19

THE BLACK ARCHIVES

“Can I be the first to say these guys are freakin’ weird?” Malachite offers under his breath as the silver robes lead us under the white-mercury-lit arch and into a long black glass hall.

“Like a cult,” Lucien agrees softly next to me.

“And the New God churches aren’t?” I posit lightly. “Let’s just get what we came for, and go.”

Fione’s totally quiet, marching on the heels of the woman with a single-minded determination. I try to keep up with her, no matter how much the fear is pulling me apart at the seams as the Weeping fades. Lucien offers me his handkerchief, and it’s a wordless moment of comfort as I wipe the blood tears from my face.

“I’ve ruined so many of these,” I laugh as I hand it back to him. “Sorry.”

“Hopefully you won’t have to ruin any soon,” he says, dark eyes roaming over my face. He thumbs away a speck of blood, smiling as bravely as he can. But he’s just as scared as I am. Maybe more. Whatever these librarians want to do to me, I can endure. I’ll survive, no matter what. That’s what being a Heartless means. And enduring the pain is the choice I’ve made. I can do it, if it’s for him. For the good of everyone. But he needs to hear that.

“If it’ll get Varia back, I can do it,” I reassure him.

He stares, then lets out a breath. “I know. But I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Hey, c’mon. It’s the only thing I’m good at. Let me have it.” I wink, and then go somber when he doesn’t smile at all. “Let me do this.”

“I already know there’s no ‘letting’ you do anything. You’re going to do what you’re going to do, because you’re Zera Y’shennria, and you never listen to anyone who isn’t your own unheart.”

My smile mirrors his—wry and knowing. The white light flashes over his face as we ascend a wide staircase, and I’ve never been more grateful to have him. To have someone who knows me, what I’m like at my very core. I used to be afraid of it. And maybe I still am. But right now, I’m just thankful.

The silver robes lead us deeper and up into the Archives, past what look like blocks of countless dizzying dungeon cells and up, up into a winding staircase lined with white mercury stripes. They’ve figured out how to make the lights into glass bars, instead of the glass lamps I’m used to from Vetris, and they wind around the walls in efficient, stark, otherworldly patterns, almost like blocky, precise veins in a body. This place feels…ancient. Deep and old, like the valkerax. But the technology screams of bleeding-edge newness—newer than even Breych with its airships and ultra-efficient white mercury lights—and the contrast makes me uneasy more than anything.

“It’s like a fortress,” Lucien marvels.

The leader speaks again, voice echoing. “We are about to enter the central library ward. Please keep your voices down to a minimum, and refrain from touching anything—”

“The usual,” Malachite grumbles.

“And, if you would, do not look directly at the machinery. It makes them rather uncomfortable.”

Malachite and Lucien and I all share a wary look. Uncomfortable? Since when do machines feel comfort?

Fione is still unmoved, her gaze straight ahead and fixed on the woman she follows stalwartly up the stairs. Not knowing what to expect, I lace my hand into Lucien’s, relieved when he laces his fingers in mine. Together. Together, at the very least.

The stairs finally flatten out, the view widening into a cavernous room of black glass. “Cavernous” doesn’t really cut it—this place is massive. The ceiling is so tall it utterly melts into forever-darkness. You could fit a hundred of the arenas where I trained Evlorasin into this one space. But the polymaths of the Black Archives have decided to fill every available inch of this seemingly infinite space with books. Not in the usual bookshelves, though—rather, the entire shell of the cavern is carved with hollows in which books are perfectly slotted. Thousands—no, millions. There are scrolls, too, stored in the traditional Avellish style—which is to say strung from copper rods by flax strands bookended with wooden slats. Dozens of scrolls hang from just one strand, looking like a string of butterfly cocoons swaying gently in an airless breeze.

And then there are the things that don’t even look like books—rotating copper orbs with specifically patterned indents, crosscuts of gelatin the size of walls with ink spirals of all colors frozen within them. What I presume to be polymaths in silver robes gather around these contraptions, peering into them and turning them with handles this way and that, as if…reading them? But that’s not possible—those things don’t even look like language. Language is with ink and words. Stranger still, no matter how high the bookshelves extend up, no matter the daunting distance the scrolls hang from, there are no ladders. But that—that doesn’t make any sense.

Malachite echoes my sentiments.

“How do they get up to those books when they need ’em?” He glowers. The line of silver robes accompanying us start to peel off in all directions, some toward the books, others to shadowed nooks.

“We approach the machines,” the woman says suddenly. “Walk with care.”

We feel them before we see them. The rumbling of the black stone floor is gentle at first, and then crescendos to a quaking, undeniable presence. Something is coming—something reminiscent of a valkerax with the way every gargantuan step shudders the bone. But it’s the sharp, acrid smell that makes me cover my nose, that makes Malachite hiss a soft swear under his breath.

“White mercury,” Lucien murmurs beside me.

“Highly refined,” Fione corrects him, but her next words are cut off as the source of the heavy steps rounds the corner. Slowly, a brass giant comes into view, shaped like a human and yet impossibly heavier, bulkier. Its face is smooth of all features, save for a small slot on the bottom where a mouth would be. The sheer clumsy bulkiness of it seems out of place among so much careful order and arrangement. With every movement of its pendulous arms and creaking knees, curls of white mercury steam exhale from its joints, spiraling up into the archive air.

“Don’t stare.” Mal elbows me.

“And how do you propose that?” I breathe. “When it’s a man made entirely of metal?”

“Is there a man inside?” The beneather squints.

“Obviously not,” Lucien says.

“It’s moving on its own.” Fione’s determined facade slips for a moment, her marvel sparking her eyes with pale blue fire. “Incredible! It’s…automating!”

“We call them self-motivators.” The woman looks over her shoulder at us. “Though I suppose it’s been agreed to call them ‘matronics’ in the common vernacular.”

“Automatic motion, fueled by highly refined white mercury.” Fione leans in to look at the woman. “What type do you use? Qessen-red? Or perhaps starscreed? Is starscreed even strong enough to power something like this? What method of expulsion do you use to generate the energy?”

“Such questions are not of the sort you have traded information for,” the woman insists. “We move on.”

The gleam in Fione’s eyes doesn’t fade, her face riveted to the heavy steps of the matronic. It moves like a person, its gait wide with metallic hip flexors, but I’m more than a little put off by the fact it’s moving without seeing—no eyes on its face or anywhere else I can see. I can’t tell which sense it’s using to navigate, if any sense at all. A senseless creature made of metal, moving simply because it’s been made to. I can’t help but feel kinship with it.

“They aren’t…alive, right?” I ask the woman.

“They do not possess sentience,” she affirms, turning a corner and leaving the matronic behind even as all of us are surreptitiously glancing back at it. “Manmade sentience has only ever been accomplished by the Wave.”

“Then why do they not like being looked at?” Lucien asks. “Surely things without sentience cannot have preferences.”

“Does a bird not have a preference for gentle wind and sunny days?” the woman asks. “We have created life in the matronics, and so they prefer it a certain way.”

Malachite and I share a thoroughly worried look. Fione, meanwhile, appears lost in her imagination, thrilled at the polymathematics of it all, and Lucien looks likewise intrigued. But the beneather and I know better—if the Black Archives are making these matronics, then that means they’re the only ones who know how to control them. It’s worrisome. What are they making them for? I doubt they’ll ever tell us that. I glance back now and then, and it appears the matronics are here to lift the polymaths up to the higher shelves. There’s an indent in their backs well-suited for stepping on, and mortal-sized metal handles on their shoulders. The carved shelves turn into perfectly spaced footholds for the matronics to clamber effortlessly up, the polymaths pointing towards the book they require. That’s why the polymaths don’t need ladders. They’ve invented walking ladders. Walking ladders that have no eyes, but can still see. Walking ladders that aren’t flesh, but still have preferences.

And Fione just won’t stop staring.

“Fione,” I murmur to her. “Maybe don’t.”

The archduchess barely spares a glance at me, but I reach for her elbow carefully, trying to gently remind her of what we’re here to do. Thankfully, we don’t have much more time to dwell on the disturbing matronics, as the woman leads us away from the main library ward and into a thin-cut hall cleaving into the volcanic rock with many doors on either side. Once we’re out of sight of the matronics and their bulk, Fione seems to regain herself, the sparkle in her eyes hardening to determination once more as she walks.

After what feels like an unending trek down a repeating infinity, the woman finally stops in front of a specific door and motions for us to go inside. We squeeze in tentatively, the room barely big enough to accommodate a small polished table with four chairs.

“Please wait here.” The woman makes a bow. “I will return with the polymath of relevancy in a moment.”

“The polymath?” Lucien’s brow wrinkles. “We came here for books, for matrices. We need a codex to translate—”

Fione’s hand on his arm stops him cold. He looks down at her, but her gaze never wavers, and he finally gets the message and sits back down. The woman bows slightly and leaves, the heavy door clunking behind her. When she’s gone, Malachite props his muddy boots up on the table.

“So, good parts,” he starts. “They haven’t killed us thus far.”

“Bad parts,” I counter. “They’re making metal Heartless, essentially.”

“Not Heartless,” Fione argues. “Not really. It’s not as if they’re controlling something that was already alive. They made those matronics, from ore to metal to the legs and every other part of it. They’ve created it.”

“Like gods,” Lucien murmurs, and those two words ring powerful enough to make us all go silent.

The little room has a slot for a window, the bright sunlight squaring through no bigger than a peg. I stand on my tiptoes to see out of it, and feel a support underneath me as Lucien picks me up by the waist with his broad hands and lifts.

He smirks up at me. “Is that any better?”

“A little.” I feign disinterest, peering through the window. Outside is a lush expanse of vivid green, the sweltering humidity of the outside air so different from the coldness of the Archives—they must keep it cool to preserve the books. We’re closer to the meridian here, and so while the ocean is still relatively cool, the land is a different story. Palms and tallferns reach for the sun, piercing blue and purple and gold blossoms bursting from every crook of every shadowed canopy. Vines slick with viscous pink sap creep over bark, over the forest floor, over any rock they can find. It’s a different forest than I’m used to compared to the chilly pines and old moss of Cavanos—more alive, more active.

And I too am more active, considering my beloved’s arms are securely around my waist and his face perhaps the closest to my body it’s ever been. I motion for him to put me down and turn to him with a pout.

“Who taught you to approach ladies in such a brazen manner?” I look over at Malachite. “Was it you?”

“Oh, c’mon.” The beneather rolls his eyes. “Like Luc ever takes my advice.”

“I take it sometimes,” the prince argues lightly. “When it’s relevant. Which is, well…never.”

Malachite throws his hand up. “My point exactly.”

Something about the moment sobers us. Maybe it’s the black rock fortress of our tiny room, or maybe it’s the height of the view outside the minuscule window. Whatever it is, it makes Lucien’s dark gaze wilt on the edges as he looks at me.

“I’ll be there with you. Sending magic. So. If they try to hurt you—”

“I’m sure some of it will hurt,” I cut him off. “About as badly as a scraped knee. They’re dusty old librarians, for Old God’s sake.”

“If anything, it will be a thorough cataloguing,” Fione adds, leafing through the precious green-backed book idly.

Lucien ignores her and pulls me flush to him, my waist against his, my forehead against his. Malachite makes a discontented noise and struggles to face his chair away in the small room, and Fione’s smile is the smallest saddened hint, but Lucien doesn’t seem to care. His eyes are on me, his gaze never wavering as he speaks, low, like I’m the only person in the room. In the world.

“If you need me, I’ll come for you.”

“You don’t—” My breath catches as he kisses a soft pond-skip from my cheek to the corners of my lips. “I’ll be fine.”

“I know,” he asserts, kissing the fullness of my lips. “But I want you to be fine with me.”

“You’ll—” His kiss this time feels like a slice, where the others were paper cuts. “You’ll have to let me go sometime.”

“Yeah, Luc,” Malachite grumbles self-righteously. “Who’s the one who’s ‘bad at sharing’ now?”

“Heard that, did you?” Lucien lilts.

Over the prince’s shoulders, I see Malachite tap his ears.

“I hear everything, dolt. And if I have to hear you two smacking over there for one more second—”

The door opens, framing three people in silver robes. Malachite kicks his shoes off the table and exhales.

“Oh thank spirits.” He jerks his head at us. “Do something about them.”

The silver robes enter wordlessly, and Fione closes the book and stands. I try to make what little space I can between us, but Lucien won’t let me go, his grip around my waist tight and high-strung. He’s worried. Worried like I’ve never seen him worried before. About me.

My unheart tries not to melt at the idea—worry is a natural part of caring about someone. He’s worried for me many times before this. But, still. Still, this feels different, deliberate, painted in absolutes and with two high-contrasting colors. He cares. About me. It’s a foolish thought, after everything, but he cares for me out of everyone in this world. He’s chosen me, out of all the Spring Brides, out of all the eligible, witty beauties of the world, and that makes my chest glow with buttery gold joy. As the silver robes take their places standing against the walls of the room, I lean up and whisper in his ear.

“You have strange tastes.”

He gives me a look, lips crinkling with a smile. “As do you.”

“The six-eyed Heartless will come with us to undergo preliminary examination,” one of the polymaths suddenly says. “The duration of our study will be approximately two halves. If the results of the preliminary examination prove the presence of further information, you will be allowed access to our materials.”

Malachite snorts. Fione stands, hands folded over the book, and the book to her chest.

“You won’t harm her?” she asks. The polymath’s silver-robed head tilts to her and pauses, as if it’s a question they’ve already answered, or maybe one so obvious it doesn’t deserve an answer. Fione, worried about me, and Malachite in his own way. All of them, caring for me.

I ease Lucien’s hand off my waist, slow and reassuring, and give him my best smile. “I’ll be back.”

“You have to be,” he insists, the black of his eyes near-matching the volcanic rock. “We have a beach date.”

My laugh goes nowhere in the cramped room, and as I pass Malachite, he pulls on my ear softly. “Don’t put up with it if it stinks.”

“Yes, sir,” I agree, patting him on the head. The silver-robed polymaths follow me out the door, and I can hear Malachite’s grumbling all the way down the hall as he fixes his hair, the sound a comforting accompaniment into the unknown.

The polymath who spoke leads me down the hall, but not to the central library ward. This time we hang a far left, arcing down and around a ramp built on the edge of a massive chasm, in which a huge pendulum made entirely of what looks like clear quartz crystal rocks gently side to side. It’s a miracle the thing doesn’t just ram through the walls of the room, but I suppose that’s all due to the polymaths’ careful calculations.

The rocking of the pendulum soon fades, our steps the only things daring to break the black silence. The hallway narrows down to a single ominous door, and the silver robes open it for me with a ring of keys from their belts. This room is far more spacious than the reception cell they put us in, but also sparser. The only things in the room are a large chair seemingly carved straight out of the volcanic rock, and what looks like gutters carved into the ground, centering around the chair. A single shaft of white sunlight pierces in from a hole in the ceiling, illuminating only the chair.

“Please.” One of the silver robes motions. “Sit. This will not take long.”

“Two halves, right?” I say, tempering the nerves in my voice as I sit on the cold, ominous throne.

“That was a generous estimate, to allay the fears of your companions.” The polymath who speaks is a new one, seemingly stepping out of the shadows. But when they step, the sound isn’t clipped, as boots or armor might be. It’s soft, silent. I look down—ochre paws, a vermillion furred tail tip thrashing excitedly between them. My eyes travel up to their hood, but before they lower it I know who it is already. I try to say his name, but my voice cracks down the middle, and it comes out true.

“Ironspeaker.”

There’s a pause, the darkness falling away from his feline face as the light spills over it and his own voice fills the gaps.

“Starving Wolf.” Yorl smiles, returning his true name with mine, all his fangs showing and his whiskers crinkling. “Missed me that much, did you?”