Page 13 of The Deadliest Candidate

It pained Fern to return to the inn without any answers, but what choice did she have?

Fern’s mind was constructed so that every question felt to her as though it must be answered, like a fire that must be put out if she did not wish it to burn her. But this one, it would seem, must remain unextinguished, searing away at the edges of her mind.

Even an ostary of the Reformed Vatican couldn’t solve this mystery—what chance didshestand?

And yet something small and irksome nibbled at her thoughts. Did the villagers of East Hemwick know more than they let on? Perhaps, like her, they could not ignore the coincidental timing of Carthane hiring a new Grand Archivist, the arrival of the candidates, and the dead body from the sea. How could those things not be connected?

But of course, it was the nature of the human mind to form patterns out of chaos. Sometimes, chaos was only chaos.

When Fern got backto the inn, after a long walk on the seastrand and a gloomy dinner in a small pub near the train station, she found Addie at the bar, scratching at her accounts book with a dry pen.

Addie looked up, and her greeting was blunt.

“You’re back. Found the answers to all your questions, have you?”

Fern walked up to the bar, and her reply was just as blunt.

“Do you think the murderer is one of us?”

Addie gave a short harsh laugh. “What does it matter? The Library has struck its fist. The ostary will return to its marble monastery, the constable back to his desk, and you and your ilk have been summoned. Better make haste, Miss Sullivan. This job of yours, it would seem, is worth dying for.”

And this, Fern thought,is how rumours are born. Addie’s words were the beat of the butterfly’s wings thatmeant somewhere in New Copenhagen, someone as clever and wise as Oscar could be caught in a hurricane of rumours. It would not surprise Fern if Addie were paid to say such things to strangers. Wasn’t that the surest way to keep interlopers at bay? A battlement not of stone and mortar but of lies and fear.

“Perhaps it’s not the job that’s worth dying for,” Fern answered solemnly, “but the pursuit of knowledge.”

Addie’s sharp eyes shone with amusement. “I think you mean the pursuit of power, my girl.”

“Ambition and curiosity are two very different things.”

“Not so different as you imagine. Both of them brought you here, after all.”

Despite the harshness of her words, there was no unkindness in Addie’s voice. The boy came downstairs, carrying Fern’s suitcase and Inkwell’s wicker carrier, and Addie herself walked Fern out.

“It’s not too late to turn back,” she said, opening the door for Fern.

“I have no wish to turn back.”

“No,” said Addie. “None of you ever do.”

Chapter seven

The Gate

A sign right outsidethe village indicated the direction of Carthane. It was needless; Carthane could be seen from so far away that even during her train journey, Fern had spotted it long before East Hemwick was even a shadow on the horizon.

A colossal monument of ancient stone perched high upon the cliffs, Carthane crouched at the end of the world like a megafaunal creature of forgotten times. A single narrow path of pebbled dirt led from the village up to the library, a clear message that this was a place unused to visitors.

Fern stood by the signpost of faded wood and stared up at the jutting silhouette of Carthane’s roofs and spires, clutching her suitcase so hard her hand ached. She felt so certain about her wish to come back to Carthane; she could hardly believe the effect Addie’s words had on her. But she could not deny the ripple of uncertainty now marring her conviction, making her hesitate where she should firmly tread.

Most of her early childhood memories of Carthane were intimate visions: a kitchen fireside, a small cot in a narrow bedroom, fat candles on a bronze plate, a cluttered garden shed, long, shadowy corridors promising mystery and adventure, the warmth of a male voice reading a story.

But Carthane now—as she saw it from the foot of the cliffs—seemed far from intimate.

It seemed remote, menacing, alien.

In ten years of working her way through university, through dedicated research and a distinguished career, curating her application for a role at Carthane until it was as perfect as she could make it, Fern had never once questioned herself. Carthane was the pinnacle of a librarian’s career, the only place in the world where Fern would be able to continue her research. Every road led her here.

Fern had never questioned this, not when she received her invitation, not when she handed in her resignation for a post she loved in a place she cherished, not when she left behind her friends, her colleagues and neighbours, her cosy apartment in New Copenhagen.

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