Page 14 of The Deadliest Candidate

Wanting this wasn’t a career goal or a distant dream; it was the destination she had journeyed towards her entire life.

Fern shook her head. She had not come this far, after so long, having given up so much, to let strange coincidences and ominous words shake her resolve. Carthane was the greatest repository of arcane knowledge in the world, knowledge many sought to use for their own ends, to further their own dark ambitions.

Books should never be weapons; Fern believed that deep in her mind and heart. What nobler goal was there but to safeguard books?

No, Fern knew her purpose. She had known it for a long time, and she had never strayed from her path before. She would not do so now.

“Courage, Inkwell,” she murmured to the silent black shadow in her wicker basket. “All will be well.”

And with those words, Fern set off on the path up towards Carthane.

Dusk fell around Fernas she ascended the path towards the cliff’s crest. Bloated clouds hung low over the pitch-black sea, and above it, the sky grew in turn green, then blue, then a deep purple pinpricked with stars. A thick, cold mist rose from the sea, crawling at Fern’s feet and shrouding the moorland of tufted heather and cotton grass.

The path led Fern all the way up through the cliffs, past jagged rocks and twisted trees, until it finally came to an abrupt end at the foot of a colossal gate of wrought iron. Rain had started falling shortly after Fern began her ascent, and by the time she reached the gate, it had soaked right through her coat, dripping from her hair and running down her cheeks like tears.

At the side of the gate was a single lamp post, the gas beak casting a faint circle of trembling light. In that wavering circle stood a tall figure, partly hidden beneath the edges of a large umbrella.

Fern glanced at the figure with a frown. Ought she greet them? Professional courtesy would dictate so. But the stranger did not seem to notice her, so she trudged up to the gate and reached for the bell rope.

“Someone’s already on the way.”

Fern dropped her hand and turned.

The black umbrella had tilted back, revealing a young man in a large overcoat. Though his face was youthful and pleasing, he had a weary look about him: paper-white skin and shadows beneath his eyes. His black hair was cut short, choppy strands falling over his forehead like pitch on snow.

He held a cigarette in one hand, which Fern glanced at with distaste.

“Thank you,” she said.

The young man nodded, and to Fern’s surprise, he slightly extended his umbrella. Unwilling to appear rude and needlessly belligerent, Fern stepped beneath the offered shelter, only close enough so that her head and Inkwell’s basket would be safe from the rain. The young man lifted his hand to his lips, taking a deep drag of his cigarette and Fern turned slightly away to avoid his exhalation.

Wreaths of pale smoke still reached her. To her surprise, it was not tobacco she smelt, but something sweet and dark, like liquorice.

Fern and the paper-skinnedyoung man remained silent for a while, but Fern’s mind was working restlessly. Hewas one of her fellow candidates, he must be, but which one? It was impossible to guess his career from his countenance. He might have been the professor of Arcane Arts from Druszke, or one of the alchemists from the Poison Tower of Santa Velia. There was no way to tell.

The only certain conclusion Fern could come to was that he was reserved and weary. Young, too, she guessed several years younger than her. He must have achieved much in very few years to have made his way to Carthane so fast. Perhaps he was a prodigy of sorts, a candidate selected on the basis of raw talent rather than academia or experience. Above all, a strange intensity emanated from him, like a violin string stretched too taut.

When he spoke, which he was the first to do, Fern almost started to hear the mild, pleasant tenor of his voice.

“What is your cat named?”

Fern glanced down, following the direction of his gaze. Inkwell lay in his basket—she’d assumed he was asleep, but the cat’s green eyes, twin gibbous moons, were fixed on the young man.

“Inkwell.”

Bowing slightly, he kept the umbrella steady while peering into the cage.

“He looks very soft.”

“He prefers not to be touched,” said Fern.

A hint of a smile played on his lips, as though he had understood something different from what Fern had intended.

Turning his attention back to Inkwell, he murmured, “Hello, Inkwell,” then raised his eyes to meet Fern’s again. “Have you travelled far?”

She nodded. He was probably trying to place her just as she was trying to place him.

“New Copenhagen. Yourself?”

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