Page 99 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Plus, it’s really pretty.”

“’Tis. Come on.”

It was unaccountably strange to walk these halls feeling like a fugitive and he had to forcibly shake off the skulking slouch to his shoulders. It was too late at night for anyone to be about, but if anyone did see him, he wanted to look as natural as he always had, master of the domain, not to be questioned or bothered. He had no idea what Maram and Richard hadtold the staff about his disappearance; probably they’d been told nothing at all.

The two passed through the portrait gallery on the stairs and Esther slowed, examining all the austere, shadowed faces staring down at her. She pointed. “This looks like you.”

“Well spotted,” he said. “That was my father.”

“And this woman?”

“My mother.” He glanced around nervously.

“Do you think your uncle killed them?”

Nicholas swallowed. “Probably. Now come on.”

They were headed to the Library, to the secret passage that led to Richard’s study, though it was unclear how, exactly, they were going to get through the bookshelf, seeing as neither of them could read the spell.

When Nicholas had explained this conundrum earlier, back at Joanna’s house, Esther had suggested ripping the bookshelf out of the wall.

“It’s covered in books!” Nicholas had said, aghast at the suggestion.

“We can take the books out.”

“And then what?” Nicholas said, working himself up. “Pile them on the floor? These are priceless volumes, irreplaceable, they—”

“The floor’s not made of lava,” Esther said. “They’ll be fine.”

“Worse comes to worse,” Collins had put in, “you can go down and wake up Sofie, she’ll read the spell for you. She’s a good egg, I trust her.”

“Who’s Sofie?”

“Jesus, really? Sofie. She works in the kitchen. Probably baked literally every piece of bread you’ve ever shoved in your mouth.”

“Oh, right, yes, Sofie,” Nicholas said.

“You still have no idea who I’m talking about.”

No, because Nicholas had always been discouraged from fraternizing with the staff, but he didn’t think it would go over terribly well if he announced that.

But it turned out they did not need Sofie after all.

Esther and Nicholas reached the end of the hall where the Library’s enormous electronic doors loomed, and Esther watched with interest as Nicholas put his eye to the scanner. They both winced as the loud whirring gears turned and the doors moaned open, but no one appeared in the hallway to investigate and soon enough they’d made their way inside and shut the doors behind them.

Nicholas started moving forward immediately and then noticed Esther wasn’t following. When he looked back, he found her staring up at the soaring filigreed ceiling, the maze of shelves, the enormous windows draped in luxurious curtains.

“These can’t all be...”

“Spell books? Yes.”

Esther shook her head. “I wish Joanna could see this. She’d lose her mind.”

“Maybe someday she’ll visit,” Nicholas said lightly, though he had trouble envisioning a future in which he was allowed to do anything so mundane as invite people to his home. He did not know what it would mean for his life or for the Library if this plan worked and Richard was... out of the picture, to put it delicately, which was the only way Nicholas felt capable of putting it. He’d always assumed the house and the books within it were deeded to him, but he realized now it was equally, if not more likely, that in the event of Richard’s death, they’d be left to Maram.

Or perhaps there was no will in the first place. After all, it seemed Richard did not ever expect to die.

Nicholas was so distracted by his own looping thoughts that he took a wrong turn in the stacks and had to double back. When finally he did lead Esther below the oak-beamed ceiling of the section that had once been the chapel, and began to mount the dais, he had to work to understand what he was seeing.

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