Page 29 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

The five of them were now among the last remaining at the tables of the great dining hall. Livira had thought herself too tired to eat despite her hunger, but once they’d entered the crowded refectory the aroma had swiftly reversed the balance between exhaustion and starvation. After three bowls of thick meaty soup and four warm crusty rolls the tiredness had returned in force and her thoughts had turned to sleep.

“So, the library never gets dark?” Livira asked, thinking of her nights out on the Dust when so often the stars lay hidden, and you might as well have plucked out both eyes for all the difference it would make to what could be seen.

“Oh, it’s dark,” Meelan said. “In places.” Meelan was the oldest of the four, though shorter than Livira and skinny with it. From what Livira had seen he rarely spoke, and when he did it was usually to say something unsettling. If he’d been speaking a different language earlier when he had asked Arpix to pass the ink Livira could have believed he was making a death threat, such was his intensity and the black focus of his stare.

“Dark in places?” Livira asked. “Which places?” But none of them seemed interested in supplying an answer to that.

“What happened to your face?” Carlotte touched her lip and then her cheek as if Livira might not be aware of the swelling and the bruise.

“Fist fight.” Livira hoped Acmar was fed and sheltered now. She hoped the same for Neera and Katrin and Benth and the little ones: Gevin and Breta and the others. She felt as if they were watching her gorging, silent and reproachful at her shoulder—ghosts already. She pushed her bowl away.

“And here?” Jella winced and circled her own thick wrist with her fingers while looking at the raw flesh around Livira’s.

“A different fight.” Livira pulled back her sleeve to hide the rope marks. “That one I didn’t win.”

Meelan studied her critically. “Your hair has holes burned in it.”

“And you have cuts on your neck,” Arpix added.

Livira shrugged. “A dust-bear swallowed me and spat me out.”

Arpix raised his eyebrows. Any of the boys from the settlement would have called her a liar. And Livira would have fought them. But she was too full and too tired and suddenly too sad even to stare him down. “That was my yesterday.”

It had been a long day. Heeth Logaris had finished his lesson and sent the trainees on their way. Livira wasn’t sure how long she’d spent in the classroom. Long enough for her to grow thirsty and for her stomach to rumble its desire for more of Salamonda’s stew. She had left the classroom with her mind buzzing, overflowing with the information that her four table-companions had hurled at her. The shapes and sounds of letters, the combination of them into words, the stringing of words into sentences. For the first time in her life, she found herself overwhelmed. Too many new things at once to find a place for. Too much chaos to organize. Her dreams tonight would be full of letters, fighting for her attention, calling out their names, singing their sounds, dancing in rows. And still the day that had started outside the city gates wasn’t over. In fact, within the library’s unfading light she’d had no idea whether the sun had already set. After the lesson the others had led her to the dining hall.

“Come on.” Arpix pushed back his chair and stood.

“Don’t we...” Livira gestured at the cluttered debris scattering the length of the table.

“The kitchen staff do that,” Meelan growled.

“Kitchen staff?” Livira blinked. At home she was happy to skip out on tasks she knew she should do in favour of mischief she shouldn’t. After such a feast, though, she felt a sense of obligation to help. But the others were already making for the exit and, fearful of being left behind, she followed. Carlotte led the way, taking lefts and rights. There were fewer people now, their pace more relaxed, as if whatever the light said, their bodies knew that it was time for bed.

“Here we are.” Carlotte turned from the main corridor into a narrower passage sporting a doorway every few yards on both sides, dozens of them. “These are the trainee rooms. We’re at the end. There are plenty empty. The one next to mine is free.”

“I get a room?” Livira asked, amazed. One of the many bread rolls she had stolen from the dining table chose that moment to fall from inside her dress and run across the floor. Nobody said anything as she recovered it.

“You get a room,” Carlotte agreed.

“It’s not much,” said Jella from behind them. Jella had been mostly silent ever since the lesson but had talked at every opportunity during it when they were supposed to be working. She was built on the same generous lines as Salamonda, something never seen on the Dust where nobody carried a spare ounce of fat. “Just a bed and a desk and shelves to keep any books you’re working on.”

“And a pot to pee in,” Carlotte added. “Don’t forget that.”

They walked on past door after door. Arpix explained that the most senior trainees had the rooms closest to the main corridor, which gave them easiest access to the dining hall, scriptorium, binding workshops, stores, and—as Carlotte interjected—the toilets.

“King Oanold’s great-grandfather built all this?” Livira asked, quoting Malar. She’d already known that the king existed but until that morning she’d never known his name or quite how close his palace lay to her aunt’s hovel. “It’s not that old then?”

Arpix and Meelan exchanged glances at that, the tall boy and the short one, one sandy-haired, one dark.

“The library is only books and reading rooms,” Arpix said. “It’s not like this place. These corridors and chambers were dug out much later for the librarians. And the library light filled them.”

“So, the king’s father built—”

“Here’s your room,” Carlotte said brightly, pushing one of the heavy wooden doors. It was marked with what Livira knew were numbers but couldn’t quite identify.

The space beyond was bright and clean. The bed had grey woollen blankets. The desk and chair were finer pieces of furniture than anyone in the settlement had ever owned. The walls were flat, and hardly rippled by the marks of the tools that had been used to excavate the rock.

“Do you need anything?” Jella asked.

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