Now for the fun part.
The doors this deep into the archivists' realm had not one but two locks, which needed to be opened at the same time with two different sets of keys. Perhaps unsurprisingly, incorporeal items were much easier to steal than the more banal kind. In the night, she stole secrets aplenty, but in her body, just taking the robe now draped over her shoulders had proved difficult. Securing one archivist's key, let alone two, would have been impossible. Instead, she crouched down and pulled two picks from her pocket. One in each hand, she jiggled, jabbed, and twisted, then jiggled some more, until—click!
Cassi eased the door opened and slipped inside. In total darkness such as this, even owls were blind. She didn't need a lot of light to see, but she did need some. It took a few moments of fumbling around with her palms pressed to the wall, but eventually, she found the lantern. Wasting no time, she rushed to the shelves in the corner, searching for the small, unobtrusive book she'd spotted a few nights before—a diary. Written in a language she couldn’t understand, by a person she'd been unable to identify, in a time she'd been unable to ascertain, it could've seemed like an odd choice. But to Cassi, it was perfect.
Malek had other spies trained in the ancient languages their people had either lost to time or simply abandoned in order to keep consistent with the world above the mist. She had no doubt dormi'kines far more learned than she had spent hours in these rooms, floating over the shoulders of archivists, freely reading the secrets the owls worked so hard to protect. There was little written in these rooms her king didn't already know, but a diary contained all manner of unwritten things.
She'd been eight the first time she observed the skryr at work. He had been an old man even then, and the only of his kind still living. Malek had mentioned the mage in passing one dream, wondering, as any orphan would, if maybe he should make a visit to his shop near the outskirts of Da'Kin. The former king had left a multitude of items behind—swords and clothes and jewels. He'd believed there might be memories lingering in the worn threads, the scuffed boots, the polished gems, the sorts of messages only a skryr could read.
Cassi had wanted to ask if he had anything of his mother's, something that had maybe survived the fire, but she kept her mouth shut. It was easier, she thought, for Malek to simply erase the woman who’d birthed him beneath a barrage of dragon flames, into a life of prophecy her son had never wanted. Easier, at least, than forever asking questions that had no answers, which was, of course, what Cassi did. Who was her father? Where was he? Why had he gone? Did he know she existed? She'd tried once to ask her mother—but only once, those icy eyes enough to wipe her questions clean. Captain Rokaro was a strong woman, a proud woman, but the mention of that man had left her as defenseless as a child. Her walls had crumbled, leaving her bare and broken and bleeding. A moment later, they'd fortified, but that single vulnerable second had provided one kind of answer—whoever he was, he wasn't the sort of man Cassi should ever want to know. Still, curiosity was the enemy of logic, and she'd wondered if maybe there was a memory buried within her mother's things with all the answers she'd need.
Periodically, she'd visit the skryr's shop, watching people as they came and went. They'd present their trinkets, and he'd take them in both hands. Sometimes, he managed to close his eyes. Other times, the visions came so swiftly, he sat there as his pupils darted back and forth, his white hair like a cloud stuck to his head, voluminous and slightly wild. It always seemed the closer to a person's soul the object was, the more deeply the man could see. A jacket that was just a jacket held little. A jacket that had been hand sewn by the wearer and embroidered with a special decoration or even a message held a whole world inside. The magic was sort of like Rafe's in a way—too rare to be fully understood. Malek was convinced it was a form of chrono'kine magic, or time warping, but Cassi thought maybe there was some spirit at play too. She of all people knew souls could exist outside of bodies—who was she to say a piece of a person couldn't linger behind in objects too?
At least, that was what she was hoping with this diary. Hundreds of years had passed since the creator had perished, but what object held more of a person's soul than the one into which they'd poured their innermost hopes and dreams? None that Cassi could imagine. And if there was even a chance the skryr could see something that might help them defeat the dragons, she had to take it.
Cassi slipped the small book from the shelves and pressed her nose to the pages. To the simple mind, maybe dust was the only particle lingering in old parchment, dust and worn ink. But to the creative mind that dust held secrets, and as Cassi breathed it in, images flashed across her thoughts, of dragons and danger and dazzling magic, of prophecies and fallen worlds, of women with wings and men with power and the invisible strings stretched between them in a tangled mess called fate.
This diary had an important story to tell.
The only question left was which one.
With a sigh, Cassi closed the book and retied the worn leather binding, then slipped it inside her pack. The answers were waiting in Da'Kin, but first she had to make it out of Rynthos. Though she could have spent hours scouring the volumes lining the shelves, Cassi turned off the lantern and slipped from the room. When it came to thieving, the quicker the better. She wouldn't feel safe until she was back in her room with the diary tucked deep at the base of her trunk, ready to be smuggled from the city.
Her trip back through the labyrinth passed quickly. A few archivists crossed her path, but she snuck by unseen. It wasn't until she was almost at the end of the tunnels that a sight shocked her so thoroughly she stopped dead in her tracks. Her stomach leapt into her throat as her heart hammered. A hunched figure sat blocking her path. He hung his head between his bent knees, his crossed forearms providing a sort of pillow while his wings drooped along the floor. Even without seeing his face, she recognized him immediately. There was only one type of feather so black she could hardly make it out in the dark, and that feather belonged to a raven.
"Xander?" she hissed. "What are you doing here?"
His head snapped up immediately, but his gaze slid past her. Though he heard her, he couldn't quite find her in the shadows. "What am I doing here? What are you doing here?"
"Shh," she chastised as she yanked the stolen robe over her head and hastily stuffed it into her bag. When he started to stand, she crossed the distance between them and lowered her voice. "Someone might hear you. How'd you— I mean, why— I mean…Xander!"
"I was on my way to your room when I saw you soaring across the city, so I followed you. How was I supposed to know you'd go sneaking into the archivist's vault—which is, I might add, the only place in this city we've been expressly forbidden to enter. I tried to catch up to you, but I couldn't see a thing. I figured I’d sit and wait and hope I found you before you did something incredibly stupid. So, did I?"
"Did you what?"
"Find you before you did something incredibly stupid?"
"That depends on your definition of stupid."
"I'm not interested in a debate."
"Since when?"
"I already have one war banging on my door. I don't need one with the owls too. What were you looking for? Did you touch anything? Did you"—he gasped, as though the very thought were a scandal in itself—"did you steal something?"