Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(39)

There were hundreds of volumes on heavy limestone shelves, each book encased in a climate-controlled Plexiglas case—an extravagance reserved only for the oldest volumes in the library.

Scythe Faraday began to browse. Munira thought he would ask for his privacy and tell her to leave—but instead he said, “Linger here, if you would. This place is too grand and austere to make a comfort of solitude.”

So she closed the gate, peering out to make sure there was no one there to see them, then she helped him open the tricky clear plastic case that held the volume he had retrieved from the shelf, and sat across from him at the stone table in the center of the chamber. He didn’t offer an explanation to the obvious question that hung in the air between them, so she had to ask it.

“How did you come to be here, Your Honor?” she asked.

“By plane and by ferry,” he answered with a smirk. “Tell me, Munira, why did you choose to work for the scythedom after failing your apprenticeship?”

She bristled. Was this his way of punishing her for asking a question he did not want to answer?

“I did not fail,” she told him. “There was only an opening for a single Israebian scythe at the end of my apprenticeship, and there were five candidates. So one was chosen and four were not. Being among the unchosen is not the same as failure.”

“Forgive me, I meant no insult or disrespect,” he said. “I’m merely intrigued that the disappointment did not turn your heart against the scythedom.”

“Intrigued but not surprised?”

Scythe Faraday smiled. “Few things surprise me.”

Munira shrugged, as if her unsuccessful apprenticeship three years before didn’t matter. “I valued the scythedom then, and I value it now,” she told him.

“I see,” he said, carefully turning a page in the old journal. “And how loyal are you to the system that discarded you?”

Munira clenched her jaw, not sure what answer he was fishing for—or, for that matter, what her true answer would be.

“I have a job. I do it. I take pride in it,” she said.

“As well you should.” He looked at her. Into her. Through her. “May I share with you my assessment of Munira Atrushi?” he asked.

“Do I have a choice?”

“You always have a choice,” he said, which was a half-truth if ever there was one.

“Fine. Share your assessment of me.”

He gently closed the old journal, and gave her his full attention. “You hate the scythedom as much as you love it,” he told her. “Because of that, you wish to become indispensable to it. You hope that, in time, you will become the world’s greatest authority on the journals held in this library. It would give you power over the scythedom’s entire history. ?That power would be your silent victory, because you would know that the scythedom needs you more than you need it.”

Suddenly Munira felt a slight loss of balance, as if the desert sands that had swallowed the cities of the pharaohs were shifting beneath her feet, ready to swallow her, as well. How could he see so deeply into her? How could he put words to feelings she’d never even voiced to herself? He had read her completely in a way that freed her yet ensnared her at the same time.

“I see that I am right,” he said simply. He gave her that same smile that was both warm and mischievous at once.

“What do you want, Scythe Faraday?”

And finally he told her. “I want to come here night after night until I find what I’m looking for in these old journals. And I want you to keep my identity a secret, warning me if anyone approaches while I’m doing my research. I want you to promise me that the scythedom will not be alerted to the fact that I am still alive. Can you do that for me, Munira?”

“Will you tell me what you’re looking for?” she asked.

“I can’t do that. If I did, you could be coerced into revealing it. I would not want to put you in that position.”

“Yet you would put me in the unenviable position of keeping your presence a secret.”

“There’s nothing unenviable about it,” he said. “In fact, I suspect you are deeply honored to be entrusted to keep my secret.”

Again, he was right. “I don’t like that you pretend to know me better than I know myself.”

“But I do,” he said simply. “I do, because knowing people is part of a scythe’s job.”

“Not all scythes,” she pointed out. “There are those who shoot, slice, and poison without the respect that you’ve always shown for those you glean. All they know is ending life, never caring about the lives of those they end.”

For a moment, Faraday’s well-controlled demeanor flashed a spark of anger—but it was not anger at her.

“Yes, the ‘new-order’ scythes show a glaring disregard for the solemnity of their task. It’s part of the reason why I have come here.”

Beyond that, he said no more. He just waited for her reply. The silence stretched, but it was not an awkward silence. Instead, it was heavy with import. It felt momentous, so it needed time to unfold.

It was not lost on her that there were four others who shared the position of night clerk—other students who took the part-time job . . . which meant that this time, she was the one in five who was chosen.

“I’ll keep your secret,” Munira told him. Then she left Scythe Faraday to his research, feeling as if her life finally had a worthy purpose.