Page 11 of The Book That Held Her Heart

The square was fragmenting around Arpix now. As if invisible spirits were individually removing bricks, flagstones, rooftiles, and speeding away with them. The story was slipping through his fingers. He didn’t belong in it. He half saw Algar’s single eye watching from a hawklike face.

“We need help now, Livira! It’s happening now! They’ve got your book. I’m reading it!” Arpix could hardly hear the voice of the girl he was speaking through. A wind tore around him howling.

“Me…ism…it…oo the mec—”

And with a convulsive shock that saw him drop the book, Arpix was back in the library amid the foulness that King Oanold had made of it.

Too many lack the strength for kindness. Too few are brave enough for empathy. And yet the weakness of anger leads to where the Iron Crosses grow.

Decoration, by Frederick William the Third

Chapter 6

Anne

While Yute walked the length of Weber’s shelves, tutting quietly to himself, Anne spoke to Herman and Carl.

“You think we’ll have trouble tonight?” She thought of the policeman. If a broken window was the worst she got she’d be lucky—that’s what he said.

Herman nodded. His gaze flitted back and forth between Kerrol and Yute.

“Did…did you tell the authorities?” Anne nodded at the window. The worst had been cleaned up, but shards stood like teeth in the frame and small fragments glittered on the floor.

“Who do you think hit Carl in the face?” Herman seemed too frightened for outrage or sarcasm, and since on a good day he was the most sarcastic person Anne had ever met, it worried her more than the window.

A shadow came up to the door, then retreated rapidly, presumably seeing Kerrol’s height at the last moment through the rippled glass.

“I’m losing you customers.” Kerrol stepped back. “Is it normal to carry a stick with you here?”

“A walking stick?” Anne asked.

“I don’t think so.”

Yute came from the shelves with a book in hand. “Remarkable!” He lifted it up. “This is a book about flying machines! Do you have one?”

Herman and Carl exchanged glances. “Another book?”

“An aeroplane,” Yute read the word carefully from the page.

“Uh.” Herman shook his head. “I wish I could afford one and had somewhere to fly away to.”

“Oh.” Yute looked a little disappointed. “How large is this city? How many people live here?”

“The town has ten thousand people, sir,” Herman spoke carefully now. “About that number.”

Anne wondered, like Herman must be, if Yute were a spy. The talk these days was always of war, of the many enemies the Fatherland had. Be vigilant, the newspapers exhorted. But surely even the least competent of enemies wouldn’t send as the agent of their espionage an albino and a giant, to ask such blatant questions.

“Three bookshops in such a place.” Yute gazed at the open book in his hands, still fascinated by the diagram of an old biplane from the World War.

“Five.” Anne couldn’t stop herself. “There were five.”

“Five!” Yute looked up. “And how far away is the library?”

“The local library is on Aspen Street, just on the other side of the bridge,” Herman said.

Yute’s white eyebrows elevated. “I meanthelibrary. The big one.”

“Which one, sir?” Herman mirrored Yute’s confusion. “There’s the scientific library at Regensburg. There’s the state library in Nuremburg, but that’s forty miles…”

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