Page 66 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“You like books?” he said, his voice quiet beneath the roar of the engine, and was she imagining it, or was there a subtle emphasis on the word “books”? She glanced at his friend, who was leaning past him slightly, back to staring at her.

“Yep,” she said.

“Have you ever read this one?”

Perfunctorily she glanced down at the book in his lap, and the physical recognition hit her before the mental one did. Her heart skipped a beat and then resumed at ten times its original speed, her face tingling in shock. It wasLa Ruta Nos Aportó Otro Paso Naturalby Alejandra Gil.Not only that, it was her own copy, unmistakably. She’d know it anywhere, that crease in the corner, the tiny rip at the spine.

“Where did you get that?” she whispered. She didn’t choose to whisper but her vocal cords weren’t working, her throat too tight, her breath barely pushing through her lungs.

Once again, the jaws of the trap were closing around her.

“Maram gave it to me,” he said, as if the name should mean something to her.

“I don’t—” She struggled for air. “I don’t know who that is.”

“She knows who you are,” said the blue-eyed man, in a surprisingly strong Boston accent.

“Butwedon’t,” said the English one. “Who are you?”

How was she even supposed to answer that question? “I’m the person you stole that book from.”

“We didn’t steal anything,” the Englishman said, looking affronted, which seemed a very unfair thing for him to feel given the fact that he had the book and she did not.

“Then give it back,” she said.

The man looked at his friend, who shrugged and nodded, and to Esther’s complete astonishment, the book was suddenly in her hands. She hugged it tightly to her chest, not caring if she looked like a kid with a stuffed bear.

“If you don’t know Maram, why’d she send us to you?” the guy said. He seemed to be talking not only to her but to his friend, too. “Because she did send us, didn’t she? Had to’ve. She said to show this book to the woman in the mirror, and our tickets—Paris to Zürich to Singapore to Auckland. If I’m honest, I nearly pissed myself when we recognized you in the queue.”

“WhenIrecognized you,” the man at his side corrected.

“Right, when Collins did.”

“Sean.”

The Englishman looked briefly confused, then nodded. “Yes. Sean. This is Sean. And you are?”

“I’m not telling you my name,” Esther said, incredulous. “I’m not telling you anything until you explain why you have my book, why you sat next to me, and who the hell you are.”

“Look, we’re just as confused as you are,” said the Englishman.

The big blue-eyed one—whose name was very obviouslynotSean—leaned forward so he could look at her over his friend’s lap. “We saw you,” he said, his voice barely audible over the rumble of the plane. “We saw you fighting Tretheway through a mirror.”

Esther nearly lost her grip on the Gil. “It was you?” she said. “On the other side? All that time? You’re the one who gave me the tickets?”

“What? No,” said the Englishman.

“Shhh,” said the other, although they were all talking quietly, and she realized that the three of them had leaned forward, heads together.She sat back abruptly and put her hand to her seat belt, even though the gesture was absolutely pointless, because where would she go?

The big one saw the movement and said, “We aren’t gonna hurt you.”

He looked extremely capable of hurting her.

“No,” agreed the Englishman, and he at least didn’t look like he could do much damage. Already she was sorting them into bad-guy types: the brawn and the brains, though she was yet to see real evidence of the latter. “We only want answers,” he said. “Like why was Tretheway after you? And what’s your connection to the Library? And where were you when you had that fight? And is that blond girl all right? And why didn’t that book have any effect on you? And—”

“Stop,” Esther said, “slow down, I don’t understand half of what you’re saying. What Library are you talking about? And wasn’t Trev—Tretheway—wasn’t he the one who spelled the mirrors in the first place? So aren’t you all on the same side?”

“We’re not on Tretheway’s side,” the big one said loudly, then, in a lower but no less furious voice, “Tretheway’s a fucking dick.”

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