The light that illuminated the stacks had dimmed, turning the aisles into caves lined with paper. Earthquakes returned, shaking the shelves, as the doors left. Scrolls and patterns tumbled about. A shelf cracked somewhere deep in the stacks.
Necklaces, bracelets, rings, and brooches hung from Deep’s arms. She stood with Dev and several of the torchlighters, surveying the treasures stolen from Thrae, and discussing the best way to sell them.
Father had been so close—first in the Klylup cave and now with Doormaker Tain. Maella marched up and jabbed a finger at Deep. “My father was in there! If you hadn’t gone stealing, we could have had time to save him.”
Deep came to Maella’s chin. Deep was short, but Maella realized with a shock again how much she had grown since opening her first door.
Using both hands, Deep splayed them in the air between Maella and her, the jewelry glinting in the remaining light.
Deep rocked forward and slammed Maella in the chest. “What we stole will pay our debts to the torchlighters who died so that we—so that you—could be here, alive, today.” Deep stepped back. The torchlighters hushed and stared. “But I am sorry there was not time to go after your father. We would have helped with that if we could.”
Maella’s eyes lit on each torchlighter, looking for more targets for her anger. Instead she saw exhausted faces, bodies strained by krokosod, and the mental heaviness that came with all their obligations to family and torchlighter—alive and dead.
Maella’s anger did not lessen even though she saw the truth in Deep’s words. Her father had been right there. “He’s dying. He’s dying and I could have saved him.”
“No, Maella,” Claritsa said, stepping next to her. “It’s not like that. I mean, he is dying, but Doormaker Tain is trying to save him.”
“Do not believe it,” Sethlo said to Claritsa. “Whatever he told you. You cannot believe it is actually the truth.”
“I know what I saw,” Claritsa said, tossing a braid over her shoulder.
There was a rustling in the stacks nearby, a flash of cloth, and a face.
“Oh splatter,” Deep said.
“Yarrow,” Herren said.
Deep looked over the open edge of the level. She began to laugh. “May light shine on your path, someday, because torchlighter, you are one dark, dark sky.”
Maella stood next to Deep in order to take a look. She could not help feeling bitter at Deep and Dev for losing any chance Maella could have had to see her father, even though Deep was right, they could not have known Maella needed time to save her father.
When Maella looked down, she saw Yarrow had made it to the bottom. City guards rushed into the archives room alongside Sechnel and Hestroth. Yarrow ran for them, waving his arms and surely shouting his news about their location in the stacks. Veda Loor hobbled as fast as her cane allowed, swiping and whacking and crackling with energy.
“Bet she’s yelling at them to wash their hands,” Deep said.
Dev said, “Light shine the path—”
“Dark show the stars,” Maella and the rest replied. Claritsa too. Maella’s heart swelled. Claritsa was back, but the reunion was bittersweet with the loss of her father.
No. Maella would not let herself think like that. She had pursued the One Door with all of her ability and will. That pursuit had brought Claritsa back. The last pattern she had charcoaled back to life for herself promised that her pursuit of the One Door would bring her father back too.
She would not give up hope now.
“Get into the stacks,” Deep said. “Climb the Library of Souls like there’s a blotcher-block out there and we are all dead if you do not find it. Because if they catch us—that is what will happen. Maella, you may stay angry with me across all three worlds for all I care, but we will give you this distraction. They will not know who to follow at first, but—”
Deep shrugged.
Maella’s mind raced. She examined Claritsa from head to toe. Her new clothes were a simple tunic and leggings in pale colors, nicer than anything the torchlighters wore. Soft, ballet-like slippers covered her feet. But for all her fine clothes and clean braids, she rippled with torchlighter muscle. “Can you still walk the pipes?”
Claritsa’s eyes grew wide and blazed with courage. “Like a bitch, I can.”
“Does that mean yes?” Sethlo asked.
Maella closed her eyes, smiling. “Yes. Sethlo. That’s what it means.” She opened her eyes and took in both of her friends. The two people closest to her heart. They might be at odds with her over the One Door but she trusted them completely and would rather have them by her side over anyone else.
She knew they would die for each other, but she hoped today would not require that price.
Deep and Dev sent the torchlighters scurrying onto the stairs and stacks and shelves, then vanished themselves.
“Remember when we walked up to Jillow City that first day and saw the walls?” Maella said, looking only at Sethlo now, willing him to see what she saw.
Strength. Courage. Possibility.
“Remember how we joked about climbing it?” Maella prompted.
Realization dawned in Sethlo’s eyes.
“We need to escape the city, but the gates are closed,” Maella continued.
“But why do we need gates at all when we can climb…like a bitch?” Sethlo said.
Maella and Claritsa erupted into giggles.
Concern on his face, Sethlo said, “Did I say it wrong?”