When dusk fell over the Silent Archive, Vera's dread increased tenfold. She paced up and down the rows of tables within the dining hall, willing her galloping heartbeat to slow. Nearby, the grandfather clock tolled to indicate the beginning of the evening meal. One hour closer to her morning departure.
She wasn't hungry, though. The cold anxiety thrumming through her veins made certain to eradicate her appetite. She was only waiting in the hall for a familiar face.
At last, she spotted Sybil, who came up the stairs amid a flood of other research trainees. Many of her peers were chatting amongst themselves and gesturing towards their preferred tables. Sybil, in contrast, walked alone, her posture relaxed as if she was unbothered by her isolation.
When Sybil caught sight of Vera, her face broke into a grin as she waved.
"Veeeraa," Sybil called, joining her where she stood between two tables. "You will not believe who I ran into earlier."
"The Duke of Ruin?" she guessed.
Sybil tilted her head. "How'd you know?"
Vera pressed a palm against her forehead to quell her fatigue "I've seen too much of that man."
"Really?" Sybil asked. "What do you think of him? He seemed to me as dark and broody as the nickname implied."
"I think he's somehow worse than the name. It's like the only language he speaks is 'looming over people' and 'threatening arson'."
Sybil's brows shot up. "Arson?"
"Syb…" Vera trailed off, searching for the words as she cradled her face in her hands. "I messed up."
"What did you do to the duke?"
Vera glanced around. The middle of the dining hall during the dinner rush was not ideal for the confession she was about to make.
"Can we go somewhere else?" she asked. "My room should work."
"Ohh," Sybil said, giving a smirk, "a secret. I'm interested."
Vera led her away from the chatter of the hall and up to the fifth floor of dormitories. Her room, tucked away in the corner, was just as she left it that morning when she'd woken with the realization that she'd made a terrible mistake.
When she closed and latched the door behind them, Vera turned to face her friend. "I need you to promise not to tell this to anyone."
"Who's there to tell?" Sybil said with a scoff. "People don't exactly talk to me."
"I'm serious."
"Fine," she said, holding up a hand as if she was taking the Archive's vows all over again. "I promise."
Vera took a long, slow breath, her mind spinning. She saw no other place to explain her situation than to start at the beginning.
"I was on desk duty when the duke made it through the mirror-trial," she began. "He came in demanding a certain book, but he couldn't describe its title or classifications. Since he couldn't give me any search parameters, I sent him away until he knew what he was looking for."
Sybil folded her arms. "I'm sure he took that well."
"As you might guess, that was the part where he threatened to burn down the Archive if I didn't help him," Vera said with a dry smile. "But that's not the problem. Later, I went looking for the book he requested and figured out the title. The issue is that I sent it out to one of the caches the other day, and forgot to log which one."
Sybil's jaw went slack. "Ooh…"
"I know," Vera said, "don't tell Corvin." She grimaced at the thought, but forced herself to continue. "Anyway, sleep deprivation had me going crazy, and I almost got eaten by a mistmaw in the tunnel, so I… offered him a deal. He's going to help me manually check the other caches, and I'll make him replicas of whatever he wants in the Archive."
"Vera," Sybil said, her voice flat with obvious disbelief.
Vera clawed her fingers through her hair. "Yes, I know. I messed up. I put myself in the perfect position to lead him to a chained book without the chain. He's going to take it and run."
For a moment, Sybil said nothing, which was a disheartening sight. Sybil always had something to say.
"What's the alternative?" she asked.
"Corvin finds out that I misplaced the book."
"I see the dilemma. I might choose the duke over Corvin too."
Vera gave a dry laugh. "That only makes me feel slightly more sane."
"When do you leave?" Sybil asked.
"Dawn tomorrow. I already put in the request for travel equipment. Corvin and Idonea think I'm going on a month-long holiday somewhere."
"Please tell me you have some sort of weapon," Sybil said.
"I requested a warding lantern."
Sybil shook her head. "That won't cut it. I'm currently taking the module on outside research practices. If you're spending a month out there on Witherstone, you'll need something else. A warding lantern is only good for nighttime."
She was right, Vera knew. She should've ignored Thierry's mockery and requested something more effective. It all was happening too fast.
She began to pace the short length of her room. "He's going to leave me stranded out there. I'm going to get eaten by a mistmaw." She looked to Sybil, pleading. "What do I do?"
Her friend released a breath. "Stop panicking, for a start. We have ten hours before you leave. I'll help you."
"Help with what? It's too late to request any more items."
Sybil smiled. "Gods, you really never go outside, do you? You don't need anything from the Conservatory. Just ink, index cards, and a retrieval shelf."
"Where am I going to get a retrieval shelf?" Vera asked hopelessly. "And do you think I'll be lugging a massive piece of furniture around the swamps?"
Sybil fixed her with a stern glare. "What did I say about not panicking?" She turned toward the door and unlatched it. "Just follow me."
Vera reluctantly obeyed as Sybil continued into the corridor. She expected her friend to head for the back stairs, but she instead curved around the hallway of dormitories until they reached Sybil's own room in the adjacent wing for the education department.
It was the same size as Vera's room, though it felt significantly smaller on account of the state of chaos Sybil had left it. Nothing was where it was meant to go. Dresses were on the floor, cardigans were on the desk, books were on the dresser, and papers were on the bed. Sybil had even taken the curtains down from around the window, hanging them up as a tapestry behind the headboard, and using her quilt in their place.
The girl picked through the clutter as if it wasn't there. She knelt beside the bed, reached under, and rummaged around for a few moments. After a beat, she removed a small plank of dark wood about the length of her forearm.
"Here you go," she said, passing it to Vera.
Vera turned it over in her hands. Sure enough, the silvery sheen of spellwork shimmered among the grain of the wood.
"Is this…"
"A retrieval shelf, yes. Well, part of it."
"Where did you get this?"
Sybil shrugged. "I borrowed it. One of the retrieval shelves in the classroom fell apart, and I managed to grab this piece of it before maintenance took it away. It might not be the whole thing, but it works with bibliomancy all the same."
Vera placed the plank on Sybil's desk, her brows lowering in confusion. "Researchers don't use bibliomancy. That's what the archival department is for. Why do you have this?"
"I like collecting things," Sybil said. "It could be useful."
Her words sparked a memory. It was from long ago, when Vera was still deep within her preliminary education at the Archive. Her teachers ignored her and her classmates sneered at her. Being only ten years of age, the loneliness was so crushing that Vera had regretted ever coming to the Archive.
Then a newcomer came in the form of a five-year-old child who Idonea picked up as another stray.
The first time Vera had seen her, the girl had torn through the dormitories in a giggling rampage, opening any door left unlocked and ravaging it of its belongings. When Vera found her favorite book of children's tales missing from her desk, she had chased the girl through the corridors. It turned out that Sybil had brought it into an empty classroom, along with every other trinket she had taken, and displayed them across the desks like she was the curator of a museum.
"I suppose you do," Vera said, smiling at the memory. "Thanks for this. It will definitely help me research the beasts before I face them,"
"Certainly, but that's not the only thing you can use it for."
Vera tilted her head. "Like what?"
"Bibliomancy can summon almost anything within the Archive. Half the books here are their own spells if you flip to the right page."
"Sure, but the powerful ones are chained up."
Sybil flashed a conspiratorial grin. "Not if you unchain them."
The suggestion made Vera lurch to attention.
"Corvin––"
"Will notice eventually, yes, but not right away. You've said it yourself a thousand times. He hates doing his job. That's why he always pawns it off on you. With you gone on 'holiday', it'll probably take ages for him to get around to assigning it to another archivist."
"Maybe," Vera said, "but what do I say when I return from 'holiday' with a bag full of volatile books that are meant to be chained up?"
Sybil shrugged. "Say you found it in a cache or something. Corvin doesn't know you have the retrieval shelf out there. He won't think you capable of summoning. If anything, those books going missing on his watch while you're absent will make you look even more indispensable to the archival department."
Vera forced her mouth shut as she pondered the suggestion. It was morally ambiguous, certainly, but enticing all the same. The contradiction made her stomach queasy with uncertainty.
"Have I ever told you that you're mad?"
Sybil beamed. "Many times."
Vera chuckled. "I should probably feel guilty about lying, but the thought of framing Corvin for mismanagement is somehow the only comfort in this situation."
Sybil pumped a fist in the air. "That's the spirit!"
"Well," Vera said, picking up the plank of wood. "I have all night, and I don't think I'll be able to sleep anyway. I might as well start unchaining the books I'll need."
Sybil gave a mock salute. "Good luck. I'll see you off before you leave."
"Thanks," Vera said, smiling. "You might be mad, but in the 'mad genius' sort of way."
・・・・・
Vera waited for the ruckus of dinnertime to finish and for the majority of members to return to their rooms before she ventured back to the oh-so-familiar chained section of the Archive. As expected, there was no one there. After all, Vera had been the only one in her department to work a night shift since her promotion nearly a year ago.
Vera was adept at memorizing classifications and the specific parameters for bibliomancy, but she never had much time to actually read the contents of the books she worked with. Her training days had given her a cursory knowledge of which books were the most volatile, but she hadn't a clue how to go about summoning the magic within the pages.
So for the next few hours, she thumbed through the contents of any tome that looked least likely to spontaneously combust. She had little faith in her scrawny arms to wield any legendary weapons, so she instead opted for the grimoires that steered toward support magics. She would rather make herself quick enough to outrun the beasts than shed any blood herself.
Vera scribbled onto a notepad the identifications for each book she deemed useful, and committed each entry to memory. When she was satisfied with her list, she snuck down to the main collection desk on the ground floor. The archivist on duty, the same red-haired boy Corvin had tormented earlier, snored face-down on the desk. A line of his drool pooled onto the mahogany.
As quietly as she could manage, Vera nudged open a drawer on the far edge of the table and retrieved a small, golden key. The boy continued to mutter in his sleep as she walked away.
It was almost too easy to unlock her selected books and return the key to its place unnoticed. It was like the Archive itself was doing all it could to spit her out onto Witherstone Isle.
Sixteen years she had lived within its walls, and the only warmth she'd experienced was from an excitable child-turned-scheming-maniac Sybil. Even Idonea, who'd admitted her into the Archive to begin with, was only kind from a distance.
Perhaps Vera should be happy to leave this place, if only for a while.
Vows hold power, she remembered Idonea telling her all those years ago.
Now, the worth of those vows was uncertain. Vera had been six when she made them. She hadn't understood what she was committing to.
And yet… all of this effort was to rectify a mistake in order to retain her place here.
Vera shook her head to clear it. This wasn't worth thinking about, not when her perilous trek with the duke loomed only hours away.
It would sort itself out, or it wouldn't, but the pieces were already in motion. All she could do was march forward on this path she'd set for herself.