Page 58 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“So you can interrogate me,” Collins said.

“Yes,” said Nicholas, and to his surprise, they both laughed. It wasn’t that anything was funny—it’s that nothing was. Nicholas’s vision was blurring, and he dug a fist into his seeing eye, feeling the weariness setting in. “I’m going to sleep for a bit,” he said. “I’m taking Sir Kiwi. If we’re in there longer than an hour, bang on my door, will you?”

Collins started to answer then stopped, his posture changing into something straighter, squarer, his eyes fixed over Nicholas’s shoulder. Nicholas turned to see what he was looking at and found Maram standing at the entrance of the anteroom. She was in one of her fawn silk blouses with a luxurious bow at the neck, a bag slung across her shoulder and her camel coat draped over one arm. Her black boots were heeled. She was going out.

“You’re both here,” she said. “Good. Nicholas, can we go into your study? Collins, too. I need a word with both of you.”

“You certainly do,” said Nicholas. “I followed that note you left me.”

“In your study,” Maram said, “quickly, quickly. Richard’s coming up to check on you in a few minutes.”

She was herding them across the anteroom and Nicholas fumbled for his key with one hand, the jar of ink still clutched in the other. Maram pushed past him with uncharacteristic impatience, her own key already out and in the lock, and a second later they were in Nicholas’s study, and she’d locked the door behind them.

The curtains were drawn and the study was dark, but Maram yanked the brass pull of a nearby standing lamp and light flooded the room. Nicholas set the ink on the desk and sat down in the chair, resisting the urge to put his swimming head between his knees. Sir Kiwi leaped onto his lap and he clung to her soft fur.

“Were you there last night, when it happened?” Maram asked, her voice low and urgent. “With Tretheway. Did you see?”

Nicholas was too surprised to answer but Collins said, “Yeah, we were there. We saw the whole thing.”

“Who was it? Who pushed him through?”

“Two girls—women. One of them blond, one with dark hair.”

Nicholas looked at his bodyguard. He had not hesitated to answer Maram, who let out a long breath of either relief or agitation, Nicholas couldn’t tell.

“All right,” Maram said. “All right.” She whirled suddenly on Nicholas, all rippling silk. “And you. Did you see, in Richard’s study? Did you see what I wanted you to see?”

“I—I saw, I don’t know what I saw, it looked like, but it wasn’t, was it?”

“What wasn’t? Say it.”

“My eye,” Nicholas said, “it looked like my eye.”

“Yes,” Maram said. She began to say more but choked, one manicured hand flying to her throat, her eyes squeezing shut against a sudden coughing fit, and it was as if Nicholas’s entire body was submerged in ice as her rasping went on, and on. Every Library employee was under a silencing spell, Nicholas knew that. It had never occurred to him though,not once in the past twenty-odd years, that Maram might be as well. She was an employee, yes, but she was also Richard’s partner. She was more Library than Nicholas himself. Yet she had let Richard read her the NDA, had bound her silence like any servant or bodyguard.

No wonder she had not told him about his eye. What else had she been unable to tell him, all these years?

Maram had recovered herself before Nicholas had and was now rummaging around in her handbag. She pulled out a thick manila envelope and pressed it into Collins’s hands. He opened the flap quickly, glanced inside, and said, “What, right now? Today?”

“As soon as Richard and I leave,” Maram said. “Remember what to do when you get where you’re going? You drop them. As soon as you can.”

Nicholas should not have been surprised to find that Maram and his bodyguard had been keeping secrets from him, had, apparently, an entire preexisting relationship that allowed them to speak in such shorthand. Everyone had secrets from him. One more shouldn’t have been a shock. But his mouth was hanging open anyway.

“What is this?” he said. “Maram?”

“You have to trust me,” she said. “I know it’s going to be hard and I’m sorry I can’t explain. This would all be so much easier if I could.”

Sir Kiwi suddenly leaped from his arms, darting to the study door. She let out an excited, high-pitched yap.

“That’ll be Richard,” Maram said, crossing the room quickly and opening the door, then crossing back to sit in the armchair by the fire, arranging herself in a relaxed, casual posture. Quickly she said, “Collins, hide that.”

Collins leaned over Nicholas to open the desk drawer and shove the manila envelope inside, and had just taken up his customary post by the door when Richard poked his head in. He, too, was dressed to go out, already in his black wool coat.

“Ready?” he said to Maram. To Nicholas, “I’m taking her with me for the day. You’ll be all right here? You don’t need anything?”

Channeling his actress mother, Nicholas said, very calmly, “I do, actually. If you’ve time, will you check and see if my order’s in at the bookstore?”

“I’ll call once we’re out of the wards,” Richard promised. “And you’re feeling all right?” He winked. “Not ill?”

---