“Miss Bishop?” he says without looking up. “You should be in bed.” His voice is soft, but even at a whisper I can hear the lilt in it. He closes the folder before turning toward me. His gray eyes travel over my face, and his brow furrows.
“Still not sleeping?”
I shrug. “Maybe I just wanted to tell you about my first day of school.”
He hugs the folder to his chest. “How was it? Learn anything useful?”
“I learned that Wesley Ayers goes there, too.”
A raised brow. “I assumed you already knew that.”
“Yeah, well…” I say, trailing off into a yawn.
“How long has it been, Mackenzie?”
“Since what?”
“Since you slept,” he says, looking at me hard. “Really slept.”
I run a hand through my hair and tally up the time since the rogue History of a deceased Crew member tricked me into trusting him, stole my key, threw me into a Returns room, stabbed Wesley, tried to kill me, and nearly succeeded (with a Librarian’s help) in tearing the entire branch of the Archive down. “Three weeks, two days, and six hours.”
“Since Owen,” says Roland.
I nod and echo, “Since Owen.”
“It’s showing.”
I cringe. I’m trying so hard, but I know he’s right. And if he can see it, Agatha could, too.
My head starts to hurt.
Roland cranes his neck, looking up at the stained glass that interrupts the highest part of the walls and trails like smoke onto the ceiling. The Archive is always bright, lit by some unseen source, but the shifting light beyond the windows is an illusion, a way to suggest change in a static world. Right now, the windows are dark, and I wonder if Roland sees something in them I don’t, because when his eyes sink back to mine he says, “We have some time.”
“For what?” I ask, but he’s already walking away.
“Follow me.”
EIGHT
I’M THIRTEEN, covered in blood, and sitting cross-legged on a table in a sterile room. I’ve been a Keeper for less than six months, and this isn’t the first time I’ve landed in the medical wing of the Archive. Roland stands out of the way, arms crossed over his chest while Patrick prepares a cold pack.
“He was twice my size,” I say, clutching a bloody cloth to my nose.
“Isn’t everyone?” asks Patrick. He’s only been at the branch a couple weeks. He doesn’t like me very much.
“You’re not helping,” says Roland.
“I thought that’s exactly what I was doing,” snaps Patrick. “Helping. You called in a favor, and here I am, patching up your little pet project off the books.”
I murmur something unkind behind the cloth, one of the many phrases I picked up from Da. Patrick doesn’t hear it, but Roland must, because he raises a brow.
“Miss Bishop,” he says, addressing Patrick, “is one of our most promising Keepers. She wouldn’t be here if the council had not voted her through.”
Patrick gives Roland a weighted look. “Did they vote her through, or did you?”
Roland’s gray eyes narrow a fraction. “I would remind you who you’re speaking to.”
Patrick lets off a short sigh like steam and turns his attention back to me, pulling the cloth from my grip to examine the damage over his glasses. It hurts like hell, but I try not to let it show as he presses the cold pack against my face and repositions my hand over it.
“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” he says, peeling off a pair of plastic gloves.
Roland winks. “Our girl, she’s made of steel.”
I smile a little behind the cold pack. I like the idea of that. Being a girl of steel.
“Hardheaded,” says Patrick. “Keep it iced and try not to get punched in the face again.”
“I’ll do my best,” I say, the words muffled by the cold pack. “But it’s so much fun.”
Roland chuckles. Patrick packs up his things and leaves, muttering something that sounds like useless under his breath. I watch him go.
“You threw your arms up when the History took a swing at you,” says Roland casually. “Is that what happened?”
I look down and nod. I should have known better. Da taught me better, but it was like two different lessons, in practice and in truth, and I wasn’t ready. Da said the right moves have to be like reflex, not just learned but known, and now I see why. There was no time to think, only act. React. My arms came up and the History’s fist hit them and they hit me. Heat spreads across my cheeks, even under the cold pack.
“Hop down,” he says, uncrossing his arms. “And show me what you did.”
I get off the table and set the cold pack aside. Roland throws a punch, slow as syrup, and I bring my arms up, crossed at the wrists. His fist comes to rest lightly against them, and he considers me over my raised hands.
“There is no right pose to strike, no position to take. The worst thing you can do in a fight is stop moving. When someone attacks, they create force, movement, momentum, but you’ll be okay as long as you can see and feel the direction of that force and travel with it.” He puts some weight behind his fist, shifting to one side as he leans forward. I let myself shift to the same side and back, and his fist slides away. He nods. “There we go. Now, better get that ice back on your face.”
Steps echo in the hall beyond the room, and Roland’s gray eyes flick to the door.
“I should go,” I say, taking the cold pack with me. But when I get to the door, I hesitate. “Do you regret it?” I ask. “Voting me through?”
Roland folds his arms across his chest. “Not at all,” he says with a smile. “You make things infinitely more interesting.”
“Where are we going?” I ask under my breath. Roland doesn’t answer, only leads me out of the aisle and down the sixth hall that branches off the atrium. The Archive is a network of mismatched spaces, branching and intersecting in a system only the Librarians seem able to comprehend. Every time I follow someone through the maze, I struggle to keep hold of my bearings as I count the turns. But tonight, instead of guiding me on a winding path across landings, down corridors, through rooms, Roland goes straight, straight to the very end of the very long hall and through a smaller set of doors set into the end.
We end up in another hallway, one much shorter, narrower, and dimly lit. He hesitates, glancing around to see and hear if we’re alone.
“Where are we?” I ask when it’s clear that we are.
“Librarians’ quarters,” he answers before setting off again. Halfway down the hall, he reaches a simple dark-paneled door and stops. “Here we go.”
The door opens into a cozy room with pale striped walls, sparsely furnished with a daybed, a low-backed leather chair, and a table. Classical music whispers from a device on the wall, and Roland moves through the small space with the comfort of someone who knows every inch of it.
He crosses to the table and absently drops the folder he’s been carrying into a drawer before pulling something shiny from his pocket. He runs his thumb over the surface once before setting it on top of the table. The gesture is at once worn and gentle, reverent. When he pulls his hand away, I see that the object is a silver pocket watch. It’s old, and I can’t keep my pulse from quickening when my eyes settle on it. The only objects that come into the Archive arrive on the bodies of Histories. Either he snagged the watch from a body or it came in with his.