She rang the bell, waited awhile more, and then decided that wasenough. She wanted to be out of the city before dark and well on her way to anywhere else.South, she decided. It was her usual route, and she needed ordinary and predictable. Plus home was south.
Marin was unwinding the lines from the cleats on the dock when she heard the click and whir from the library lift. She retied the boat and faced the lift.
It opened with a screech, and the head librarian herself, Rijes Velk, stepped out.
Marin hadn’t seen Rijes Velk since her first rare book delivery a couple years ago, and the woman hadn’t aged or changed, even though Marin knew she had to be significantly older than Marin’s parents. The head librarian looked as regal in the rattly lift as she had in her office surrounded by mahogany shelves, brilliant paintings, and antique books. She wore a golden robe embroidered with silver thread that outlined a map of the islands, with images of sea serpents and kraken between them. An emerald scarf was wrapped around her neck, and her silver hair was woven with emerald jewels. Her onyx face was unpainted, except around her eyes, which were lined in silver.
Beside her was a wooden statue on a wheeled pallet.
It was carved from a single piece of wood, incredibly lifelike, clearly done by a master artist, though Marin knew little about sculpting. You could see the eyelashes and her fingernails. The sculptor had been able to achieve the effect of soft flesh and curled hair. A remarkable statue. And not the kind of item that Marin usually transported, but whatever. It had to be valuable if Rijes Velk was escorting it herself, which probably meant the transport fee would be commensurate.
Marin inclined her head. “An honor to see you.”
“I’m pleased you came, despite the situation.” Her voice was as elegant as Marin remembered, almost as musical as Dax’s, though his was deeper. Maybe the fine voice came from talking with nobles. Sailors and dockworkers weren’t as interested in pretty diction. It was far more important to be heard over the crash of the sea.
“What exactly is the situation?” Marin asked. “The city seems…” She cast for the right word: Unsettled? Unpleasant? Violent? In the water, Perri splashed with his fin. “Yeah, that.”
Rijes Velk glanced at the lift, but it hadn’t moved. “A revolution has begun,” she said, her voice still measured and calm. “The emperor was defenestrated at dawn.”
Marin felt as if her blood had chilled to winter seawater. She’d sailed into arevolution? She’d brought Perri into the middle of a revolution? She’d thought it was just protests. So had Dax. “How…” She shook her head. She didn’t need to know the details. “Are we safe here?”
“For now.” She looked grim. “The fighting surrounds the palace, but it will spread. The revolution has barely begun.”
“Defenestrated?” Marin repeated. “What does that mean?”
“He was thrown from a window.”
Marin tried to wrap her mind around that and failed. “I didn’t know that happened often enough for there to be a whole word for it.”
“Language is a marvelous thing,” Rijes Velk said.
She couldn’t feel sorry for the emperor himself—by all accounts, he seemed like a terrible person who didn’t care if he made everyday people’s lives worse with his whims, and she understood why the revolutionaries had done it. But her stomach clenched to think what would happen to them when the imperial forces retaliated.
Before she could ask any questions, Rijes said, “I have a request of you.”
She could guess what it was, judging by the fact that Rijes had brought a statue down with her in the lift. “You have a priceless work of art, and you want it taken somewhere safe just in case?” When the imperial forces regained control, they were going to come down hard. The violence in the wake of their retaliation could spread from the palace to the library. This place was much closer to the heart of the city than the conservatory was.
“She is—or was—a librarian, condemned for illegal spellcastingand transformed into a statue for punishment,” Rijes Velk said. “Yes, she is priceless, as all life is.”
Marin was aware her jaw was hanging open. She shut it.
“Her fate was a travesty of justice, the punishment outweighed the crime, and I do not wish to see her come to further harm. I will pay handsomely for you to transport her to the island of Belde, along with a letter for the gardener there.”
Marin knew the island of Belde. It was one of the southern outer islands, sparsely populated, and part of her usual route, as Rijes Velk knew. Population exactly one, a reclusive gardener who oversaw a supposedly enchanted greenhouse. She’d met him when he’d raised the flag on his dock to request supplies. Ever since that initial meeting, he raised the flag and left payment in a box at the end of the dock, with the understanding she’d repeat the order. She tried to pass by at least once a month to deliver his regular supplies, despite the distant location. “Is it a crime to transport her?”
Rijes’s lips quirked. “It is not. Her sentencing did not specify a location for her punishment.”
There was more to this request, she could tell. The head librarian of the Great Library of Alyssium did not come alone to negotiate a delivery with a supply runner. Marin kept her expression carefully blank and waited for the librarian to say more.
“You have proven to be reliable and discreet,” Rijes said. “As part of our agreement, I require you to tell no one of this delivery.”
“It won’t get me thrown in jail, though,” she pressed. She couldn’t pay off her parents’ debt from inside a cell. As much as she respected the head librarian, she had her priorities. Her parents’ well-being always came first.
Rijes hesitated, which made Marin respect her more. It would have been easy to lie. “There is a revolution in progress. I cannot predict what will come of it, what justice will exist when the dust settles. If you do this, know that you will be saving a life.”
Marin looked at the wood statue.Not much of a life.She wondered if the librarian was alert and aware within her wood casing,and Marin shuddered. Imagine how horrific it would be if she could see and hear but not move, speak, or even blink. “Is there a way to help her? To turn her back?”
For the first time, Rijes smiled, as if Marin had said exactly what she wanted to hear. “Give this letter to the gardener of Belde.” She handed her a paper sealed with wax, as well as a pouch that jangled like it held coins.
