Whyborne
“Ah, Percy, there you are!” exclaimed Bradley Osborne in an overly jovial voice.
I bit back a sigh. Christine and Iskander had taken the fragment for photographing. Once done, she would join me in the library and look through the archived journals for every mention of the Eltdown Shards. I’d gone ahead, as I knew nothing about camera or lighting, and would likely only get in the way.
I’d almost reached the library without encountering anyone save for a few curators. For a moment, I considered pretending I hadn’t heard Bradley, but past experience taught me he’d only keep calling until I gave up and acknowledged his presence.
Midmorning light streamed through the high windows lining the outer wall, glowing from the polished wooden floor and glittering on the chain of Bradley’s pocket watch. He smiled as he advanced on me, but like his greeting, the expression seemed far too forced, like an actor badly playing a part.
In most of the years I’d worked at the Ladysmith, Bradley found me an easy mark for his jokes and cutting words. Someone he could view with a sort of easy contempt, whom he didn’t have to spend much time thinking about otherwise. Now I possessed a better office than he did. Not to mention the ear of the director and museum president, should I choose to have them. Exactly the things Bradley most wanted for himself.
I worried contempt had turned to jealousy, which was far more dangerous.
“Good morning,” I said. “Did you need something? I’m in a bit of a hurry, you see.”
“Only to bid you a good morning and ask after your health.” His smile took on a brittle edge. “And Mr. Flaherty’s. How is he these days?”
A whisper of cold slicked my spine. The battle against my brother in the museum foyer revealed me as a sorcerer, but I feared it had also revealed something else. Stanford had not only called me a disgusting sodomite, but shot Griffin with the obvious intention of hurting me.
Everyone present considered the episode part and parcel with the rest of Stanford’s mad ranting...or pretended they did, at least. The museum had a long history of ignoring the various eccentricities of its staff, so long as public scandal wasn’t involved. As Stanford now resided in a private lunatic asylum, Bradley would find it difficult to damage my reputation in Widdershins.
But certain newspapers in New York would be more than happy to print scandalous rumors about the heir to the Whyborne fortune keeping house with a male lover. Father would crush them, of course, but the suspicion would have been planted.
Griffin swore I’d cost him nothing. His father had been the one to demand too much, to take too much. And I did believe him. But the thought our love might take more from him through some sort of scandal turned my gut to acid.
“Quite well,” I said shortly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work awaiting me in the library.”
Bradley’s lip twitched into a sneer, hastily suppressed. “Of course, Percy. I didn’t mean to keep you from your dusty tomes. I’m certain your work is quite urgent.”
The maelstrom whispered beneath me. The tingle of the power I’d absorbed from the pearl shivered over my nerves.
If I released the magic, with no attempt to shape the result, would it take a similar form as it had in the pearl? Could I curse Bradley, not with death, but something unpleasant?
I took a deep breath. Griffin would never approve of using magic against Bradley, especially for such a trivial reason. “It is,” I said, fixing him with a hard look. “But I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
There. Let him wonder what I meant.
I walked swiftly away from him. As soon as I came to a window, I looked around, but no one else was in the corridor. Flinging it open, I leaned out. The museum grounds lay below, and I let the arcane power I’d stolen from the curse flow from me in the form of wind. The trees beneath whipped into a frenzy, and the hat of an unfortunate pedestrian tumbled away.
Oh dear. But at least the buzz of power had vanished from beneath my skin.
Thanks to Bradley’s delay, Christine caught up with me at the doors to the library. “Done so soon?” I asked in surprise.
“I’ve no patience for photography,” she admitted. “Iskander banished me as soon as we set up the camera and lights.”
We stepped into the library. Even as I looked around for a staff member to ask for assistance, a dark figure seemed to materialize at my elbow. “Dr. Whyborne,” Mr. Quinn intoned in his sepulchral voice. “How can we assist you today?”
I regarded the head librarian with some unease, but he only stared back with pale eyes, which didn’t seem to blink nearly as often as they should. The man had always made me nervous, but the feeling had increased markedly over the last year.
“Er, I need some books,” I stammered.
“And in the library, no less,” Christine said.
I shot her a glare. “I mean to say, I need some of the books kept under lock.”
“Ah.” Mr. Quinn’s eyes grew even wider. “Excellent. Give me the titles, and I’ll bring them to you personally.”
What he thought I meant to do with them, I hadn’t the slightest guess. Probably unleash some terrible spell on Widdershins, or raise the dead, or something else horrid. I had the awful feeling he would consider such plans an excellent reason to allow me access to the tomes, rather than the reverse. “I, ah, thank you.”
“It’s our pleasure to serve,” Mr. Quinn said, bowing slightly. “Dr. Putnam, have you any requests? Where shall I bring the books? The nook in the southwestern arm of the labyrinth has the most comfortable chairs.”
“Er, that will do,” I said. Christine told him what she needed, and he glided away a moment later.
“Is it just me, or has he gotten even odder lately?” she asked as we made our way in the direction he’d suggested.
Rumor claimed the convoluted architecture of the library either displayed the final stages of the madness that took the Ladysmith’s architect, or had been the driving force behind his insanity. Whatever the case, the librarians were an undeniably odd bunch.
“It isn’t just him,” I murmured. We passed a group of librarians sorting books for re-shelving. They stopped and bowed to us.
No, to me.
“It seems you’ve become something of a celebrity,” Christine remarked. “Do they do this every time you come in?”
“As of last October, yes. After the fight with Stanford, and the ketoi...” I shook my head. “Everyone else pretends they didn’t see anything. I’m not a sorcerer, and there weren’t really inhuman monsters from the depths holding them hostage. They all know, but they act as if they don’t.”
A librarian stepped out from the stacks, spotted us, and hurriedly gave way. “Widdershins,” he said as I passed. As if it were my name, or a title.
“But here you’re practically royalty.” Christine grinned. “You should rally them to your banner at the next budget meeting.”
“It isn’t funny,” I muttered.
“Oh, I’m not laughing. Just planning to invoke your name any time I need something found quickly.” She rubbed her hands together. “Or—even better—we could tell them to hide any books or journals Bradley needs!”
“Christine, please!”
“Hmm, you’re right, he probably doesn’t read.”
We settled into a nook in the southwestern arm of the labyrinth. Soon enough, Mr. Quinn and two librarians appeared, carrying the books and journals we’d requested. He seemed inclined to hover, so I said, “Thank you. That will be all.”
“Of course.” Looking disappointed, he retreated. Christine and I exchanged a glance, then went to work.
Ordinarily, I would have resigned myself to a long day of pouring through dusty tomes, as Bradley put it. But with a few hours to contemplate where I might have previously seen such symbols, I was able to narrow down the search considerably.
“Here,” I said, keeping my voice low lest I draw the ire of the librarians.
Christine looked up from the journal before her. “What have you found?”
“This is one of the Latin translations of the Pnakotic Manuscripts. What language the translation was made from, and how accurate it might be, is highly questionable.” I pushed the heavy book across the table to her. Its iron latch scraped on the wood, and I winced at the sound. “Supposedly this image is a sketch of one of the original scroll fragments. See the writing on it?”
“It certainly looks similar,” she agreed. “And it matches the Eltdown Shards. They could still be a hoax...”
“Unlikely.” I peered at the etching in the journal in front of her. “The Pnakotic Manuscripts aren’t really the sort of thing most people would know about. This is one of the few extant copies—a forger would have had to go to great lengths, when it would have been easier just to make something up.”
Excitement gleamed in her eyes. “Then it’s real. This stele in Alaska is somehow connected to pottery fragments found in England.”
“So it would seem.”
She looked up sharply. “You don’t sound very excited. What do these manuscripts of yours say?”
“To stay away.” I bent over the thick pages, inscribed by some unknown hand centuries ago. “It’s impossible to tell how much of this was part of the original scrolls, and how much inserted by the later translator. But it speaks of magically sealing away certain places in order to keep the umbrae in check.”
“Umbrae?” She frowned. “Shadows? What the devil does that mean?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. From the context, I’m guessing some sort of dangerous creature, but it’s impossible to say. Whoever wrote the Pnakotic Manuscripts sealed these umbrae away in various places across the earth, never to be disturbed. There is a strong warning against approaching any of these places, especially on ‘the night of greatest darkness’ when the seals are at their weakest.”
“The winter solstice?” she guessed.
“Yes. And Jack said he’s planning to look for more artifacts this winter.” I met her gaze. “If this manuscript is right and there is some sort of horror associated with these sites...Griffin’s brother is in terrible danger.”