“If you’re trying to set a record for time spent here,” he says without looking up from his work, “I’m pretty sure you’ve done it.”
“I was just looking for—”
“You do know,” he says, “that despite my title, this isn’t really a library, right? We don’t lend, we don’t check out, we don’t even have a reference-only reading area. These constant visits are not only tiresome, they’re unacceptable.”
“Yes, I know, but—”
“And are you not busy enough, Miss Bishop? Because last time I checked, you had”—he lifts a pad of paper from the table, flicks through several pages—“five Histories on your list.”
Five?
“You do know why you have a list, correct?”
“Yes,” I manage.
“And why it’s imperative that you clear it?”
“Of course.” There’s a reason we constantly patrol, hoping to keep the numbers down, instead of just walking away, letting the Histories pile up in the Narrows. It’s said that if enough Histories woke and got into the space between the worlds, they wouldn’t need Keepers and keys to get through. They could force the doors open. Two ways through any lock, said Da.
“Then why are you still standing in front of—”
“Roland summoned me,” I say, holding up my Archive paper.
Patrick huffs and sits back in his seat, examining me for a long moment.
“Fine,” he says, returning to his work with little more than a gesture to the doors behind him.
I round the desk, slowing to watch him write in the ancient ledger sprawled open before him, and then, barely lifting his pen, in one of a half dozen smaller books. This is the first time I’ve ever seen the desk look cluttered.
“You seem busy,” I say as I pass.
“That’s because I am,” he answers.
“Busier than usual.”
“How astute.”
“I’m busier too, Patrick. You can’t tell me five names is standard, even for the Coronado.”
He doesn’t look up. “We’re experiencing some minor technical difficulties, Miss Bishop. So sorry to inconvenience you.”
I frown. “What kind of technical difficulties?” Glitching names? Armed Histories? Boys who don’t slip?
“Minor ones,” he snaps, making it clear as day that he’s done talking.
I put the list away as I pass through the main doors in search of Roland.
Crossing into the warm light of the atrium, my spirits lift, and I feel that sense of peace Da always spoke of. The calm.
And then something crashes.
Not here in the atrium but down one of the branching halls, the metal sound of a shelf falling to the floor. Several Librarians rise from their work and hurry toward the noise, closing the doors behind them; but I stand very, very still, remembering that I am surrounded by the sleeping dead.
I hold my breath and listen. Nothing happens. The doors stay closed. No sound comes through.
And then a hand lands on my shoulder and I spin, twisting the arm back behind the body. In one fluid move, the arm and body are both gone, and somehow I’m the one being pinned, facedown, against a table.
“Easy, there,” says Roland, letting go of my wrist and shoulder.
I take a few steadying breaths and lean against the table. “Why did you summon me? Did you find something? And did you hear that crash—”
“Not here,” he murmurs, motioning toward a wing. I follow him, rubbing my arm.
The farther we get from the atrium, the older the Archive seems. Roland leads me down corridors that begin to twist and coil and shrink, laid out more like the Narrows than the stacks. The ceilings shift from arching overhead to dipping low, and the rooms themselves are smaller, cryptlike and dusty.
“What was that sound?” I ask as Roland leads the way; but he doesn’t answer, only ducks into an oddly shaped alcove and turns again under a low stone arch. The room beyond is dim, and its walls are lined with worn, dated ledgers, not Histories. It is a cramped and faded version of the chamber in which I faced my trial.
“We have a problem,” he says as soon as he’s closed the door. “I looked through that list of names you sent. Most of them didn’t tell me anything, but two of them did. Two more people died in the Coronado, both in August, both within a month of Marcus Elling. And both Histories were altered, their deaths removed.”
I sink into a low leather chair, and Roland begins to pace. He looks exhausted, the lilt in his voice growing stronger as he talks. “I didn’t find them at first because they’d been mis-shelved, the entry ledgers saying one place but the catalogs saying another. Someone didn’t want them found.”
“Who were they?”
“Eileen Herring, a woman in her seventies, and Lionel Pratt, a man in his late twenties. Both lived in the Coronado, and both lived alone, just like Elling, but that’s the only connection I can find. I can’t even be certain they died in the Coronado, but their last intact memories are of the building. Eileen leaving her apartment on the second floor. Lionel sitting on the patio, having a smoke. The moments are mundane to a fault. Nothing about them gives any indication of what caused their deaths, and yet both have been blacked out.”
“Marcus, Eileen, and Lionel died in August. But Regina was murdered in March.”
His eyes narrow. “I thought you didn’t know her name.”
The air snags in my lungs. I didn’t. Not until Owen told me. But I can’t exactly explain that I’ve been sheltering her brother.
“You’re not the only one doing research, remember? I tracked down a resident of the Coronado, Ms. Angelli, who’d heard about the murder.”
It’s not a lie, I reason. Just a manipulation.
“What else did she know?” he presses.
I shake my head, trying to keep the spin as clean as I can. “Not much. She didn’t seem eager to swap stories.”
“Does Regina have a last name?”
I hesitate. If I give it, Roland will cross-reference her with Owen, who’s notably absent. I know I should tell him about Owen—we’re already breaking rules—but there are rules and there are Rules, and while Roland has gone far enough to break the former, I don’t know how he’d handle my breaking the latter and harboring a History in the Narrows. And I’ve still got so many questions for Owen.
I shake my head. “Angelli wouldn’t say, but I’ll keep pressing.” At least that lie will buy me a little time. I try to shift the focus back to the second set of deaths.
“Five months between Regina’s murder and these three deaths, Roland. How do we even know they’re related?”
He frowns. “We don’t. But it’s a suspicious number of filing errors. At first I thought it might be a cleanup, but…”
“A cleanup?”
“Sometimes, if things go badly—if a History does commit atrocities in the Outer, and there are victims as well as witnesses—the Archive does what it can to minimize the risk of exposure.”
“Are you saying the Archive actively covers up murders?”
“Not all evidence can be buried, but most can be twisted. Bodies can be disposed of. Deaths can be made to appear natural.” I must look as appalled as I feel, because he keeps talking. “I’m not saying it’s right, Miss Bishop; I’m just saying the Archive cannot afford to have people learning about Histories. About us.”