“The Building of Risen,” Vi mumbled, selecting the book from the shelf. She set it down on a stack she had already collected, then pulled two more. The Larks had said they recorded all knowledge, so surely, somewhere in this vast labyrinth, there was something on the construction of the archives.
She continued flipping, searching, ignoring the growling in her stomach and Larks moving in and out of the Archives. Vi scanned pages on pages of blueprints until she began to find ones that matched the structure she recognized around her. To a layman, the sketched cross-sections would be difficult to line up. But for Vi, the whole building was slowly rebuilt in her mind’s eye.
Her focused stayed on the uppermost portions of the buildings, no matter how fascinating the rest of its construction was. The triangular buildings that stretched out from the central spire were a web of bridges and passageways. The foundation of the building was a feat of engineering—brilliant minds had outdone themselves here. There was more than enough substance for her to be engrossed for months.
Vi’s attention drifted upward to the flame. She didn’t have months; she had days, weeks at best. Tracing the lines in the book with her index finger, Vi could clearly see the layout of the uppermost portions of the archives—much simpler than the rest. Away from the outer buildings and their connecting bridges, it was only the hollow column of the inner archives, and whatever the architects had hidden in the walls.
Sure enough, just as Taavin had said, within the walls behind the bookcases were passages that swirled and crossed over each other.
“Where’s an entrance?” Vi murmured. She suspected one of the bookshelves was false—it wouldn’t be the first such trick door she’d seen. But she couldn’t find any indication of a hidden doorway in the blueprints.
Not wanting to give up on the theory, Vi went up to the landing and paced one, two, three times, running her hands along the bookshelves.
They didn’t yield their secrets.
She retreated back to her perch and her books. There was a way to Taavin from up there, but it may not be the only way. As Vi searched for alternate routes, she kept an eye out for Ulvarth—though there was no sign of him. He had been gone for a long time—long enough that suspicion frayed the edges of Vi’s concentration. The only good thing about his absence was that she could search in peace.
Closing each of the books, Vi tried to place them exactly as she’d found them on the shelves, giving no indication what she’d been looking for. She returned the way she’d came.
Vi stopped at the entrance to the walkway that soared atop a giant archway to the Lark’s halls. There was no one in sight—hadn’t been for hours. Still, she waited for Ulvarth, waited for someone to show up. She waited long enough that the sun began to dip, changing the light that streamed through the glass ceiling of the walkway from gold to a deep amber.
“Very well then.” Vi lifted a hand, Taavin’s voice echoing in her mind. “Uncose.”
Nothing. No magic sparked. No glyph came to life underneath her fingertips. It was just as Taavin suspected, though Vi didn’t regret trying. With the merest flash of disappointment, she proceeded with the manual route.
Rapping her fingers along the side of the bookcase that met with the stone of the outer wall of the Archives, Vi listened closely. Her first couple taps sounded dull, with little reverberations. The fifth rang hollow.
Vi looked up the wide panel of wood. At about chest height, there was a thin line in its surface—one she’d overlooked at first—and another a short distance away. Vi pushed in a few different places before the panel popped loose and swung open. She hoisted herself into the narrow tunnel, closing the door behind her with a fraying leather strap on the inside.
It had been some time since anyone had come this way, if the cobwebs and bug carcasses were any indication.
Vi trudged on, determined, until the tunnel opened up into a proper secret passage. Working to rebuild the Archives in her mind as she walked, Vi wound upward once more from the inside. She kept a low flame over her shoulder, just enough to see by, though she extinguished it the moment she heard voices.
“You will tell me its secrets, and hers,” Ulvarth rasped, as though struggling to keep his voice quiet. Vi crouched low in the darkness, closing her eyes and trying to imagine how high up she was.
Second walkway from the top? Maybe?
“Don’t think I will let you see her unsupervised,” he snarled. Taavin, for his part, remained worryingly silent. “You will not make a fool of me again. You are mine.”
A door slammed so hard that Vi could almost feel the stones of the archives rattling. There was the sound of metal sliding against metal, followed by heavy footsteps. She held her breath, creeping on hands and knees upward—just a little farther.
A glow stone cast eerie light on the inner wall. She stopped, flattening herself on the ground. Ulvarth stomped across the narrow hall, oblivious to her presence. Vi couldn’t see what he was doing, but she could hear him fumbling with something, footsteps on the other side of her, and… silence.
Vi kept a hand over her mouth, trying not to breathe. Her fingers trembled. Not from fear, but from loathing she didn’t know if she had ever felt so strongly before. She pushed herself off the ground and continued upward to a four-way intersection. Directly ahead, the passage sloped down into the darkness. At her left was a ladder and at her right, a short ramp up to a flat wooden surface.
That was when it hit her.
Each of the landings in the Archives was in the shape of a right triangle, jutting out into the hollow center. The walkway was flat and formed a right angle with the wall, but the hypotenuse sloped down and away. Initially, Vi had thought it merely an aesthetic choice. Now, she realized otherwise.
The passage to Taavin wasn’t in the bookcases. It was in the floor. Casters invisible to the naked eye slid a trap door underneath the bookcases she’d been looping around, looking for one such secret passage when it had been right under her nose the whole time.
Cursing herself, Vi turned away from the ramp and toward the final option at the intersection—a ladder upward.
The passage narrowed slightly as she climbed, and Vi imagined herself in one of the columns above the bookcases—fire from the Flame of Yargen billowing out on either side. Farther on, a faint ambient light glowed.
Stepping off the ladder and onto a small landing, Vi found the source of the light—or at least, the heavy door around which wisps of light managed to escape past the heavy latch and lock tightly on the outside. Sandalwood incense curled through the door jamb.
Vi swallowed, working to get rid of the lump trying to form in her throat.
