Page 27 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely
Anything?
Sila smiles, a wicked growing thing. “Look to your heart's content, little mouse. I have no secrets from you.”
I don’t think that’s true.
“I suppose I would not know. It depends on how well you can search,” Sila says.
There is a reason I’m not a researcher.
Sila’s mouth twists in wry amusement, and there is something lighter about her. “No, I suppose you are not.”
You seem pleased.
“I look forward to finding out what you discover about me,” she says. “Give me two days to make sure everything is in order, and then we shall find your missing book.”
Two more days with a growing curse mark is better than the indefinite amount that I was facing before. It still worries me. Going into the Heart of the Library worries me too. Only Librarians can enter the Heart, nestled in the depths of the Library. Rarely did they take anyone else with them, because rarely did anyone else walk out again.
I will need to trust our bargain, if not her. Maybe I can find evidence of that trust hidden in her things, though. Find some reassurance that I have not made a terrible deal with some kind of horrific demonic presence from deep within the Library.
“Lorel?” Sila’s fingers caress my jaw, tipping my head up to see her. She pushes my glasses back into place. “I mean what I say— do not leave this room.”
I wet my lips, remember I can’t speak, and nod. Sila’s eyes track every movement.
“Good,” she says, and as she steps back, the shadows reach out and swallow her whole.
Surely others notice her walk through the shadows, or arrive without using a door. Though perhaps they simply do not care to notice. It may not be worth noticing.
It leaves me standing in her rooms, alone and surrounded by books and scrolls and boxes and papers. I stare at the door. Icouldleave, but I doubt I would get far. And really, where wouldI go? To deliver myself to the Lightkeepers? To try and hide in the Glade? There is nowhere that Sila won’t find me.
Somehow, it is a comforting thought.
I turn my attention to the room. Some books are coated so thick with dust that I can’t begin to comprehend how long they might have sat here. My hands come away covered in it. Had they been here since the previous occupant? I circle Sila’s desk that sits in pride of place amongst it all, as if I am trying to sneak up on it. It feels almost too personal to approach it. Too intimate to rifle through it.
I have no doubt that Sila has already been through mine. There wouldn’t have been much of interest there, though. Just some embarrassing sketches and attempts at painting I’d likely forgotten to throw away. My heart aches a little, and it’s silly, but I miss my paints. Miss my desk. Miss the scriptorium, even.
But this isn’t the time for melancholy. I have permission to dig through a Librarian’s things, and I won’t let the opportunity pass me by. Some of the piles are as tall as I am, though I suppose that isn’t a problem for Sila. I wiggle my way through and collapse into the chair. It’s unexpectedly comfortable. I pass an eye over the stacks within arm’s reach— well, my arm’s reach— and then turn my attention to the desk.
It has a dark red leather top, worn thin in places, but cared for, suggesting that she mustsometimesclear the desk. There are two drawers on either side under it, neither of them locked. A stand with a book open, and small stacks and piles balancing precariously on the edges. And in the middle of it all, a research journal in what must be Sila’s hand. Never mind what it is she writes of, the script she writes with isarchaic.
The Library contains almost two thousand years of our history, since the first sacrifice and the Dawn King’s ascension. Tastes in handwriting and illuminating came and went, and a keen eye could date a piece based on those features alone. Elris’work builds on the style of his master, Illuminator Valen, but it is still distinct. And in the centuries that come after, it will anchor it in this time and place, because what came before and what comes after will forever be changing.
There is a current trending style, adopted some years back by newer scribes after an old manuscript had surfaced for copying and everyone had thought it beautiful. It had been truly, properly ancient. Dry and cracked and brittle. The preservation had taken three teams of scribes weeks of cleaning and copying. That manuscript is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to Sila’s hand, and even then, the connection feels weak.
Those of fae blood, as most in the Citadel were, could live for a few centuries if they were lucky. Sila would have to be older by far for a script like this to come naturally to her. Older than that manuscript that had seemed so ancient.
I rub my fingers together, feel the dust caked to them. Not dust from a previous Librarian, but from Sila’s neglect over decades, maybe even centuries. She had told me she was a true fae, and I had not believed her.
I am a fool.
I had been raised to believe there was no true fae left, except for his majesty, the Dawn King. Benevolent ruler of us all. But I am also a scribe, and I know how histories can be written anew at any time. How stories can twist a lie into truth.
I brush my fingers lightly over the journal pages, the paper fine under my fingertips. The words looping and swirling across the page, almost illegible. I look at the closest stack to me, at the spines and begin to notice a pattern, and a familiar hand
These are not library books. These are centuries of Sila’s journals.
Chapter 15
Lorel
