The Cartographers(68)

“I work at a good company, helping create technology that will make people’s lives better,” he retorted. “I’m bringing mapmaking into the future. I respect cartography. You’re the one who’s sold out by making knockoff trash at Classic for people who want a cheap piece of shit to hang over their fireplace so they look cultured!”

The air between them hung silent for several seconds as they both stared at each other, stunned. Guests toasted and admired the hanging collection all around the lobby, oblivious.

Finally, a weak laugh escaped from Nell’s throat. Her eyes stung. “Well, now that I know how you really feel . . .”

She watched him crumple before her. His eyes closed, and his hand found the bridge of his nose and pinched, the way it always did when he was ashamed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“Of course you did,” she said. She blinked rapidly, refusing to cry. Her lips tried to smile—she would not let him know how much he’d hurt her.

“Nell, please. That was wrong. It’s not your fault this whole industry was so stupidly terrified of your father. I’m just so, so tired of—”

“No, you were right. We clearly shouldn’t work together, so we won’t. Good luck at your amazing, respectable job. I can do this on my own, like I should have in the first place,” she said fiercely.

“Nell—”

She turned and ran through the crowd.



She didn’t know where she was going. Only that she had to keep moving, as fast as she could. Her eyes were filling with tears, and more than once she bumped into another shoulder far too hard as she hurried, too upset to call out a proper apology. Champagne sloshed, close to spilling out of delicate flutes, and people gasped, but she didn’t slow. A hot splash on her cheek from her eyes startled her—and drove her on even faster.

“Nell!” Behind her, she could hear Francis’s panicked voice calling for her. She cut left, around a cluster of guests making a toast, and nearly ran into Swann.

“Oh! My dear, what’s wrong?” he cried, seeing her face as they nearly collided, but Nell couldn’t explain. She choked out some kind of an apology, and Swann tried to take her hand, but she was already gone, lost in the crowd again, and he couldn’t keep up.

At last, the short hallway leading to the Map Division appeared before her, beckoning. She’d thought she was running for the front of the library, for the exit, but of course she’d come here instead. The one place she’d felt safer and more at home than anywhere, once. She tumbled free of the outer ring of stragglers, her shoes clattering on the marble floor, and threw herself against the door, heaving it open and then slamming it behind her. Away from everything she’d ruined.

Her second shot with Felix. Her investigation of the map. Her chance of joining the library again.

Her life.

As the door clicked shut, Nell let out a long, shaky breath, and crumpled into the protective heap of her cardigan over her dress, wrapping it around herself as tightly as it would go. She probably looked even more small and childish than usual, but for once, she didn’t care. She wanted only to disappear into one of the pockets and never come out.

All of that searching, and she still had nothing to show for it. She still had no idea why the map was so valuable, or why her father had destroyed her life over it. Because the only explanation she’d been able to track down, Francis’s story, turned out to be the most nonsensical scam she’d ever heard.

She’d failed.

Again.

Dimly, she was aware that the music outside in the lobby had stopped, but she was too upset to care.

She didn’t know if she was more angry or more humiliated. Did everyone think she was as gullible as Francis clearly thought she was? Had she never been a good cartographer at all, and everything she thought she’d achieved until her exile had been only because she was her father’s daughter, held up by his reputation?

If you have the map, the town will appear to you, Francis had said. You can go there.

Like magic.

She sneered at the thought through her tears, disgusted.

A loud sound startled her, a shout perhaps, and Nell looked up. Someone was yelling in the lobby—many someones. Whatever had happened was causing a huge commotion. A fire? she briefly worried, but the exhibits automatically would have gone into lockdown to preserve the specimens. An accident? Francis had said that coming here was dangerous. Her heart began to beat faster.

Could it be . . .

All of a sudden, the emergency alarm began to clang.

The door to the Map Division slammed open as the room was pitched into a flashing red and white kaleidoscope of light, causing Nell to jump at the sudden glare.

“Nell!” Swann cried, rushing for her. “There you are!”

“What’s going on?” she shouted back. His eyes were wide and terrified—she had never seen him like this. Not even after the break-in. “Is someone trying to rob the library again?”

“It’s the police,” he said. He grabbed her as if to shield her from something with his own frail body. The alarms wailed, deafening. “One of the donors went looking for Irene, and they found her in her office. She’s, she’s—”

Nell thought she was going to faint.

“She’s been murdered.”

“NYPD!” a loudspeaker in the lobby blared suddenly. The squeak of so many pairs of shoes on the marble floor pierced through the moments in between the alarm’s repeating scream. “Everyone stay where you are! No one leaves this building!”