Twenty
The Library was once again silent. Except for the Editor. “Oh no oh no oh no,” she was chanting. “This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.”
“What is it? What did she get?” Otto asked.
The Librarian, panting, looked down at the Editor’s desk in horror. “She took a pot of ink. The red ink,” he said.
“And one of my quills. And who knows how many books,” the Editor said despairingly.
“What happened?” Eleanor asked, still reeling.
The Editor looked regretfully down at her. “I hadn’t edited Thea’s book yet. The story inside it was still the old one—the one where she didn’t escape the Pallid Kingdom as a child. When she touched her own book, it wrote itself inside her.”
“The Eden Eld book is gone,” the hedgewitch noted. “Katie must have taken it.”
Eleanor groaned. She scanned the table, hoping the hedgewitch was wrong. But there was no sign of the book. Hers was still there, at least—and Otto’s and Pip’s. That was a small relief.
The only relief in a sea of sorrow. Thea was gone. Those words had flowed into her, and every horrible thing that had happened to her and every wicked thing she had done had rushed back in.
“Does that mean time is fixed?” Otto asked hopefully.
“For the most part,” the Editor said. “I’ll have to revert some of the changes I’ve been making, but everything should go back to how it used to be on its own. Except . . .”
“Except what?” Pip asked sharply.
The Editor flicked an ear anxiously. “She has Eden Eld’s book. Which means she can prevent the paradoxes there from repairing themselves. Override reality.”
“Do you have any idea how much damage she could do to those books with that ink?” the Librarian asked.
“What about damage to Eden Eld?” Otto asked. Eleanor felt sick. What was Katie going to do? Would she destroy Eden Eld completely with a flick of the quill?
Thea wouldn’t do that, she thought. But Katie wasn’t Thea anymore. Because you couldn’t save her.
“It’s not a simple process. She won’t be able to do too much all at once,” the Editor said, swiveling an ear back. “There may be some time before things go too horribly awry. Of course, they were fairly awry already.”
“This is a disaster. No books have been stolen from the Library in all my six hundred years of service,” the Librarian moaned, covering his face.
“We’ll get them back,” Eleanor pledged, though her voice shook. “The books and the ink and the quill.”
The Editor and the Librarian looked at each other. “Is that allowed?” the Editor asked.
“Technically speaking, we are responsible for all retrieval efforts,” the Librarian said in a hushed whisper, though they could all hear it clearly.
“I’m not cut out for fieldwork. I have tendinitis,” the Editor whispered back, leaning her head in close to the Librarian’s.
“They are heroes,” the Librarian allowed. “And it is an unprecedented emergency.”
“Not to mention board game night. We wouldn’t want to skip board game night,” the Editor replied.
Together, they turned toward the four humans. The Librarian cleared his throat. “Given the extraordinary circumstances, we will allow you to retrieve our books and supplies.”
“And what do we get in return?” Eleanor asked, folding her arms.
The Librarian looked affronted. “A sense of civic duty fulfilled!”
“No way,” Otto said, shoulder to shoulder with Eleanor. “We want the Stories.”
“The Stories belong to the Library’s collection,” the Librarian said. He hesitated. “But I suppose we could let you check them out, with a generous return policy.”
“What about the damaged books policy?” Pip asked, with a tone of voice that suggested extensive experience with the topic.
The Librarian’s eye twitched. But the Editor chuckled. “Come with me,” she said, and beckoned them forward.
THEY LEFT THE Librarian to tidy up all the books that had been scattered in the fight. The Editor led them to a tall, narrow door with nine strong locks, which she turned all at once with nine keys held in nine hands. On the other side was a large room lined with shelves. The books on the shelves were locked behind firm iron grates. The Editor crossed to one, muttering to herself, and unlocked it.
“Here we are,” she said. She carried three slim volumes to the table in the middle of the room and set them down one by one. “Warrior. Witch. World-walker.”
The books hummed. Eleanor could hear them. Feel them. Her mouth felt suddenly dry. Pip made a weird little unf noise and rocked on her feet, and Otto’s fingers twitched.
Eleanor crept forward. The books called to her. She wanted to lunge for them. She wanted to wrap her arms around that third book with its purple cover and press it against her chest until it sank right into her rib cage. That feeling urged her to surrender, let the Story consume her. Shaking, she held herself back.
“There they are,” the hedgewitch said wonderingly. There was something forlorn in her expression. Everything she’d lost was right in the pages of the second book.
“How do we destroy them?” Pip asked.
The Editor looked pained. “They’re books. Water, fire, a good pair of scissors—any of them should do the trick.” She fidgeted. “But I do wonder if you want to destroy them. They’re marvelous things. Dangerous, but marvelous.”
Eleanor knew what she meant. The world-walker’s power was amazing. It would have been more amazing if she wasn’t constantly using it while running for her life, but still—she could go anywhere. Visit other worlds.
“I’ve barely gotten to do any magic,” Otto said, and sighed. “I wouldn’t mind forgetting third grade if I could do a few spells and make some potions.”
“Yeah, being the warrior is pretty awesome. Except for the not being me part,” Pip admitted. “But we’ve got to do it. Right?”
“Right,” Eleanor said. “We’re forgetting too fast. We’re losing ourselves.” But still she didn’t move toward the books. She looked over at the Editor. “Is there any way to keep the good parts, but not lose ourselves?”
The Editor considered. “Not normally. The Story writes itself over you. That’s how it works.”
Otto frowned. “But Bartimaeus said that the Stories have to have physical copies, because if a wild story just gets inside a person, it changes to be theirs. To be part of them.”
Eleanor tapped a finger against her lips. “When we first found out about the Prime Stories, Jack said that the Stories are a curse because stories are simple. Something that can fit in a book is straightforward. People are complicated. They’re made up of lots and lots of stories and versions of themselves, and they can hold all of it. The Stories replace that with one simple version, erasing all the rest. But what if . . .” She trailed off, frowned, a thought starting to form. She looked at the Editor. “Is there a way to take the Stories out of the books? So that they would become part of us, like wild stories, instead of replacing us?”
“Ah,” the Editor said, considering. She cocked her head to the side. “Normally, I would say no. But your abilities, Eleanor, may hold the key. It’s possible that you could take the Stories out of their books before putting them inside you. It would spare your memories and personalities—but it would mean the Stories wouldn’t hold their power for very long. They’d fade into you, over time.”
“Assuming it works at all, and you don’t just end up erased immediately,” the hedgewitch said. “It’s a risky proposition.”
“But then we could have their power. Without losing ourselves,” Pip said. “We could use them to fight the People Who Look Away, at least for a while.”
“How would we do it?” Eleanor asked.
“The mechanism is similar to the one used to create the Empty,” Otto said. They looked at him, startled, and he blinked. “Ooh. Hedgewitch knowledge. Let’s see what I know.” His face scrunched up like he was concentrating.
“You don’t have to make that face,” the hedgewitch said, but not very loudly.
“I think . . . I think you should be able to do it, Eleanor. Your abilities can open connections between worlds, but they can connect people, too. You have to make a connection to the Stories, just wide enough to let them in slowly.”
“Wait. Does that mean Eleanor could Empty someone, if she wanted to?” Pip asked.
“Of course not,” Eleanor said, though something twisted in the pit of her stomach.
“I don’t know about this. We came here to destroy the Stories. Maybe we still should. I mean, what if something goes wrong?” Otto asked.
“I could take the Story back from you,” the hedgewitch said softly, her eyes fixed on the slim book. “You could put it into me, instead of risking yourself, Otto.”
“That would be unwise,” the Editor said.
“Why?” the hedgewitch demanded, almost snarling. “Why shouldn’t I have it back?”
“Because you have been completely rewritten once already, and you have not had enough time to get complicated again,” the Editor said. “You are too fragile. That Story would burn through you in an instant.”
The hedgewitch’s jaw clenched, and for a moment Eleanor thought she was going to argue. But she only turned on her heel and strode away, her steps ringing on the marble.
That’s where I got that habit from, Eleanor thought. She always had to just walk away when she got too angry.
“What if we’re wrong? What if they just destroy us?” Pip whispered.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Eleanor said. She squared her shoulders. She stepped forward. And she picked up the book of the world-walker.
At first, it was like she was drowning. Wind roared in her ears, and with it came the clamor of a hundred voices crying out, shouting words she could barely understand. The words were crashing into her, tearing through her. I was wrong, she thought in a panic. It was going to destroy her! It was going to hollow her out, and she’d be as gone as if she were Empty.
Empty.
In the midst of the howling gale, gripping the book tightly in her hands, she thought of how Melia had stolen her feelings from her. How she and Ash had plucked things from people or sneaked them in. She remembered how it had felt—and suddenly, the world-walker filling her mind and her soul, she realized how it was done.
It was all in the connections. She was connected to the Story. She could see the connection—and she could control it.
Stop, she thought, pushing back against the bond that linked her to the ravenous Story. The howling gale quieted. Slowly, slowly, she drew the Story toward her, letting it seep gently into the gaps and cracks. The shouting turned to whispers.
. . . and wander through starlight, through moonbeams . . .
. . . every road open to her . . .
. . . never lost, for she always found her way, though she did not always know it . . .
Eleanor opened her eyes as the Story flowed gently, steadily into her.
She was gripping the book with both hands. Pip and Otto were babbling, shouting, but the Editor held them back with several of her long arms. Eleanor could see why they were so alarmed.
Words were climbing up her arms. They swirled up toward her sleeves and vanished below, flowing out of the book. Companions, she saw, and the Wending and but some roads are dangerous. And as they flowed into her, she didn’t need to read them. She knew them.
She kept her breathing steady, focusing on slowing the Story down, on finding places to tuck it away or weave it into herself.
The last of the words seeped into Eleanor and lay on her skin like wet ink.
“Eleanor?” Otto asked, uncertain.
Eleanor looked at him, but she didn’t just see him. The web of shimmering threads was everywhere now, and not just in this room. She could sense the threads flowing out through the walls. Beyond the library, even, dazzling and endless.
“I’m okay,” she said, smiling. “I’m me.” Eleanor Barton. Claire Barton’s daughter. Friend to Otto and Pip. She wasn’t sure what she might have misplaced in that first rush of words, but all the essential bits of her seemed to be in place.
She was still holding the book, but it didn’t hum anymore. She flipped it open. Every page was blank.
“Fascinating,” the Editor and Otto said together, and flashed each other reflexive smiles.
“Me next,” Otto declared, stepping forward.
“I think I can get it right from the start this time,” Eleanor said. She put two fingertips against Otto’s temple, and two against the cover of the hedgewitch’s Story, and let the words begin to flow.