Page 26 of The Library at Hellebore

Adam ripped more pages from an encyclopedia, feeding the blaze until it burned almost blue. I’d put up a halfhearted argument against using books as fuel but even Portia agreed the furniture was a worse gamble, treated and varnished as it was: there was no telling if we’d end up poisoned by the fumes or worse. (I pointed out that worse was, given the circumstances, the superior option, and Adam extended an offer to end my misery for me.) That became moot when Ford brought in a dying fig sapling, whose branches Eoan used to skewer oily clumps of pale meat. I’d have argued more but there was Portia, gnawing on her exposed wrist bone like a rabid coyote. Her face had begun to petal, spreading intoquarters: you could almost see the mandibles now, lacquered with blood and phlegm.

So I left it there. Partly because if the Librarian found us and took umbrage, it’d be Adam who would have to, euphemistically speaking, field the complaints. Partly because Portia looked hungry enough to be a problem shortly and would have been, I suspected, if not for Eoan grilling his alleged find. She watched the meat brown with a dazed expression. Minji alone seemed enchanted by the whole situation.

“Is it chicken then?” she said. “Beef? Pig? How many legs did this thing possess beforehand?”

“It looks like it might be shellfish,” said Gracelynn with care. “I wonder if it’s scallop.”

Minji turned to them, radiant with mischief. “And where does one findscallopin a library?”

“It’s a magical library. Maybe they magicked some up?” said Gracelynn, hope shining from their round face. I couldn’t meet their eyes.

I focused instead on Eoan’s work. A charred rind was beginning to form over the cubed meat; it’d been a noxious white at first until the fire had time to warm its color. Now, it made me think of good, expensive beef. I stared into the fire until my vision blurred with tears. Adam crumpled up another page and tossed it between his hands.

“Forget the food. Rowan, how do you want it to happen?”

“I’m sorry, what?” said Rowan.

“Ford said it already,” said Adam lightly, like he was proposing brunch options. “Half of us live if you die. So, how do you want to go?”

“Half still die,” said Minji. “We should probably figure out how that happens.”

“The normal ways, I suspect,” said Adam.

“They said we havethree days,” wailed Gracelynn. “This doesn’t have to happen now.”

Adam’s answering smile was serene, his accent and his diction become theirs, high and sweet and trembling. “Time flies when we’re having fun, though. Best we figure it out now rather than later, don’t you think?”

“Let’s start with Ford,” I said, blinking away the glare. I glanced sidelong at Ford, who was staring at Minji like a forlorn dog. Something in his expression made my skin want to scuttle off my bones to garrote the fucker right there and then. It wasn’t his clear hunger for her, although that was nauseating to see. It was the willing patience: it said it’d bide its time, wait until she was alone or vulnerable, untilyeswas a simpler story thanno.“He’s done his job. We don’t need him anymore.”

I thought of Johanna and her wolf and his appetites.

“I’d argue that we do,” said Adam.

“For what? He’s already told us if Rowan dies, half survive,” I said. “That’s enough prophecy for me. In fact, let’s send Ford out there. He’s been feeding the faculty prophecies for months. Might as well go all the way.”

Snap. Portia had chewed her arm and her hand hung now from a ribbon of frayed tendon, useless. I could see something protrude from the gray marrow, something like a sliver of black glass.

Or chitin.

“I want him,” hissed Portia. “Give him to me.”

Ford turned in such a way that nothing of his face could be seen except for one blue eye, his head engulfed entirely by shadow. It was dramatic, I’d give him that. His shirt, having been bled on for hours, had dried to something with thetexture of jerky. He smelled of bile, and of rust, and a little bit of shit.

“You’re not my death,” he told Portia.

Then Ford moved his attention to me, announcing in sepulchral tones, “You will get what you want. But you will wish for a different fate, you will wish for death to take you in its arms. Your destiny will be terrible. You will beg for the mercy of their mouths. You will…”

I rolled my eyes. Here at the end, posturing did little to move me.

“If we’re going to go down that route, we should start with the weakest of us,” said Adam, like Ford and I hadn’t spoken, his attention roving through the group. “The most expendable.”

“I feel like we should be addressing the fact Portiajust ate through her wrist,” said Rowan.

Adam boomed with laughter. I hated the noise. On its face, it was pretty enough, a sound plundered from a politician’s toolbox: rich, warm, reassuring. But like everything from a politician’s toolbox, it was entirely performative and like everything about Adam, it was probably stolen.

“If Kevin was still around, why they’d be the first one to die,” said Adam in faultless mimicry of Gracelynn’s own lilt, accurate to the smallest nuances of their twang. His eyes settled on them. “Bet they’d love knowing their spouse was a coward who hid so someone else could die in their place.”

“There’s no guarantee you’re going to be one of the ones who live, you know?” I said. “Maybe it’s time to stop pretending you’re the one in charge here.”

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