Page 99 of The Mirror of Beasts

At the sight of us, soot-stained and reeking of smoke, her spoon clattered against the counter as she leapt from her stool. “What happened?”

Neve stared at her a moment longer than I think she meant to, as if seeing her again for the first time.

“Well,” I began weakly. “What didn’t happen?”

The Bonecutter’s brows rose.

“Sorry for dropping in again uninvited,” I said hoarsely, my throat still feeling singed from the heat. “We’d hate to deprive you of our peerless company for too long.”

“Like a balm to the weary soul,” Neve added. “A cold glass of water on a hot day.”

“Or finding a rat after weeks of starvation,” Caitriona offered. She glanced toward Neve expectantly. The sorceress only grimaced.

“We probably could have stopped at the glass of water,” I told Caitriona, “but you’re not wrong.”

The Bonecutter gave a wave of her small, delicate hand. “I know what happened at Rivenoak, including that you’ve released a hungry primordial creature back into the world.” I couldn’t tell if the Bonecutter was delighted or disturbed by this. “And that your kitten turned out to be a pooka after all. I told you to get rid of that thing, didn’t I?”

My temper flared. “You couldn’t have added a little disclaimer about why? Or given us a warning that the Mirror of Shalott was occupied?”

“I might have, had I known for certain,” the Bonecutter said, reaching behind the bar for the velvet bundle. The frame glinted as she unwrapped it. “While it might beggar belief, I am not omniscient.”

“The Hag of the Moors said it could only have one occupant at a time,” Neve said. “Is that true?”

“It hasn’t been tested either way,” the Bonecutter said. “It seems as though the size of the mirror might shift to accommodate more. I believe the sorceress who enchanted the mirror created a sort of pocket dimension inside it.”

“Like a little Otherland,” Neve clarified for Caitriona.

“Yes, something like that,” the Bonecutter said. “But clearly I am missing a chapter of this story. Why have you arrived looking as though you’ve run through the fires of hell?”

In a strange way, it had been easier not to talk about it—not to force myself to relive it again through story. I tried to draw in a deep breath, but I couldn’t dispel the taste of smoke from my tongue.

“Because we did,” I said. “Lord Death had his retinue of ghouls burn our library.”

“He was there?” Caitriona asked, anguished.

“There was nothing we could do,” Neve said. “Even if we’d had the true Mirror of Beasts, it wouldn’t have done us any good.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Caitriona said. She ran a hand back through her hair, clenching it in her fist. “I never should have left. I never should have …”

“They burned it?” The Bonecutter finally shut her ledger. “Surely not all of it?”

“They destroyed the relics, too,” I said, strained. “Some of the books survived, but they’re probably waterlogged and unreadable.”

“We have seven rare books you can add to your collection,” Neve began, gently patting the fanny pack slung over her chest, where the carefully wrapped Seven Sisters were stored at a shrunken size. “If you’re willing to make the same deal you did with the vessel—that you’ll hold them, but allow us to use them—and knock off a few of the favors Tamsin owes you.”

“Certainly,” the Bonecutter said. “I’ll strike two favors from my ledger.”

And leaving more than I could ever hope to fulfill in a lifetime, no doubt. I tried not to grimace; I knew it was pointless to negotiate with her on the matter of favors.

The Bonecutter’s gimlet gaze was on me again, cutting through me to get to the truth. “If you’ve been allowed to remove these rare tomes, then Librarian is gone, I take it?”

I nodded. My mind was determined to keep playing back that moment, of Cabell lunging forward with the sword, of Librarian collapsing, as if once hadn’t been enough to sufficiently torment me. To scar.

“Shame, that,” the Bonecutter said, crossing her arms over the bar with as much regret as she was likely capable of. “I preferred his company to most humans’, and he had the most beautiful penmanship.”

I couldn’t argue with her there.

The Bonecutter inclined her head toward Emrys. “And I suppose you want him to be my problem now?”

---