Page 36 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“The Library holds power,” said Maram. “And power is always a reflection of the world that has created it, regardless of intention.”

“But magic could make the world better,” Nicholas tried.

“No, it couldn’t,” said Maram, her voice sharp. “Your uncle understands this. You need to understand it, also. That is why we keep commissions small and personal, why you will never write for governments or corporations or leaders of political rebellions, no matter how intriguing their cause or how much money they offer. We are not here to change the world with these books, Nicholas. Part of the reason we collect them is to keep themfromthe world, because the world misuses power and the Library participated in that misuse for centuries. Do you see what I am saying?”

Nicholas had seen. But even now, he did not like looking at the carving, did not like looking at the serene lines of Seshat’s ancient profile, and he avoided it as he climbed the steps of the dais.

On the outside, the books in this chapel section were as colorful as the books everywhere else, their spines bright leather or dull cloth or even hammered metal, but inside they were ghostly. This was where the Library kept the books whose ink had faded, whose magic had run dry. The book referenced in Maram’s second note was a slim, elongated volume in a red leather cover with the customary placard in place.

Country of origin: Hungary.

Estimated year written: 1842.

Collected: 1939.

Effect: Causes solid unliving objects to become translucent and breachable; allows bodies to pass through. Duration: Max six minutes per reading.

There was nothing remarkable about it as far as Nicholas could tell on a first leaf-through. The book seemed to be no more than exactly what it was, a spell with scarcely forty pages to it, the ink faded nearly to the point of powerlessness...

But not quite.

Nicholas raised the book to his eye and squinted at the first page. The ink was faint, yes, but unlike every other book in this section, it was not entirely used up. There was magic in it yet. He began looking through it again and this time, when he reached the end, he saw something very interesting.

The last page had been written over. The ink, which had been faded and almost unusable, grew suddenly strong again. A different hand had changed the final words of the spell.

The last page had been rewritten by a different Scribe entirely, to make the book rechargeable.

Nicholas’s heart picked up in his chest. Now this, this was something. A rechargeable book needed more blood than was usual; it needed all the blood a person could give.

Which meant someone, sometime, had died to rewrite this book.

He pressed one cotton-gloved fingertip to the faint brown stain where the page would take the reader’s blood and read the notecard again.

Causes solid unliving objects to become translucent and breachable; allows bodies to pass through.

He looked up at the bookshelf, which was made of sturdy oak and metal nails, the shelves lined with books of leather and paper. Solid unliving objects. There was a visible section of wood where the book had been sitting, the back of the shelf sitting flush against the wall. Carved into the wood was a small symbol no bigger than the nail on Nicholas’s smallest finger: a clear, deliberateX.

He stepped back to examine the rug beneath his feet. It was, like all the rugs in the library, woven wool and slightly worn down from the years. Was it Nicholas’s imagination, or did the worn path look subtly different here? He knelt by the base of the bookshelf and took off his gloves so he could drag his fingers across the fibers, and it wasn’t in his head: the rug was thinner not only in the center of the aisle but on the side, too—a barely perceptible swerve in the path that led to this book, to this bookshelf. The thinning pile went all the way to the foot of the bookshelf—as if the path led not to the shelf, but through it.

He rose to his feet. He stared at the rechargeable book in his hand and then again at the worn-down path of the rug.

Allows bodies to pass through.

There was something beyond this shelf. Something that could only be reached by using this book Maram had led him to, a book that anybody could read. Anybody at all could press their finger to the page and let the paper drink their blood, anybody could speak the words that would render this bookcase permeable, words that would dissolve the barrier of shelves and frame and allow the reader to move through it to whatever lay waiting beyond.

Anyone except someone who could neither touch nor be touched by magic.

Anyone except Nicholas.

By design, whatever lay beyond the shelf was inaccessible to him and him alone.

He put the book back with a shaking hand, obscuring that delicately carvedX. He suddenly felt as if the bookshelves were looming over him, leering. If Maram wanted him to know about this, why not just tell him? Did she think him so bored he needed a child’s game to occupy his time?

Collins was sitting on the floor in the hall outside, chin in his hand, though he got to his feet when Nicholas came back through the metal door. He took a step away when he saw that Nicholas wasn’t closing the door behind him.

“You find what you were looking for?” he said.

Nicholas’s mind was whirring. He himself couldn’t work the magic, but that didn’t mean someone else couldn’t work it for him.

---