Page 35 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

From their rapid-fire questions, it was clear they were after the Library’s closest-guarded secret: the secret of the Scribes themselves. They wanted to know how the books were being written and by whom, little realizing that the answer was tied to the chair in front of them. Nicholas told them nothing. Finally, after hours of interrogation and two broken fingers, a person who smelled like soapy lavender detergent had come and plunged a needle into his arm and that was where his memory ended.

When he woke he was in a hospital bed. He opened what turned out to be his one remaining eye to see Maram slumped in a chair at his side,exhausted in a way he’d never seen her before and would never see again. Behind her Richard was pacing.

After the doctors had told him the extent of his injuries, after Richard and Maram had explained how it had been the activated expiration date of the hailstorm book in Nicholas’s pocket that had led them to him and saved his life, after he’d told them everything he’d learned from his captors, which was absolutely nothing, Richard had knelt at his bedside and taken Nicholas’s hand.

“If we’d been fifteen minutes later—” he’d said, then stopped, voice shaking, unable to finish the sentence. When he spoke again his voice was steady, strong. “I will never let this happen again.”

Nicholas had lowered his head, embarrassed by the emotion in Richard’s words but thankful for it, too. Richard squeezed his hand and said, “No, Nicholas, I want you to look at me while I say this. I want you to believe me. Nothing like this will ever happen to you again. We’re going to keep you safe, me and Maram and the Library. I promise you.”

And he’d kept that promise. Nicholas had been safe—so, so safe—ever since. Grateful for the protection. Unquestioning of its necessity. Not dreaming, anymore, of any other life but this.

And because this was his life and he had more or less accepted that it was the only one he would ever have, he’d decided to take pride in what he could of it. He’d focused even harder on studying the books, his father’s notes, on learning to write, and he’d long since memorized the layout of the library.

So he knew exactly where to find the book whose information Maram had copied into her note. It was on one of the curved shelves in the original library, very high up, and Nicholas had to push aside a large seventeenth-century globe and drag one of the spiral staircases over in order to reach it. It was bound rather crudely in undyed leather that felt rough to the touch. He took it down and read the informational card in its plastic cover.

Country of origin: England.

Estimated year written: 1702.

Collected: 1817.

Effect: Causes all admixture of chemical propellant, i.e., gunpowder, to turn metal intoBombus terrestrisupon explosion.

Ink sample: Blood type O negative, detected clover, balsam.

He remembered this book now; he’d studied it when he was learning transformational magic. He adjusted his gloves and began to page through it. He had no idea what Maram wanted him to look for and was prepared to flick through the pages and let his attention skim until it found traction, but he saw immediately that it wouldn’t be necessary.

In the front of the book, tucked between the cover and the first page, there was a note.

This, too, was in Maram’s handwriting and he read it over, a headache starting to throb behind his eyes.

It was another call number.

What was this, a scavenger hunt? He put the bullets-to-bees book back on its shelf and began weaving his way to the other side of the library entirely, where the old chapel had been. He was so focused on his path that he bounced his blind left side hard off the edge of a shelf and swore loudly in pain, though his voice was swallowed by the distant hum of the dehumidifier and the layers and layers of paper.

This next book was in one of the shelves beneath the stained-glass windows of what had once been the chapel, on a raised dais where the sermon would have been delivered. It was right behind one of two red leather Georgian wingback chairs that flanked a chest-high glass display case. The case held a fragment of a four-thousand-year-old limestone relief carving that depicted the Egyptian goddess of writing, Seshat, mistress of the house of books. Her name meantShe who is the scribe.

This was not merely a relic, however. On the other side of the limestoneslab were a series of meticulously etched hieroglyphics, taking up nearly the entire stone, and if one put a microscope to these etched characters, dark traces of blood were visible in the grooves. The long-dead Scribe who’d carved this spell had mixed their blood with herbs and clay and sealed it into the carving. It was what Maram called a “companion spell”—written to enhance the workings of other magic rather than stand on its own.

This particular companion spell could prolong the effects of any book for up to three hours, and the carving was priceless not only for its age, but because the magic was still intact—barely. There was enough blood present for one last reading, a near-miracle considering that etched or carved spells could generally support only two readings total. As long as Seshat was under Maram’s protection, however, Nicholas knew those traces of blood would remain, and the four-thousand-year-old magic would endure, unread, forever.

According to Maram, Nicholas’s grandfather had acquired this relic in 1964 at a curatorial meeting for a New York museum, via the use of a powerful persuasion spell that made the reader seem completely trustworthy to anyone with whom they spoke, for thirty minutes. The spell had first been written, Maram told Nicholas, for the Dutch East India Company, to be used by slavers.

Nicholas had been thirteen, his empty socket still healing beneath an eyepatch, when Maram had told him this—she was sitting in one of the red chairs as he peered at the ancient carving, his fingertips just brushing the glass of the display case. That last part made him recoil.

“That’s horrible,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” said Maram. “It was written in 1685.”

The Library had been founded in 1685. Or anyway, that was the year Nicholas’s founding ancestor had decided to turn his personal collection of books into the beginnings of an organization. That was the year he’d hired the first Library employees, and the year he’d appointed the first official Library Scribe—his sister.

Nicholas had a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Did a Library Scribe write that book?”

“That’s right,” said Maram. “In fact, it was the first commission, and the proceeds were used to renovate this chapel.”

Nicholas looked down from the dais to the colored pattern of stained glass the sun painted across the carpet. “But,” he said, knowing what he was about to say was childish and unable to stop himself, “I thought my great-whatever-grandad started the Library because he wanted to help people.”

This was the story he’d been told: that the surgeon had seen so much suffering in his profession that in middle age he’d turned his purpose from medicine to magic, hoping to find a way to miraculously heal the human body. But books could not interfere with biology, at least not permanently, and over time the Library’s auspices had expanded from mere study to include collection, preservation, and commission. Writing spells for slavers had not been included in this origin story as Nicholas had understood it.

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