Page 3

E llie was already fussing when I opened my eyes. Not crying—just that soft, breathy sound she made when she was hungry and didn’t want to wait. Her little hands kicked against the blanket, one fist catching the edge of my coat.

I’d tucked her beside me on the cot, curled between my body and the canvas divider. My back ached from staying so still all night, too afraid to shift and wake her. I sat up carefully and pulled her into my lap. She rooted against my shirt before I even got it unbuttoned.

She latched fast, greedy and impatient. I nursed her as quiet morning sounds rippled through the shared space.

Leilan, voice low and scratchy with sleep, murmured a spell over the hearth to coax the coals forward.

The halfling next to me—Dora, I thought her name was—began folding her quilt as though she could press the dreams back into the fabric.

Gruha was moving through her morning routine faster than the rest of us. She was already dressed, apron tied, sleeves rolled. She added a few logs to the fire, stirred the coals with a hooked iron poker, and set the kettle on the trivet.

When she noticed I was up, she gave a small nod. "Sleep okay?”

“Well enough.”

Gruha scratched her jaw. “Fire kept steady. That helps.”

Ellie finished with a grunt and a little sigh. I cleaned her up with one of the cloths from my bag and changed her quickly on my lap. She squirmed a bit but didn’t fuss.

When I started to rewrap her blanket, Gruha watched for a beat, then said, “You want to eat while I hold her?”

My hands stilled. “No, thank you,” I said. “She’s fine.”

She didn’t blink. “Suit yourself. Bread’s on the warmer.”

I got Ellie tucked into the sling across my chest, close enough to feel her breath against me. Then I crossed to the hearth and took a half-round of yesterday’s bread from the plate. It was dry but warm. I ate standing.

Gruha wiped her hands on a towel, then pulled a folded slip of parchment from a box near the bench. “Hearth Office sent your placement.”

I took the note.

Everwood Archives. Second bell. Cleaning and catalog prep. Ask for Edwin.

My thumb brushed the wax mark at the bottom—faint, mottled, barely there. Not fancy. Just official enough to open doors. Bread and rags, I thought. That’s all it would be. But the word lingered. Archives . It curved inside my ribs like something warm and old.

Books again.

“You know the way?” Gruha asked.

“Not yet.”

“I’ve got a delivery down that way. Could walk you.”

I shook my head. “I’ll manage.”

She didn’t argue. Just nodded once. “Crescent Lane. Third turn. Look for the tree carved over the door.”

I tucked the note into my coat and adjusted the sling's strap across my shoulder before stepping toward the door, where Mrs. Gruha stood waiting, holding a clean rag in one hand and a spare crust in the other. She didn’t offer the bread aloud, just raised an eyebrow until I took it.

The rag she handed directly to Ellie, dabbing her mouth.

“Back before dark,” Gruha said.

“Of course.”

The fog met me at the stoop—soft at first, then dense, curling around my ankles and slipping cold fingers beneath the cuffs of my coat.

Ellie stirred once at the shift in temperature, turning her cheek further into my collarbone.

I adjusted the sling with one hand and stepped out, boots ticking slowly down the stone steps.

The buildings changed as I moved east. Narrower footprints, earthier stone.

Ivy clung across lattices with little regard for trimming or polish.

Carved thresholds bore layers of soot from long seasons of hearth smoke.

Doorposts gleamed faintly where charms had been tied—rituals to keep crooks or curses from taking root in a household.

I passed storefronts just opening for the morning: chalkboard menus being set out, shutters lifted, the spicy tang of root pies warming in ovens.

And then I saw it.

I knew it was the archives before I even saw the sign.

The building sat low and wide at the end of the lane, settled into the moss-veined cobble like it had been poured into the city rather than built atop it.

Ivy curled up the stone exterior, leaves kissed with frost. Over the door, a carved panel stretched nearly the full length of the lintel: a vast alder tree, its roots intertwining with script in three distinct tongues—Verdan glyphs, Old Tharn runes, and the flowing script of Western Common.

Memory landed heavily in my chest.

Years ago, I’d spent a winter copying glyph variants for a language index no one read.

The archivist I worked for had ink-stained fingers and a stammer he lost only when talking about roots—linguistic or botanical.

He used to say that words were like trees.

The older the root, the harder it was to kill.

I hadn’t thought about him in years. Or the girl I’d been then—quiet, stubborn, proud of her callouses. Before Gavriel. Before everything turned ornamental and sharp.

My fingers brushed the doorframe as I passed beneath the carving. The wood was worn smooth where hands had touched it over the years. Decades, maybe. Ellie murmured in her wrap as I pushed the door open.

The interior greeted me with warmth and shadow.

Not shadow in the menacing sense—more like a dusky hush clinging close to the high beams and deep stacks.

Light filtered through tall windows set with colored panes, dappling the wide floor in soft gold and violet.

Dust hung in sunbeams, and somewhere overhead, a catalog scroll snapped shut.

A pair of young aides whispered in an alcove, passing parchment between them. Someone laughed softly behind a row of tall shelves—quickly hushed. I kept my head down. Too many rooms in my life had taught me to stay invisible.

A wide central desk dominated the front hall, piled with scrolls, parchment stacks, loose quills, three inkwells, a teacup with an old ring of dried brown at the bottom, and a single boot, worn smooth at the toe, propped beside the whole mess.

“Be right with you!” someone called from behind a shelf.

A moment later, a man limped into view, balancing a stack of boxed folios against his chest. His graying hair was tied back, and his robes were ink-splotched and uneven at the hem. The peg where his left leg should’ve been made a soft tap-tap-scrape on the floor as he moved.

He set the boxes down with a thump that jostled the scrolls. Looked up. Blinked. Then grinned.

“You’re our new cleaner, I take it? Issy, yes?”

At my nod, he limped around the desk to extend a hand. His grip was dry, calloused, and offered without hesitation.

“Edwin Fairweather. Senior scribe. Unofficial expert in bad tea and better margins.”

That startled a soft breath from me. Not quite a laugh, but close enough to make Ellie shift in the sling. She hummed, half-waking, then settled again against my chest.

He glanced down, eyebrows lifting at the bundle of baby and blanket. Not with the tight-lipped disapproval I’d grown too used to, nor the wide-eyed pity that made my teeth grit. Just a nod. Like an adjustment to a mental list.

“And who’s this small scholar?”

“Ellie,” I said, adjusting the sling. “She’s quiet if she’s fed. Usually.”

He gave a sage nod. “A good rule for most creatures in this building, honestly.” Then, glancing toward the desk, “You can set your things there if you’d like.”

I didn’t move toward the desk. Just nodded once.

Edwin noticed but didn’t comment. He limped around the desk, retrieved a folded sheet of parchment from beneath a cracked inkwell, and held it out to me.

“Your tasks are straightforward. Front hall, east alcove, lower stacks. Dusting, sweeping, organizing by initial glyph. Don’t touch anything with a red seal, and if something starts humming, walk away and come get me.”

I took the paper. The list was clear. Tidy. Dated.

“You’ll be paid end of week,” he added.

A door creaked open somewhere down the corridor behind him, and a voice followed—low and clipped. “You didn’t tell me she was bringing a child.”

Edwin sighed, long-suffering but fond. “Fira, we’ve discussed this.”

A second later, she emerged—a dwarven woman in a sharply pressed work coat, sleeves rolled, hair braided back into tight rows. Her scowl hit first, followed closely by eyes that missed nothing. She looked me over from boots to baby, arms crossed.

“This is a scribe’s hall, not a nursery.”

“She’s not a distraction,” I said quietly. “She stays close. I’ll get the work done.”

Fira grunted. “We’ll see.”

She turned to Edwin, lips pursed. “If I find biscuit crumbs in the folios again—”

“That was the fox sprite. Not Issy.”

Fira’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll see,” she said again, disappearing back through the door she came from, boots thudding sharp against the stone.

Edwin exhaled. “That’s her way of saying welcome.”

I wasn’t sure if he was joking.

“She’ll come around,” he said, catching my uncertainty. “She just likes order. And people who don’t spill tea on warded texts.”

“I don’t drink tea,” I said.

“Excellent start.”

The east alcove sat deeper into the building than I’d expected—past the central hall and a short turn that took me under an arched lintel carved with cataloging runes.

A faint tingle passed over my skin as I stepped beneath it, like walking through static.

Warding spells, meant to keep the wrong hands from the right shelves.

Ellie stayed still, her breath warm against my chest. I adjusted the sling, then wiped my palms on my coat and got to work.

Dusting was straightforward. The shelves here were wide and low, meant for scrolls and bundled papers rather than bound books.

I moved carefully, wiping the wood down with even strokes, sorting loose sheaves into neater piles.

Most were tagged with sigils I couldn’t read—not magical, just academic shorthand.

I recognized the rhythm of it, though. Systems. Quiet logic.

Someone had organized all this once with care, and I found myself matching their cadence without thinking too much about it.

It wasn’t hard work. But it asked for attention. I liked that more than I’d expected.

A half-bell passed, maybe more, before Ellie started to fuss. I found a corner nook by Shelf Seven, the sun licking across the floor in a wide triangle of gold. I crouched to sit beside the window, back against the wall, and guided her to nurse.

I didn’t mean to let my head rest half against the stone. But her mouth found rhythm again, and my shoulders eased.

Bootfalls approached.

I looked up quickly. Fira stood at the mouth of the hall, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

Ellie kept nursing, steady and content, one tiny fist curled against my coat. I met Fira’s gaze, waiting. If she was going to tell me I wasn’t allowed to feed her here, I wanted to hear her say it. Out loud.

But Fira didn’t say anything.

She glanced over the shelves at my work so far. Clean. Organized. Then her eyes dropped to Ellie and the wrap knotted across my shoulder.

“You’ve tied that too high,” she said finally. “Bet it pulls on your spine by midday.”

She reached into the deep pocket of her coat and pulled out something folded—a square of plum-colored wool with reinforced edges and a looped strap sewn into one corner.

“Had this made for my cousin’s girl,” she said. “She never came back for it.”

She didn’t offer it to me, not directly. Just set it on the windowsill beside me. Then turned.

“If you don’t want it, leave it here.”

Then, with no further ceremony, she stepped back down the hall, braid swaying again like punctuation. I heard muttering—something about the general inconvenience of soft things—but it seemed to be good-natured.

I looked down. Ellie blinked up at me, then made a soft sound—something between a sigh and a question—and jammed her fist decisively into her mouth.

“Well,” I murmured. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”

She gummed her knuckles and let out a muffled string of babble. All vowels and spit.

“Me neither,” I said.

I slid the plum wrap into my bag and stood, wrapping Ellie back against my chest before returning to the shelves.

Another hour passed. I dusted, sorted, made quiet work of the alcove. When I circled back to Shelf Three, I paused.

There was a stack of scrolls I hadn’t reached yet—crowded, loose, half-unraveled the last time I’d passed. Now, they sat neatly rolled and tied with soft twine. The twine wasn’t the standard cord, either. It was blue, slightly frayed, with a tiny sprig of dried lavender tucked into the knot.

I frowned. Looked around.

The hall was still empty.

I crouched beside the stack. No footprints in the dust. No lingering scent of perfume or polish—just parchment, old ink, and the faintest trace of moss and woodsmoke.

Further down the row, a single book had been left open across a stool.

I hadn’t opened any today—just dusted their covers.

The page was an illustration. Diagrams of infant wraps from various regions, annotated in tight, loopy script.

A mark in the margin pointed to one of them.

A note beside it read: support for spine and hips—good for longer walks.

I turned toward the main hall. No one was there. Just bookshelves. Light dust dancing in the last threads of sunbeam. But as I squinted toward the nearest end of the stack, I thought I saw—a reflection? No. A glint. Like a thimble button slipping out of sight behind a shelf.

Ellie sighed against my chest. I looked down at her, then back at the tidy scrolls. The opened book. The sprig of lavender.

“Well,” I said softly. “All right, then.”

I didn’t close the book. I left it just as it was.

And moved on to Shelf Four.