Page 29

Perhaps it was time that she should start using it.

Chapter fourteen

The Path

That night, long afterthe other candidates had retired to their apartments, Fern sat on her bed, fully dressed, patiently waiting for the distant chime of the midnight bell.

There were only three days remaining until the assignment was due, and she had been working since the morning, but her tiredness was something she set aside within herself.

This was another skill inculcated by St Jerome, where the girls had been expected to sit and read prayers before bed, kneeling on their threadbare cushion in the chapel.

If the nuns saw a girl so much as open her mouth in a yawn or blink too slowly, she would receive a sharp rap across the back. Not enough to hurt, only hard enough to shock and frighten.

All the girls had learned to set aside their own weariness, in the end, and Fern, who forever had been a fast learner, had learned it sooner than most. She put it into practice now, rubbing the heaviness away from hereyelids and pacing her room until the ringing of the bell to keep the siren’s call of sleep at bay.

The midnight bell rang, a solemn, distant knell.

Fern gave Inkwell a goodbye nod and left her apartment, closing her door quietly behind her. She made a beeline for the laundry room at the end of the corridor, her steps stifled by the carpet lining the centre of the floor.

The laundry room was dark, lit only by the mist-mired moonlight drifting from the window. In that faint light, Fern could make out shelves full of folded sheets, pillowcases and towels, baskets of laundry, an ironing table. She ignored them all. She knew exactly what she was looking for.

In the far-left corner was a tall, narrow wardrobe. She opened it. It was empty but for a few iron hangers. Dipping slightly to avoid disturbing the hangers and making noise, Fern pressed her hand against the wooden panel at the back of the wardrobe. It clicked and fell open, revealing a narrow passageway.

Fern knew several things that the other candidates could not possibly know.

First, the attendants who maintained the Carthane grounds and buildings were strictly forbidden from interacting with the library’s workers and guests. They had to remain unseen on pain of punishment, dismissal and even legal action.

To facilitate this, Carthane was streaked through with an inner vascular system of secret corridors, passageways and staircases. The attendants used these to travel through Carthane unseen.

If one knew how to navigate the complex maze of those passageways, one would, in theory, have access to most of Carthane.

The second thing Fern knew was that the Sentinels were too large for those passageways, and that the attendants were all required to keep to their quarters until five in the morning. In the nights, Fern would be alone in the hidden maze, free to travel wherever she pleased.

Although she had grown up in these very passageways, Fern had been gone from Carthane for a long time. Even as a child, her reach and access had been limited, and her parents had done everything in their power to keep her from roaming too far on her own.

If she wished to use the servant passageways to her advantage now, she must first learn their layout. This would take time, and effort, and sacrifice; she could only do this while everybody else slept.

Shewouldfind out the titles of Lautric’s borrowed books, she simply had to accept it might take time to do so. But it was fine. Patience was only one more lesson St Jerome had taught her.

That night, Fern wentonly as far as the Carthane entrance atrium.

The way from the Mage Tower to the Keystone was a long detour down the Mage Tower, through the lower levels containing the kitchens and washrooms, then down an underground tunnel leading to a vastunderground chamber, with a low ceiling and long walls lined with doors.

Fern counted over thirty of them, but the chamber disappeared into darkness, and Fern guessed that there were many more passageways she could not see. She had begun to map out the pathways in a small notepad; she made sure to note the doors, too.

As a child, she had once taken the wrong way through the hidden corridors and ended up in this very chamber. She remembered the depth of the cold there—the old, sepulchral cold of under-earth stone. She remembered looking around and seeing the doorways yawning like dark, hungry mouths from the shadows.

The fear she felt then rippled through her now; she hurried back the way she had come.

She finally made her way to the Keystone and reached the atrium from behind a panel concealed by a tapestry. There were no Sentinels here: they guarded the entrance from without the doors, not within.

But to reach the different levels of the library, Fern would need to find another entrance to the hidden passageways. There was one in the lower auditoriums, she was certain of this, but which one?

She checked the time. Almost three o’clock.

Her wrong turn had cost her too much time; she must turn back.

It was almost four o’clock in the morning by the time she reached her room. Inside, she stopped to review the notes she had made on her journey. The small map she had begun to sketch when she first set off had now spread over several pages.