A maelstrom of stifled wails and whispers uncoiled from the rafters, springing back and forth.
I’m sorry, Roy thought, his throat thick with tears, but he couldn’t conceive of any other way to help the Governor see Northgard’s situation from the eyes of the old world. The souls imprisoned in the Basilica might not live on, if this was what living after death was, but Roy longed to see Northgard free of disorder. Perhaps then, he could find a place for himself—he might at least have the right to argue his case to the other scholars—but now, the dream of belonging seemed worlds away. Instead, he could only see the nightmare of what the decimation of the Orphic Basilica would render and how it would mark him as a traitor, a heretic.
Better it be my nightmare than a whole country’s.
At least, that was what he needed to tell himself in this moment.
As though in the same predicament, Percival looked deeply into Roy’s eyes, asking him something.
Not a word needed to be said. Roy heard the question clearly:Do you want the library to live or Northgard?
OrBriar?
The answer was simple. A community was its people, and people were always the answer. If he had a chance to save as many as he could at the cost of these stones, these spirits, these books, and all the mysteries waiting to be solved within them, then he would take it.
Now Roy only had to wait for that very opportunity.
23
It was a week later—on the first week of their thirdmonth in the Orphic Basilica, a fortnight later than they’d expected their next delivery of supplies to appear—that a commotion came from below.
Roy trudged to the balcony, his head spinning from the excessive amount of cramming he’d accomplished in the past few hours. There, he looked down and immediately picked out the source of the ruckus.
A churning, frantic crowd of ghosts was assembled before the front entrance on the first floor. They were shoving against the double doors, which jostled and jumped in their frames, and piling atop one another like shadows crawling up the walls. Screams and groans sounded through the library, echoing. The ghosts wandering the upper floors floated toward the scene, drawn to the uproar.
Far beneath the clamor and the droning moans, Roy made out a rhythmic pounding. It grew louder and louder, more distinct by the second. He thought the ghosts were rattling the doors, that they were forbidding Roy and Percival from leaving, for some reason, and so it didn’t occur to Roy until then that someone was outside.
Roy remembered the first time he’d heard that sound, thinking it was the Governor and instead finding Tessa at the library’s threshold. He didn’t think that luck would be on his side now.
Roy and Percival left the fifth floor and strode down to the first, each of their footsteps loud as a judge’s gavel. They couldn’t stall, couldn’t even demonstrate their paltry strength; anything less than absolute submission would be misconstrued by the Governor as an act of treason, a breaching of the rules he’d laid before Roy’s feet over three months ago.
No, Roy thought.We have a chance.
It was slim at best, but they had discussed at length what they would say to the Governor. That didn’t stop him from feeling sick in the stomach, though.
Percival rushed up to the heaving multitude of ghosts swarming before the front doors and flapped his arms. “Go!Leave!” he yelled. “You’re not helping us! If the Governor is out there, then we need to answer him!”
Some moved, as if startled by his approach, but they glided right back, hissing and groaning at him. Two or three of the ghosts merged together, fusing, and created a looming shield of translucent darkness, which solidified the closer Percival got to the door.
They’re not intimidated by us, Roy thought.They saw the minimal damage we did in the crypt, and so they don’t fear we can do anything more to them.
What are they afraid of, then?
“If these are ghosts of scholars,” he mused, wandering around and scanning the hall until his eyes alighted on something he might use, “and they linger in the limbo of this library, then the most precious thing to them would be... the books.” He strode toward a wall with purpose. “And what do books hate?”
He pulled a torch out of its sconce.
“Fire.”
He turned back to the front doors, tightened his grip on the torch and then pitched it head-over-end at the ghosts.
The effect was immediate. They spread outward, dodging the unlit torch and uttering shrill, horrified screams. About twenty or thirty of the ghosts stared at him for a moment, red eyes brightening with panic and disorientation, then swirled through the air and retreated to the floors from which they’d come. Others zipped back and forth like streaks of ink, painting tracks of darkness across the carpet and trailing ribbons of crimson light. Then they scurried off, joining their companions in hibernation.
Percival watched the exodus, in turns fascinated and ashamed. “They remember,” he whispered. “They remember what happened here.”
“Yes,” Roy said. “But what was once war may bring peace. Or war again.”
Gulping, Percival reached forward and pulled open the door, letting in a gale of cold, howling wind.
