Page 15 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely
I chew on my lip. She does. She had found me after I had read the book. She had known, even, that I had read the book. Until the other day, I had never seen her before, but she seemed to know an awful lot about me. I groan silently. I thought if I could just be my dull self she would grow bored with me, but I’ve had her attention for far longer than I realised.Fuck.
I’m doomed.
How is Paint Master Striger involved?
“The poison. It was in your paints. I guess the question is whether it was an accident or intentional,” says Lune.My stomach turns at the thought. The Paint Master was an agreeable man, as far as people were allowed to be agreeable in the Library. I couldn’t imagine him intentionally poisoning us, but nor could I imagine him being so careless. This was beyond the games and torments of the Librarians, if what Lune said was true. Librarians did not need excuses or traps if they wished to cause harm to a scribe.
There is a knock at the door, and another healer’s head pokes through the gap.
“Lune?” she whispers. “There’s another one.”
Lune’s face falls. “Can you find someone to bring Lorel something to eat? I’ll be out in a moment.”
Once the door closes, Lune puts her head in her hands. Her fingers press into her skin. I lift my pencil, but I don’t need to ask the question.
“Night cough,” she says through her fingers. “It started with the researchers, and now it has spread to the scribes and the papiers within the Library. It’s come up overnight in each of the other quarters too, and the afflicted are starting to fill up the infirmaries. It’s moving so fast.”
It has been years since an outbreak of night cough, but the memories of my parents as the cough tore through their bodies never left me. It was believed that dark spirits, wretched enemies of the Dawn King, stole in to infect the afflicted while they slept. True or not, it is no wonder I am in a separate room.
Lune takes a deep breath and lets it all out. That must be nice. “Get some rest. I’ll be back when I can,” she says, standing. She puffs up the pillows to make it easier for me to sit up. She ignores any of my protests. It’s easy enough to do when she can’t hear them. And then when she is gone, the chamber is silent. There isn’t much to it. Just the bed, the wooden stool and the little table with the carafe and glass.
I wish I could be in my own room, in my own bed, but even that wouldn’t stop all the swirling thoughts. It’s like someone has opened one of the cliff side windows and sent papers flying about the room. Only each piece of paper is a thought, and it’s impossible to connect them as they wheel about.
The poisoning should have felt accidental. Entirely plausible that it could be a mistake. Only with how many times I had been in the infirmary these past weeks, it was getting harder to believe itwasan accident.
Chapter 9
Lorel
If I was goingto be here alone for so long, someone might have thought to leave me a book to read. Not that I could really keep my eyes open.I think it might be late afternoon when I’m startled by another presence in the room, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Sila.I blink away the sleep from my eyes, looking for my glasses. I realise after a moment of searching that she is holding them in her hands.
“Good afternoon, little mouse,” she says. Her smile is soft, and yet somehow still menacing. There’s a gentle click as she moves, setting my glasses carefully on my nose. “There, you look slightly less vague.”
I can see her more clearly now. The permanent shadows under her eyes seem deeper, her skin paler. She almost lookstired, which can’t be possible. With her so close, I struggle to breathe. I can’t help but feel that something has gone terribly wrong.
Is everything alright?
Sila doesn’t respond immediately, staring at me for a long, drawn out moment. Her eyes drop to my chest and I have to start the whole process of remembering how to use my lungs all over again as she reaches out. Her fingers tug the tie of my shift undone, and push the fabric aside. I am drowning and surely delirious. Without a doubt, this must be a dream. No, a nightmare.
Her fingers press against my skin. I have the vague sensation that this has happened before.
“You have a curse mark,” she says, as if she already knew this. “How?” She keeps her fingers pressed there as she looks back up. Her dark gaze is piercing. It allows no room for falsehood. Some very sensible part of me is telling me that I need to run.
You can see it?
No one else has been able to see it. Not any of the Librarians who saw to me after the incident with the book. Not even Lune with her magical touch.
“Yes,” she says, through gritted teeth. Her nails dig in a little before she pulls her hand away. “Someone has a claim on you. How? Do not make me repeat myself again, scribe.”
So, I am a scribe again.
The book. It appeared after I read the book.
“I didn’t see it when I brought you here,” she says, her lovely face grim as she frowns.
It wasn’t so very big to start with. And…it was hardly the only mark on my skin.
