Roy didn’t require any further incentive. He left the reading room and, not long after, discovered a hall not far from the bookshelves where he’d been chased by the shadow and found—saved, he supposed—by Percival. He wanted to look around more, but he was too tired, his mind too scattered to take in his surroundings.
Instead, Roy opened the door of the first chamber he came across, a heavy weariness pressing into his bones, and trudged toward a four-poster bed. He slipped beneath the soft satin sheets and immediately fell asleep.
A face appeared in his dreams that night. It was blurry but distinctly familiar: short gold hair, a firm mouth, and a pair of stunning hazel eyes. Stunning, yes, but deeply sad, too. Roy tried to unveil the tragedy lurking behind those eyes, like a stagehand pulling back the curtains, and yet every time he stretched out his fingers, it was always just out of his reach.
7
Roy’s spirits had lifted considerably sincethe night before.
In his chamber, which contained a chest of drawers sprawling with clothing ensembles—silk button-downs, suit vests, tweed and wool coats, blazers and overcoats—Roy decided on a long tailcoat suit adorned with floral black and scarlet embellishments, strangely tailored to his exact size. He didn’t much like the design, but the fabric was far softer than the others he’d browsed and tried on, most of which had scraped against his skin and caused him severe discomfort. It had taken him nearly a half hour of sitting on the side of his bed, his head in his hands, before his unease had worn off. Now he put back on his boots—having retrieved the one he’d left behind during his encounter with the creature—and left his chambers, ravenous for the bread, cheese, and water that the Governor’s guards had provided. The rations wouldn’t nearly fill Roy’s stomach, and studying with a hunger headache didn’t sound like a promising start to his investigation.
But when he opened the door to his chamber, there rested at his feet a silver platter covered with a glass cloche—a tiered platter of exotic fruits, dried meats, roasted almonds, fresh strips of lettuce, and a perfectly brewed cup of black tea. He consumed the meal within minutes, curious as to who’d set out the spread. It certainly couldn’t have been Percival; last night’s encounter didn’t strike Roy as a reason for Percival to gift him food. He would have asked, but Roy’s desire to explore the Orphic Basilica won out over his curiosity.
He strode out of his room and roamed about the shelves. He was shuffling from alcove to alcove, hallway to hallway, when he heard the ruffling of paper.
Roy halted. With a hand pressed to his chest, he looked around, intent on tracing the source of the noise. Perhaps it hadn’t been paper but wings. Had a bird flown in through an open window?Werethere any open windows in the Basilica?
A labyrinth of enormous bookshelves sprawled before him. Low-lying tables sat in the middle of each aisle, a lit lamp atop each of their surfaces. Every aisle seemed to tunnel farther into darkness, like the maw of a deep crypt. On the left was a black-wooded archway, which gave out onto a dimly lit reading den. Armchairs rested against the walls, similar to the alcove where Roy had spoken with the Governor, though whereas that chamber had appeared to be designed for casual reading, the den was a high-ceilinged, extensive hall, something a lecturer or professor might have used to address their students. There were two long tables in the middle of the room, overlooked high above by tall arched windows, beyond which somber gray clouds churned and rumbled.
Roy started forward, resting a shaking hand upon the archway, then immediately paused.
Percival was sitting at the end of the table on the right, close to the desktop, his back bent like a question mark. A thick tome lay open before him, along with a brown leather notebook, in which he was recording his thoughts with his left hand. The index finger of his right hand trailed across the reference book, his eyes darting back and forth with intense focus and heightening rapidity.
Roy was spellbound, ensnared by a voyeuristic compulsion to watch Percival, to bear witness as he poised on the brink of discovery and sat back, satisfied, complete. Roy had felt this rush of fulfillment many times before, but for him, there was no reprieve, no breaks or lapse, no bursts of motivation. His brain operated on clockwork consistency, attuned to his constant need for self-approval. There was no one else, after all, from whom he could receive support, no one else to whom he could recite his findings. Maybe Percival shared this same sentiment. It would have made sense, then, why he’d refused Roy’s cooperation. Maybe he’d assumed Roy couldn’t match his stride and had opted, as Roy had for many years, to work in solitude, the Governor’s directives notwithstanding.
Percival bit into his lower lip. He dipped his quill into the half-empty inkwell sitting beside his notebook. With a frustrated sigh, he resumed his studies, a glaze of concentration forming over his eyes.
Roy knew their first meeting hadn’t gone spectacularly—far from it—but his circumstances were too good to resist. He could make a connection in his field of study, a link stronger than the correspondents he’d kept in contact with over the years. Perhaps the world would always live in shameless ignorance; he couldn’t change that. But he was positive two like-minded scholars were better than one, especially with a task as enormous as this.
Nodding to himself, Roy straightened his spine and knocked on the archway.
Percival didn’t lift his head. He didn’t even blink, so engrossed was he in his work.
Roy crossed the threshold and wandered over to Percival’s side. Once he was standing a few armchairs away, he asked, “Are you still reading Razkamun?”
Percival jolted. His hand lurched to the side, scrawling a jagged line of ink across the page of his notebook and knocking the side of his inkwell. A blot of midnight liquid splashed onto the tabletop, then spread out like crawling rivulets of black blood. The reference book lay unharmed. Percival sat upright, his finger quivering on the opened page.
“You fuckingimbecile,” he spat. His voice was pronounced and full of inflection. He quickly set the inkwell upright before he could lose any more of its contents. “Damn lunatic.”
Roy stared, frozen, his cheeks warming from the unswerving weight of Percival’s scrutiny. He shook himself from his reverie, then leaned forward and wiped away the spilled ink with the corner of his suit. He moved closer to reach a puddle that had gathered near Percival’s notebook, but Percival clasped his wrist, digging the pads of his fingers into Roy’s bones.
Clenching his jaw, Roy tried to wrench his wrist out of Percival’s hold, but Percival tightened his grip with a warning shake of his head, as if to ensure that Roy didn’t misinterpret the gesture. “Don’t,” he said. “You’ve gone far enough.” There was a rugged edge to his voice, and now that Roy was looking at him directly, he saw why. Deep mauve shadows encircled Percival’s foggy eyes, his irises were surrounded by thin veins of blood, and his fair skin was sallow beneath the weak sunlight. Had he even slept since their chance encounter the night before?
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Roy said. He cleared his throat. “I was only looking around, but then I heard a noise—”
“If I wanted to hear about your morose, banal life, Dawnseve, I would’ve asked you to write it down so I could read it at my leisure. Now stop your prattling and leave before I spill this ink over your empty head.”
Roy gaped. He searched Percival’s expression for a shred of amusement, to no avail. Other than Roy interrupting Percival last night—and it still felt like a stretch that his horror was truly an interruption—there seemed no reason for his mood. And yet that was all moot to the larger issue: that they were meant to work together. Had the Governor planned for this clash of opinions? Pitted them head-to-head in a battle of wills? It would be a swift waste of six months, though, and Roy couldn’t see why the Governor would hinge this task on the shoulders of two men possessing opposite comportments. Roy was certain he would not risk his city on a lark.
“I told you,” Roy said to Percival, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“And I toldyouto leave me be. You must be experiencing either a bout of idiocy or incomprehension, though judging by how I found you yesterday, I’d guess the former. Shall I show you the door?”
Roy massaged his temples, then blew out an irritated breath. “I know where the door is, I am not an idiot, and I amquitecapable of listening to instructions—”
“By the love and mercy of—”
“But I appreciate your concern. I just wanted to find where the noise came from.” Roy made his voice stern. “That was all.”
