A Far Better Thing, page 22
“What was that about?”
Rosemary gave a huff of frustration. “I have no idea. Something’s not been right ever since he came back to Paris after escaping the Wild Hunt. Whenever he leaves the house, he seems to come back feverish and ill. When he came back from Italy he was half delirious. Admittedly, there wasn’t a great deal of difference between that and his usual behaviour, but still…”
“Can magic do that?” I’d never felt any ill-effects from glamour or the amulet around my neck, but Thorne did take things a good deal further than most.
“The point of amulets and runes and tricks is that it doesn’t have to,” Rosemary said. “Real, deep magic takes your life and your energy, of course, but even that shouldn’t make you ill, just exhausted. I’m an apothecary; I can tell the difference. This is something else.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Like what?”
“In our world? It could be many things, and none of them good. Something else to worry about, clearly.”
Whatever it was seemed to have passed by the time we caught up to him in the lower stacks. The aisles were a little more ordered than those we had passed through to get here: books had been pushed against walls in the process of being sorted, while others lined the shelves in a haphazard mix of colours and textures. The air was thick with stirred dust and the shimmer of magic. This time I could see it too.
“Where is it?” Rosemary whispered.
“It should see us,” Thorne said quietly. “Usually it will—dear God.”
It had seen us. At the back of the closest aisle, tendrils crept from one of the book spines, crawling across the shelves, the surrounding books, and the floor. They resembled the long, slender tentacles of jellyfish, but they were entirely flat: shadows without anything to cast them or illustrations come to life. They moved slowly, sinuously, with a rustle like paper. In the few seconds it took us to marvel, they covered half the aisle.
“Is that what magic books usually look like?” I asked.
“More or less,” Thorne said. “Well—less, to be precise. They’re usually considerably smaller. I’ve never seen a book of that strength before.”
“I take it that’s a bad thing?”
“It’s a wonderful thing. Spectacular. Extremely dangerous, of course. There’s a strong chance we won’t survive this.”
Rosemary eyed the waving shadow-tentacles warily. “Can it touch us here?”
“It depends on its reach. It won’t touch us, though, unless we seem about to take it off the shelf.”
“We are about to take it off the shelf,” I pointed out.
“Exactly.” Thorne tore his attention from the tendrils with difficulty, and drew the sword strapped to his belt. I recognised the long, slender rapier from the stage in London, the first time I had gone to Drury Lane to find him. The sword had cut the shadow of a tree, and the tree had come crashing down. To my surprise, he held it out to me.
“Here,” he said. “This is the only kind of blade that works on shadows. There are just four left in the world, as far as I can tell, so for God’s sake be careful with it. If this looks like it could turn dangerous, take a stab at the claws. Only a stab, though, and only at the claws. You don’t want to damage it more than you can help.”
“Why have you given him the sword?” Rosemary demanded.
“Because he cares more about the book than about me. He won’t strike it unless he absolutely has to, and perhaps not even then. Not to be presumptuous, but you might be slightly more invested in keeping my limbs intact.”
“I’m fond of your limbs, Addison, but I’d also like to be able to protect my own.”
“Then you don’t want the sword. It’s likely to make you a target.”
I held it out to Rosemary at once. “You can have it.”
She did not accept. “So what do you expect me to do?” she asked Thorne.
“For now, just sit and wait,” he said. “With any luck, we might not need you. You can sit on the stairs and stay safe.”
“In other words, you’re also invested in keeping her limbs intact,” I said, “and not mine. What are you going to do?”
“Bind it,” he said. “It’s simple enough. All I have to do is pluck it off the shelf and read the title.”
“According to you, those tentacles are about to attack if you look likely to take the book.”
“I said it was simple. I never said it was easy.”
* * *
THE TRICK to getting close enough to a book to bind it, according to Thorne, is sleight of hand. That was what the sword was for. The shadows would fixate on the hand reaching out to grab the book. A quick thrust with the sword would divert their attention to the hand that held the sword. The trick was to duck in and snatch the book before they could lunge at the sword-hand, and then to read out the title before they had a chance to turn around and lunge at the book-hand. Simple.
For the purposes of this exercise, I was the sword-hand.
“Wait until I come within an arm’s length of the shelf,” Thorne said to me as we walked down the aisle. Around us, the shadow-tendrils curled over the shelves and caressed the books. A light danced about us now erratically: Thorne had conjured it out of the air, while Rosemary had the lantern. I would rather have kept the lantern. It wasn’t simply that I trusted it more than magic—the firefly light was faint, casting more shadows than it dispelled, and the looming darkness swallowed up most of its glow. “Then strike. But remember—”
“Only the claws. There’s no need to remind me. I’m not likely to forget claws.”
“Forgive me. I’m used to being alone.”
“So am I.” I looked at the shadows around us. I could see no claws, but I assumed I would feel them. “Please read fast.”
“The only reason I’m sitting here quietly,” Rosemary said from the foot of the stairs, “is because I know sooner or later you two idiots are going to have to ask for my help, and I look forward to it.”
When we were halfway down the aisle, the shadows began to stir. It was subtle at first. A sound like rustling paper filled the air, and the tendrils quivered. One or two of the smaller ones began to drift towards us, as if caught in an updraught. Then, as I hung back and Thorne moved close to the book, one of the larger ones detached itself from the shelves. It rose up like an illustration of a cobra about to strike.
I could now see the book from which the tendrils extended: a worn leather-bound volume the colour of sand. I wavered, remembering my instructions to prioritise the book. In that moment of indecision, the tendrils snapped out at Thorne. My public school fencing lessons came to me in a flash; belatedly, on instinct, I lunged. The blade struck something hard and the shadow flinched back to its shelf, but not before Thorne fell back himself with a sharp gasp. The sleeve of his shirt was torn from left shoulder to elbow. Claws. I still couldn’t see them, but I’d been warned.
I did feel a genuine twinge of guilt. “Sorry. I probably could have intervened earlier.”
“No, no, that was perfect.” A line of blood was seeping through his sleeve; he glanced at it quickly and then returned his attention to the shadows.
“How do you ever do this on your own?” Rosemary asked.
“It isn’t always so difficult. This is the largest and the strongest I’ve seen.” The tendrils flew back; he broke off to duck out of the way. I ducked in the opposite direction. A shelf of yellowing textbooks hit the floor as a thread of shadow barely missed my head.
“Hm.” Thorne rose, eyes still on the shadows. “That’s interesting.”
“It struck in two directions at once,” Rosemary said. “I thought you said books couldn’t do that.”
“They can’t. Usually. I told you, this one is impressive.”
I watched the tendrils waving, muscles painfully tense. I couldn’t help but remember that this book had been in my uncle’s house—it had been there, for that matter, when I lay awake in my opulent bed trying to not hear my uncle being murdered downstairs. That house had been evil. Perhaps years imprisoned in its stone had steeped the book in that evil too.
“Shall we try an extra sleight of hand?” I asked.
Thorne was watching the tendrils with equal attention. “What do you have in mind?”
“It attacks you when you move in. When I strike it, it notices the sword, and moves on me too. It isn’t interested in Rosemary as yet. If she waits for it to attack, then moves in—”
“You think its attention might not split three ways.”
“It could be worth a try.”
“Yes. Rosemary—”
“I heard.” She stood on the stairway and brushed off her skirt. “I knew it would come down to me sooner or later.”
The book knew we were here by now. As Rosemary walked up the aisle, the rustle of paper grew louder, and the tendrils thrashed.
“Try to stay far apart,” Thorne said. He was backing away himself. “Give it more ground to cover. Rosemary, when you get the book, throw it to me. Don’t try to read the title yourself. You won’t have time.”
“Hush,” she said. “You’re distracting me.”
I think he had distracted me too, or my own readiness had. In any case, when the shadows moved, they seemed to do so all at once. Rosemary was a few yards from the book; I was standing close to the shelves; Thorne had dropped behind me. The air rippled with magic. Two or three tendrils flew at me; I ignored the sword entirely this time and simply dived for cover. Two more headed for Rosemary. Those I swung at, and caught one a glancing blow with the flat of the sword. The other came right for her.
Suddenly, Thorne was there in its path. The tendrils lashed out at him before I could move. They struck the side of his head, lightning-fast and hard—and then, impossibly, they kept moving. The shadow swiped through his body from jaw to chest to ribs and out the other side.
The figure of Thorne buckled, wavered, then dissolved into smoke. Where he had stood, something small and round fell to the ground, cut into two near-perfect halves. A piece of fruit. A lemon, in fact: the yellow skin caught the light. As it did so, Rosemary grabbed the book. The shadows went for her; I swung forward, and they flinched back as the point of the sword made contact.
“Here!” Thorne’s voice came, and I turned to see him standing in the middle of the aisle. Rosemary threw the book. It arced through the air, trailing shadow-tendrils and flashing claws. The aisle was now so thick with them that I couldn’t see where the shadows ended and the darkness began; my fist clenched about the sword in pure terror, but I couldn’t see where to strike. The sound of paper fluttered in my ears. It was like being in the midst of a swarm.
Thorne ran straight into the thick of it. I don’t think, in that moment, he was even aware of the living shadow of the book—only the leather cover, and the pages ruffling, and the glint of the title embossed in gold. He grabbed at it as it came towards him. It was far from a perfect catch—he fumbled it, and almost dropped it—but he knew the title already, and his voice cried out above the rustle of paper.
“A History of Fairykind.”
At once, it was quiet. The rustle was gone; so too were the gusts of wind from the shadows’ movement. I looked across just in time to see the tendrils wrap themselves around the book, over and over again, and then sink into the leather cover and vanish like smoke.
I collapsed to the floor. My limbs were shaking, and I could barely catch my breath. The cough that I’d hoped I’d finally shaken came back to rip my chest apart. Part of it was reaction. The other part was simply that I hadn’t moved that fast in a very, very long time.
“Next time,” Rosemary said, “I want to be the one with the sword.”
Thorne crouched down across the aisle from me. He was breathing hard himself, and his torn shirt was dark with blood across the arm, but his attention was still entirely focused on the book. He set it down on the floor with trembling hands, and it fell open gently, as if to welcome him. The pages were handwritten in a neat, old-fashioned script. There was a small tear on one, the width of a thin blade.
“Excellent,” he said, with a quick glance in my direction. “You hit it right in the margins. No harm done.”
I waved my hand in what I hoped was a languid, careless sort of fashion and was probably more of an exhausted flail. “That was useful,” I said, with a nod at the lemon.
He followed my glance. “Oh. Yes, it can be. Luckily I had that in my pocket from the show tonight. It’s a goblin trick—more scrap-magic. You take a bite of fruit or bread and hold it in your mouth. Whatever’s left of the food can take on your image for a short time.”
“And take the damage if something tries to kill you.”
“Most of it. It still hurts like mad. Worth it, though.”
“Is it bound?” Rosemary dropped to her knees beside him. “And is it the right book?”
“It’s bound,” Thorne confirmed. His face was alight. “And it’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
“A History of Fairykind?”
He snapped it shut, and kissed her on the forehead. “With seven appendices.”
“Is that your idea of flirting?”
“Flirting? Hardly. A small volume of kitchen charms would be flirting. I am a long way past flirting. Do keep up.”
Her eyebrows raised, though she was smiling. “My God, give you a bound history with seven appendices and you’re anyone’s for the night.”
“Should I step out and give the two of you some privacy?” I asked.
“No need,” Rosemary said. “It’s empty promises. I won’t actually get a moment of his attention until he translates all seven appendices. Are you breathing yet?”
I nodded, then shook my head as another bout of coughing overtook me. I really needed to drink less, and exercise, or whatever it was that healthy people did. It was embarrassing.
“That,” I said, between gasps, “was the most insane thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“Memory,” Rosemary said, “you tried to kill a fairy.”
“That was stupid, not insane.”
“If you’ll forgive my correction,” Thorne said, without looking up from the book, “it was both.”
I laughed, but briefly. Rosemary’s words were catching up to me as my breath returned. Translates.
“In what language is it written?” I asked. “Could Rosemary and I not read it?”
“It’s written in whatever language you speak,” Thorne said. “All magic is. But there’s always a trick to it. It might be written backwards, or each letter might be substituted for the one before it—if you’re fortunate. Usually it’s something far more complicated. You didn’t know?”
I didn’t dignify that with a response, only heaved myself to my feet, and came to look. Sure enough, the letters on the yellowed pages were familiar, but the words were a meaningless jumble. It startled me. I’d never before seen writing I couldn’t understand. “Do you know the trick to this one?”
“Not yet,” he said. “Finding it and translating the book is going to be my life over the next few weeks.”
“Do you mean to say that we went through all that, and it still isn’t enough?”
“Enough? It’s magic. Magic doesn’t give itself to you. It demands your body and your mind and your soul.”
“You keep talking about magic as though it’s something special.” It was petty of me, but I was bitterly disappointed. “Magic is just something that belongs to the Unseen World instead of the mortal. It’s a geographical quirk. It certainly isn’t worth anyone’s body, mind, or soul.”
“Well,” he said absently. He had already returned his attention to the page. “I’m afraid we’ll have to disagree about that.”
Rosemary nudged me with her elbow. “I wouldn’t argue. You want him to translate it, remember?”
I did. But some of the shine had gone out of the night for me, like a cloud passing over the sun.
A few weeks. Darnay might not have a few weeks. Which meant that if I was to save him, neither did I.
I knew where I needed to go for answers. I had known from the first moment I had arrived in Paris. The trouble was, it had already nearly killed me once.
CHAPTER 16
STILL KNITTING
THE VERY next night, I went to the Defarges’ wineshop.
It hadn’t changed since I had last been there, thirteen years ago. The area around it was perhaps marginally less grim, but the shop itself had the same air of suspicion and plots, conspiracy and secrets. The faint wave of dizziness as I stepped through the door felt suspiciously familiar this time, and my eyes flickered to the ceiling. Sure enough, an amulet hung discreetly in the corner, not dissimilar to the one that had hung in Thorne’s room at the Theatre Royal, or indeed to the one that hung around my neck. I hadn’t known enough to recognise it before. I did now. Cold iron.
I hadn’t needed Rosemary to tell me that by coming here I was willingly sticking my hand into a nest of vipers. The aversion I felt at entering the shop was stronger than ever. It was a physical repulsion, encoded deep in my nerves and in my bones, the reflex of a child who has once touched a hot oven—pull away. Don’t touch it again. Perhaps there was magic involved; I suspected it was more to do with pure fear. This was the very last place in Paris I should be, given what had happened the last time. It was also, unfortunately, the very last place in Paris that I could go for answers. With the book of magic safe and useless in Thorne’s possession, and every other avenue of enquiry exhausted, I had at last run out of excuses.
Though it was late at night, the place was bustling, even thriving. I recognised the burly form of Defarge himself talking to a group at the table, his shirtsleeves rolled. I hadn’t come to see him. Madame Defarge sat at the counter as she had all those years ago, wrapped in her scarves with her knitting in her hand. I felt her eyes lock onto me as soon as I stepped through the door, and her knitting needles stilled. She knew me.
This time, I didn’t approach the counter. I took a seat in the corner by the window, perused a paper in my very best impression of calm, and waited. It wasn’t long before she came to my table.
