grand set of stairs deliver us in front of the golden doors, and now I can see that the gray stone sculpture above the doors is a gigantic, fat-mouthed frog.

“A frog.” I check it out from a few angles. “Quaint.”

“It depicts one of the monsters from the war I told you about. Kermios was his name. You wanted history.”

“I do.” It’s fascinating but I wouldn’t want it to eat me.

“The library itself is even better.” He ushers me through the doors.

Inside is a horseshoe-shaped carved desk big enough to engulf our bedroom times three. Staff bustle about with crates and trolleys of books, with folders and clipboards, but beyond this is the library proper. The interior has been cored out, leaving the center empty except for space soaring a full four stories. Lining the walls on each floor are terraces filled with bookcases and books, with readers, with people on small ladders searching for their next tome.

On this ground floor, two long parallel desks are equipped with seats for those who wish to recline and read.

The many colors of tens of thousands of books, the sculptures dotted about on plinths on this ground floor, the expansive paintings on the distant ceiling, as well as smaller artworks on the spare wall space…it’s breathtaking.

“Magnificent!”

Though I thought I said that in a hushed voice, one of the female staff, her hair in a tight bun, hurries toward us. “Do you need assistance? The desk can help you.”

“The desk?” I’m bewildered but then I realize she means the staff behind the horseshoe desk. She’s already gone, briskly striding off to the right.

I bump Rorsyd with my elbow. He’s watching with bemusement. “Can we take out books?”

“No. Not us. We’re not going to try to register as members, but you can read almost any book you can find. The catalogs are there, in those cabinets, and where to find something, like a particular history book, is also there. I have a pretty good idea of how this place works.”

Since he’s immortal. I can read between those lines. He’s probably been here a hundred times. “Histories then. I want to find out what really happened in the war. The war against the chained king.”

The last part seems to roll out like a quiet, distant clap of thunder.

I half expect him to hesitate, because that is the war that killed his friend Orish and my parents. Bollingham gave me an education, but from what I’ve heard since leaving, it is a pruned education, lacking detail. I am hungry for the truth.

Can books lie?

Of course they can.

“This way to the stairs. History is on the second floor.” He points upward.

“And that lake with the goblin statue?”

“That’s at the rear, behind the library. We can go there and leave Andacc a message later.”

“About checking your rooms in Langordin?”

“Yes.”

“I want to try to send some letters through this C of U. If they will do it. Letters to Landos, secretly. I need, I really need to see him one last time, before…you know?”

“Sure.”

“We are trusting them?”

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