Sword and Pen (The Great Library #5)(37)

Khalila knocked on the door and waited for permission to enter. It took a moment, and the High Garda soldiers stationed at the door exchanged looks with her. “They’ve been shouting,” one reported. “It isn’t good.”

She nodded and took a deep breath. When the permission came, she opened the doors and walked inside.

Conversation stopped. The gathered ambassadors and their staffs seemed exhausted and ill at ease, and as she bowed to them respectfully, they all looked to Alvaro Santiago. The expression on every face was the same: grim.

Ambassador Santiago returned her bow. He looked ages older than he had just a day before. “Scholar Seif,” he said. “I believe we are prepared to deliver our decision to the Archivist.”

“I will send word,” she said. “Is there anything you need, sir?”

“Nothing you can provide, unfortunately. Please, take a pastry from the lavish spread that’s been provided. We have little appetite today.”

She thanked him but didn’t have any wish to eat; the atmosphere in this room felt heavy as lead. She wrote to the Archivist in her Codex and got a swift reply in Murasaki’s fast, precise writing: Bring them to me.

She led the diplomats back to the Receiving Hall.

There were only a handful of people in attendance—the newly formed Curia made up of the Scholars Magni of Artifex Medica, Lingua, and Litterae, supported by a contingent of senior librarians. The Obscurist Magnus, Eskander, had already accepted his post and returned to the Iron Tower, so his place sat empty. Except for the Curia and the standing company of High Garda, the hall itself was cool and vacant. If anything, Khalila thought, it only made the space more intimidating.

The Archivist mounted the steps to her chair and nodded toward the diplomats. If she was tired or stressed, Khalila could see no sign of it. “Ambassadors,” she said, and the words carried to every corner of the hall. “I hope that you have had a productive evening.”

Khalila felt the mood shifting in the room like shadows, though there was no visible change on the Archivist’s face. Her expression remained neutral. Waiting.

Ambassador Santiago stepped forward and bowed. The bow lingered until the Archivist gestured for him to straighten. “Honored Archivist, I have the privilege of having been once again chosen to speak for the group. We have spent many hours in debate and conversation regarding your proposals, and we are now prepared to render to you our combined answer.” The pause felt torturous. “I must inform you that the assembled nations you see before you will not withdraw. You must face facts. You are new to power; you have enemies inside your city, and you must rely on allies to help you secure your position and protect the incalculable value of the Great Library to the world. There is simply no other choice. If you would preserve this great institution, you must allow us to help.”

The Archivist let the boldness of that reply fall into a deep, waiting silence, and once it had taken hold, she said, “Allies do not force themselves on those unwilling. I believe that you come not as allies of the Great Library, but as shadow conquerors.”

“Honored Archivist—”

“No,” she said, and stood up with a rustle of glistening robes. “I have been patient. I allowed you time to deliberate. The Great Library has provided you with shelter and hospitality. But now you must go. Within the hour, you must be out of this city. Turn your fleets, Ambassadors. Turn them home. Or we will bring power to bear you cannot imagine.”

Santiago didn’t look at the others, which told Khalila how confident he was of the consolidation of opinion. “You’re choosing a war that will cost us all dearly, Archivist. Better to make a peace you don’t like than see your city burn.”

“The moment the Great Library relies on foreign armies to defend it is the day it dies. I do not intend to serve as the last Archivist of this great city.”

He held the stare of the Archivist and then slowly inclined his head. “Then let it be so,” he said. “We will withdraw. The next time we speak, I hope that it will be to discuss peace.”

“I hope that you survive to discuss it at all,” she said. “Go. The High Garda will see you back to your ships.”

It seemed too fast to Khalila; surely war could not be declared so quickly, with so few words. But the Ambassadors bowed, and then they were leaving, and she advanced to the foot of the throne to look up at the Archivist.

“May the ancient gods help us today,” Murasaki said. “All of us.” She caught herself and looked at Khalila. “Scholar Seif, I need you to find Scholar Thomas Schreiber and tell him to set things in motion. Immediately.”

“At once, Archivist.”



* * *



—

Finding Thomas proved complicated; she traced him to the Iron Tower, then to the Lighthouse, but he wasn’t there, either. She continued to send him messages on the Codex but got nothing back, and she knew that time was running out. Out of sheer desperation, she finally went out to the terrace on the twelfth floor of the Lighthouse and looked out, as if she could possibly pick him out at this distance.

And impossible as it was, she did. That golden shock of hair, the way he stood a head taller than anyone else out on the street . . . it had to be him. She marked which direction he was going and ran down the stairs as fast as she dared, then held up her skirts to race around the point and to the harbor road where she’d seen him. By the time she arrived where she’d spotted him, she was panting and sweating in the storm-heavy air, and as she paused to take stock she felt another surge of despair. No sign of Thomas anywhere.