Page 51 of The Book That Held Her Heart

“Hopefully theyallare.” Evar reached for Starval’s arm. “We could go back. Look for them.”

Starval shook his head. “They came through. We’ll find them here. And it’s not like Clovis and Mayland can’t look after themselves. We’re the ones that need saving now they’re gone.”

Evar frowned, looked back at the portal, shrugged, and branched off into a different aisle to Starval’s.

Evar’s path brought him to the front of the chamber ahead of his brother. His surprise at finding a counter there with a balding human behind it, reading a book, was matched only by the man’s at seeing Evar emerging from the aisles.

The man blinked several times, glanced down at his book, rubbed his eyes, and set the volume on the polished surface before him. “I could have sworn the shop was empty.” He rubbed his eyes again, wrinkling the pouchy skin of his face, before smiling. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

Evar inspected his empty hands. “Not yet, I’m searching for a very rare book, by Livira Page.”

“Never tell a shopkeeper that what you’re looking for is rare, my friend.” The man stood from his stool. “Maybe Inistren has it. He specialises in rarities. Five doors down on the left.”

“This is a shop?” Evar asked.

“Of course it is.” Starval came up behind him, setting a hand on his shoulder. “A bookshop.” He turned to the bemused shopkeeper. “Thank you for finding him. My apologies, sir, sometimes our brother wanders.” And Starval steered Evar to the street door.

“Are there any more of you back there?” The man peered towards the shelves.

“Just us.” Starval reached for the door handle.

“Careful.” Evar pulled back. “Looks like a dust storm out there.” He had encountered two dust storms whilst on the Arthran Plateau, and both had been deeply unpleasant.

“Wasn’t it foggy when you came in?” The man looked puzzled. “Rolled in from Lake Cantoo before dawn, I thought.” His frown deepened.

Starval laughed and tapped the side of his head. “Dust storm! My brother’s imagination sometimes carries him away.”

A moment later they were out in the cold, grey damp with the shop bell tinkling behind them. Evar shook his brother off. “I’m not an idiot.”

“You should stop acting like one then.”

“It looked like a dust storm!”

“To someone who hasn’t seen any other type of weather.” Starval hunched against the chill, tiny droplets of water already gathering on his dark fur.

“Should we try this other shop?” Evar looked both ways down the street. He couldn’t see much, just the grey shapes of people walking before the fog swallowed them, and a few hanging signs above what he assumed were other shops. Bookshops possibly.

“We need to get a better understanding of the place,” Starval said. “I doubt we’ll find what we need in a bookshop. Better to look for trouble. Wherever it is, the book is going to be making waves of some sort.”

“Won’t that man back there end up wandering into the Exchange and causing more problems? We left a big sparkly door in his shop.” Evar could already see the shopkeeper through the windows, advancing into the ordered ranks of his own shelves with the caution of a man expecting to discover something entirely new. “And why did he seem more surprised that we’d got into his shop without him noticing than by the fact we’re canith? Most humans I’ve met either want to run away screaming or to kill me.”

“It’s that thing the Exchange does,” Starval answered, still eyeing the unyielding greyness for threats. “The effect carries over when you come through a door, even when you’ve not gone back to the past. Only lasts a few hours. Anyone that looks at us will see something close to what they expect to see. Also, they’ll understand us, and we’ll understand them. Once it wears off, things can get tricky.” With that, he headed off into the fog, and with a last glance back, trying to fix the shop front into his memory, Evar followed.

“You sound like an old hand at this sort of thing.”

Starval shrugged. “I may have been away longer than you think. Not as long as Mayland, though. He’s very definitely the elder brother now.”

“How long?” Evar hadn’t really considered the possibility. Since Mayland and Starval vanished in the Exchange after Mayland killed Yute’s wife it seemed that a couple of weeks might have passed. Certainly not more than a month. A lot of things had happened, but somewhere between a week and two weeks felt right.

“It’s hard to tell when you’re on the move. Maybe a year. More perhaps. Mayland’s plans have a lot of moving parts. We spent a lot of time oiling the wheels. Not everything paid off but—”

“You seem pretty committed to it then.” Evar lowered his voice as if someone—Mayland maybe, even if he wasn’t there—might overhear them. He returned to his normal tone, feeling foolish. “Committed to destroying the library? You’ve put a lot of effort into it.”

Starval shrugged. “What’s an assassin if not an agent of change? Besides, it’s been nice to be needed for once.”

“I…” Evar was going to say he needed Starval but opted not to insult his intelligence. Starval and Clovis had both, by a combination of chance and inclination, made weapons of themselves. Evar, though he’d dedicated himself to getting them out of that chamber, had at the same time hoped that neither would ever have cause or opportunity to put their skills to use. Things had not worked out as he hoped. “Is every shop on this street a bookshop?”

“Seems that way.” Starval reached up and set the nearest sign swinging.Manenoth’s Grimoires. “This, however…” He slowed in front of the next set of windows, whose panes were smaller, squares of puddle glass that distorted the warm glow from within and muted the faint refrain of a song. “…seems to be a tavern.” He advanced to the door, a heavy slab of oak with iron studs across its length.

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