2

Jorit

Jorit Lee knew a dozen things. She knew when to get out and when to stay put. She knew six ways to pick a lock. And four ways to conceal her identity.

A lot of thieves knew these things.

The cart she rode in creaked and groaned loudly in the dawn quiet as they moved over the archipelago’s last bridge. She shifted, trying to spare her bones the jostle. The Pressmen had sailed to the Far Reaches from the Eastern Seas, while Jorit took the more bruising path.

“Metalsmith, eh?” the cart driver said.

Jorit shrugged. She’d hung a jeweler’s loupe around her neck. She fiddled with it as the cart driver attempted conversation. It belonged to her grandfather, long ago.

Thieves knew a lot of things, but expertise—finesse—that was more important than knowing, most times. And Jorit’s expertise was being inconsequential.

She and her brother Marton had followed the Pressmen’s path across the Six Kingdoms once their studies abruptly ended. Safer to be in the Pressmen’s wake than between them and what they wanted, Marton had reasoned more than once.

They’d found ways to make a small profit here and there. They’d changed their clothes, their looks, their methods, and they’d only rarely been caught. The thief’s mark carved on her hand in Quadril had begun to fade to a pale scar.

As the kingdoms unified, Jorit knew it was vitally important to fade, to fit in. Once everyone knew what set an individual apart, the more they seemed to desire its elimination.

Jorit ruffled her fingers through her close-cropped, shoe-blacked hair. She missed the fingerless gloves she’d had in Quadril, but they’d worn through. With few ways to hide the mark, and none to clear her name, she was a thief on the run, and would always be so. Her scalp itched from the dye job, but with it and a change of clothes, she’d been able to pass herself off as a local student. At least from a distance, in the shadows. If she kept her hands tucked in her sleeves.

Quadril and then the Eastern Shores had changed how they traveled: Marton not at all, and Jorit in faster, more desperate ways. She was running out of kingdoms, and without Marton, she had no plan. Instead, she had a singular need to keep moving, and a sense that it was safer to do so alone. And if Jorit couldn’t get back what she’d lost, she knew she’d settle for safety.

“They may not have use for you for long at the university,” the cart man said. His horse snorted steam into the sea-salted air. “Seeing as everyone will be able to learn anything they want from one book soon. No more students. No more teachers.”

Jorit bit her tongue. She’d heard this argument before. When the Pressmen came, this philosophy always came with them. More and more, people welcomed it.

Marton had always been the one to try to explain the difference between being told a thing was true and experiencing the truth of it firsthand. And at first, he’d been all for the Pressmen’s goals. Access to books and information should be easier than it is in the Six Kingdoms, he’d said while they studied late at night. We shouldn’t have to fight so hard to learn. She’d asked him then, But do people value it more when they have to fight for it? Jorit could hear their younger voices bantering in her memory. She shook her head to clear it.

She’d stick with the safer way from now on. She raised her voice so the cart man could hear her over the sound of its wheels. “I expect so.”

The cart creaked to a stop before the university gates. A group of Pressmen approached, asking the driver about the contents of his cart. Did he have any books? They offered a very pretty sum.

The driver shook his head, then turned to point to Jorit. But she was already gone.

* * *

Jorit watched the Pressmen set off the last of the strange charges they’d brought.

As the buildings of the Far Reaches’ only remaining university began to collapse under their own weight and sink into their foundations, Jorit made mental lists of things she could recover and sell from the structures still standing.

In the arts building, all she’d found were metal bindings, palette knives. A few notebooks. Everything else had been picked over already.

The good jewelry was long gone. And everyone in the Far Reaches suddenly seemed to have plenty of knives.

She’d waited far too long. She hadn’t waited long enough.

But the library still stood. And it might still have books, if the doors had remained locked for days, as everyone was saying. Last night, she’d heard Pressmen returning to their barracks—former dormitories—muttering about going inside. Wondering at missing colleagues who’d tried to enter and not returned. This morning, she heard more returning in a group: a flock of young assistants, led by a guide.

“Historically, universities never even enriched the towns they occupied. They kept all their best knowledge locked inside their walls. The Pressmen have always fought to share that knowledge equally,” the guide was saying. “Now that we have the technology, we’re able to do that far faster. What was once a small protest against academic fortresses? Is now changing the Six Kingdoms for the better.”

The new assistants nodded in the dawn.

“So go out today and find as many hidden books as possible. Buy what you can to keep people happy. Take the rest. If you find a professor, call for help. We’ll free these words from what binds them. We’ll share everything. And then we’ll level the rest.”

With excited shouts, the assistants scattered across the square. Jorit’s eyes followed the guide to where he took up a seat next to the crates. She heard his purse jingle, filled with money.

Even pieces of books could attract a buyer. Blank books brought less, but still paid. Jorit had sold some sketchbooks from the arts building already. Sell a few books from the library, she thought in the dark shadow of the university’s wall, and escape the Far Reaches for good.

And go where?

Some of the outer islands beyond the Far Reaches. The ones without any universities. Jorit knew they were too small for the Pressmen, for now. But passage was expensive. Giving up was more affordable.

Over the wall, a sooner bird spit a warning: Te-la! Te-LA!

Jorit jumped. Stop thinking like that.

But she knew the pattern by now. Scholars dedicated to maintaining individual universities felt strong before the Pressmen arrived. They took in fleeing students. Shepherded more books inside their walls. Idealists held on until the Last Meeting. A few hard-core academics in each kingdom stayed through the inevitable Declaration Against Information Hoarding to make sure their students got home all right. A few more would flee. Some might be trapped, eventually, among the leveled buildings. She didn’t like to think of that.

Jorit had learned the pattern at other universities the Pressmen visited. Once they began weakening buildings and setting charges, Jorit readied her bags. First the administration and lecture halls. The arts building. The library.

Jorit touched a finger to the Pressmen pin she’d stolen. She’d abandoned her pretense that she was a researcher, a metalsmith, a student, a refugee from another university.

These identities were no longer necessary. They were dangerous.

It had been true, once. Metalsmith first class with a focus on gems, until the Pressmen demanded her research, especially on the mythical Jeweled Valley. Accused her and Marton, both, of stealing jewelers’ tailings when they refused to comply. Marked them as thieves.

So marked, they’d become just that.

Now Jorit was determined to escape. She knew the cost of staying too long, far too well. She knew the price of a ship’s berth. Or had known it yesterday. It had probably doubled now.

A week ago, the territories firmly under the Pressmen’s control seemed a lot safer than the places they were still trying to take over. But now, for the first time in Jorit’s life without Marton, the Pressmen held every kingdom. She could no longer stay one step ahead of them, or follow behind them either. They were no longer on the move. They just were.

But the ocean was still free. Jorit sniffed at the sea air hungrily. Maybe she’d stay out there for good this time. No one to mind her out there.

And no one to mind, either. She ground her teeth. Mustn’t think about that.

Her stomach ached as she shouldered her nearly empty canvas knapsack, the metal buckles on the straps clinking gently together. Her feet crunched on the seashell-flecked paving stones.

Jorit moved from the shadows into the dusty dawn light. She hadn’t eaten in a while, but she had gotten used to an empty belly.

A person could get used to almost anything in order to survive.

Her soft leather boots crunched on the gravel from one of a dozen sunken buildings as she sped toward the library, taking the shortest way possible. Aside from the assistants, few people were out this early. Far Reaches hadn’t been a big university to begin with. It had merely been the last university.

The archipelago had been cut off from much of the Six Kingdoms for a year once the Pressmen had joined with the forces from the Western Mountains and consolidated power along the border of Quadril. Thus strengthened, the movement focused its sights on the islands.

Despite the blockade, many resources from other universities in the Six Kingdoms had made their way to free shores. So Jorit had done the same. She’d been safe for a while. Then, days ago, she’d watched Far Reaches professors and students concede their books to the Pressmen.

The guards had taken piles of books and papers from every division. What came next, she didn’t want to be here to see.

But Jorit moved too slowly.

As she headed for the library, the first charges boomed, and the building slumped, then settled lower.

She covered her eyes and nose. Waited for the cloud of dust to clear. Some of the building still stood. A charge must not have detonated.

Jorit inched closer to the foundation. Saw several blue-clad Pressmen staring at a wall. She slipped back around the other way, toward the collapsed side. Best to stay back.

“Metalsmith?” A whisper came from a half-buried window by her feet.

Jorit jumped and then peered warily into the darkness. “Who is there?” She wasn’t a metalsmith anymore, but she still wore the colors. Fine. She’d be safer if someone remembered her clothes, which she could replace, rather than something she couldn’t: her hands.

It wasn’t safe to be memorable now. She reached for one of her knives. A sharp one.

“Name’s Xachar. I’m stuck.”

Xachar—the name wasn’t that of a Far Reaches native. The voice was a young man’s. He’d recognized her cloak as being that of a metalsmith, so he might have been a student once. But on his one visible sleeve, he wore a Pressmen’s patch. Not a pin, a real patch. Roughly sewn, so newly vowed.

Was he one of the Pressmen that had supposedly gone missing? Would his rescue give Jorit a reward? Or would it get her caught? “Why are you here, Pressman?”

She’d learn as much as she could. But then, maybe, the knife.

She was pretty sure she could use it. She’d come close.

“I was getting a few things to help my brother buy passage. Faked loyalty to the Pressmen to do it.” He looked at his patch, then back to Jorit. “I was in the stacks, and I got stuck. When the doors were locked from the other side. I don’t like tight spaces. And then they set the charges.”

So Xachar had had the same idea as Jorit, but worse luck. His reasons, though. He reminded her of her own brother, a little. Marton. Her heart still ached.

“I’ll help you,” she said. She looked for a way inside.

“I can see a light,” Xachar said, struggling. “It’s flickering, like there’s fire deep in the stacks. Other Pressmen have disappeared in here already. I don’t want to be among them. Please hurry.”

Pressmen disappearing in the library. So it was true. Must be why they hadn’t sacked the stacks yet, just leveled it.

Jorit sped up her search for an entrance, finally slipping under a door to one of the building’s former steam tunnels, hidden beneath a pile of broken masonry. The Pressmen hadn’t found this yet. But Jorit and Marton had been the Quadril mining school’s neediest students. They hadn’t always had the money to pay for classes, or books. So they’d learned the value of a good steam tunnel years ago for getting into libraries after hours.

She laughed bitterly. Now everyone would have the same information, about everything. And soon I might be the only person left who doesn’t much want that anymore.

But that was how she liked it now. Alone, you didn’t stand to lose as much.

Hurry. Her knees and palms ground against the broken masonry. The dust from the other buildings’ falls had settled on everything. The building smelled like chalk and dirt. Her teeth felt gritty, and she kept sneezing.

She tied a sturdy rope—her latest good find—to the nearest pole. Double hitched it. Then kept moving.

Always keep moving. That’s the only safe way. Her brother’s advice, and she’d listened, every time but once. Don’t risk yourself for others. She knew that one too.

When she came through the rakish angles created by the stacks’ fall, she toggled her lantern’s switch. A small cloud of acrid carbide slowly faded into a glow. She saw holes in walls where doorways had split and shelving had toppled.

The lantern swung a wild arc of light against the walls.

Jorit was a spider. A thief. A monster.

She swallowed hard. Whatever it took to survive.

“Xachar?” she called softly. “I’m coming around to you. Make some noise so I know which way.” She could get him out before the Pressmen caught them. She knew it.

Not like Marton. She hadn’t been able to do that.

She thought could hear the boy whimpering somewhere very nearby.

“Almost to you,” she said. But she thought, As fast as I can, before we’re both caught.

She’d be caught as a thief. Made an example of, like the professors. Go missing. Like her brother.

Jorit climbed over the thin bones of one of the library’s metal shelves, its contents tumbled beneath it. A wooden container slid from a corner as her feet made the shelves sway again, and dust rose.

She held her breath, trying not to sneeze.

Xachar crouched halfway out and halfway in the building a few stacks away. His long black hair spilled down his back, loosened from the clip he’d used to pin it; his student’s tunic was torn, the skin beneath scratched with angry red welts.

When Jorit moved the shelving that had pinned him, he groaned in relief.

“You all right?” she asked. In the lantern’s light, it was hard to distinguish the younger man’s expression: Stunned? Confused? He almost looked pleased to see her. It was hard to tell. Could be in shock, Jorit decided.

Xachar looked behind him and down, so she couldn’t see his expression. “I cut my arm.” He held up his left forearm. Bandaged with a torn strip of Xachar’s robe, the wound was slowly blooming red through the off-white piece of cloth, staining the Pressmen’s badge.

“I found an easier way out, if you think you can make it.” She held up the rope end. “You just need to follow this line.”

He was so young. But serious. Like Marton had been, back in Eastern Shores. And hurt.

Jorit waited as Xachar considered the rope. “I can manage. It’s just a scratch. Being trapped was harder.”

The boy slid unsteadily to the library floor. He followed Jorit through the twists and turns, out of the tight space.

Jorit didn’t see any fire as they walked. The boy must have been seeing things in his panic.

“You’ll be all right.” Jorit put her hand on Xachar’s uninjured arm. “Get going. Before it’s too late.”

Xachar’s already large brown eyes widened considerably. “You’re staying? But . . . if you’re caught . . .” He was staring at her hand.

Jorit blinked. Had the boy seen the thief’s mark? She hadn’t been careful enough.

“I cut myself once, but . . .” She began to try to explain away the mark, to claim it wasn’t the archaic symbol but something else, but realized he was staring at her books. “But nothing. Here. Take these.” She gave Xachar the last three sketchbooks she’d found in the arts building. “Get your brother and go.”

“What about you?” the boy said, his voice less afraid, more distant. Probably thinking of his own brother, Jorit decided.

“I can get more books, and I won’t get caught. I’ll be at the docks soon enough.” Marton had once said the same thing, and she’d believed him, right up until she’d seen the Pressmen carrying his limp form away. But today, she’d done a good thing. Helped someone else escape. Jorit breathed a little easier. That counted for something.

As Xachar’s footsteps receded, she turned back to search the stacks. From the corner of her eye, near what was once the main hallway, she spotted a glimmer of light. Perhaps the young man had been right about a fire after all.

If it was fire, all remaining treasures here would be destroyed. Then it really would be too late for Jorit to get out. She’d given away part of her boat money. Stupid.

There was time, perhaps, to see how bad the fire was, and whether it was easily extinguished. Let there be valuable books left, Jorit thought. Please let them be enough for passage.

As she drew closer, dust curled up from the floor. She quickly covered her nose and mouth. She’d seen what the Pressmen’s dust could do, out in the square, and in many university squares before that.

But she smelled no fire yet, heard no roaring crackle, sensed no great heat. And they still grumbled above over the charges. She had time.

Water dripped from a cracked pipe to her left, softly repetitive splashing sounds on the strewn floor.

Water. Bad for books and artifacts. Good for putting out fires.

The dust-saturated air thickened as Jorit walked. Light flickered in the hallway, wavering on the ceiling. At first she thought it was fire too.

The clock, cracked and its numbers nearly gone, reflected wavering sunlight onto the library’s slate floor across its broken face. Jorit relaxed. The boy had been wrong.

“You said it was safe here.”

Jorit jumped as a muffled voice broke the silence. Not Xachar’s voice.

She moved toward the light, balancing silently on the balls of her feet.

Used to be, a person walked like that so as not to scare the mice in the halls after dark. Not to get caught reading in locked libraries.

Now she was still trying to not get caught.

Jorit touched her fingers to the haft of her own blade. It wasn’t much. But it was hers.

The soles of her shoes whispered against the dust and torn paper on the floor. Ledge, said one shred. Know, said another.

Behind the clock’s face, light flickered. Not sunlight. Reflected shadows licked at a corner from outside. Now she smelled flint. She heard a triumphant yell.

They’d finally fixed the errant charge. It was too late.

She’d known better. She ducked into a small room beneath the clock as more charges went off. The rest of the library shook and fell deeper into its foundations.