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Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned.

“The Second Coming,” by William Butler Yeats

Livira

Now they waited for Yute’s return as the throne room shuddered around them.

“We can’t stay here!” Oanold’s cry came after the third crash. Fear of Starval had kept him quiet when the first chunk of plaster had smashed down on the far side of the throne room. And when the second, larger piece had pulverised itself on the floor ten yards from him. But when the growing tremors shook free a whole ornamented section of the ceiling, that had exploded in gilded glory close enough to paint both him and Starval white from head to foot, the king had had his fill.

“Where do you suggest we go, Your Majesty ?” Carlotte left his title dripping with scorn. All of them had gathered around the portal now, though it offered little by way of escape. They waited for Yute and the two brothers to return, and Livira supposed that, gathered together as they all were, they would die in one collapse rather than piecemeal as the palace fell apart. It seemed the better option. Not good, but better.

The portal had been showing them Celcha’s efforts to save the library, but after Yute’s departure it had given over to a view that flitted from one library room to another, seemingly at random. The impervious chambers were faring less well than the throne room. Huge slabs of masonry fell from the unfathomable heights to destroy books and shelves by the tens of thousands in great thunderclaps surrounded by a smoke that a closer view revealed as wild storms of loose pages.

“There!” Livira pointed. The view through the portal had changed to one she knew well enough to pick from ten thousand similar scenes. “The labyrinth in Chamber Two!” The place where her book had been born, the source of all its pages. Tremors had shaken books from many shelves, but the place looked largely intact. Even as she watched, the view swooped into the clearing where, on the stained floor, she had first found Edgarallen, the raven who had taken her through the initial steps of her journey to the Exchange. “Yute! Yute’s there.”

“Kerrol!” Clovis shouted as her brothers came into the picture. “Mayland!”

A titanic groan above them brought Livira’s gaze to the ceiling overhead where the cracked architecture of the throne room appeared to be shifting before her eyes, starting to sift great volumes of plaster dust down upon them as it did so.

“Jump!” Starval shouted, and immediately hauled Livira with him as he followed his own advice.

A swirling moment of confusion followed, punctuated by the rapid thump of bodies landing. Livira found herself one of eight people lying on the clearing floor with the shelves of the labyrinth rising above them, and Yute staring down at them in mild surprise.

Starval found his feet first. He patted Kerrol’s arm. “We came to you, brother, since you were doing such a bad job finding your way back.”

Yute helped Yolanda up, then reached for Livira.

“Are we all here?” Livira looked around for Carlotte, Arpix, and then Leetar, finding them all quickly. Oanold had made it too. Part of her wished him stranded in the collapsing throne room. He might have been capable of better lives, but the fact was that the Oanold she could reach out and touch had committed some of the worst crimes imaginable.

“Yes,” Clovis appeared to have completed a head count. “We’re all here.”

“Where should we go?” Arpix stepped close to the canith as another tremor shook tomes from places they had rested untouched for decades or even centuries, leaving the shelves like gap-toothed smiles.

“We were aiming to get back to you.” Yute squeezed his daughter’s hand. “Celcha’s portal fell short of its promise.”

“Celcha!” Livira returned to her earlier idea, though it still seemed no more possible. “I should take my book to the centre. Maybe we can do something there, together, that I couldn’t do anywhere else.”

“Or collapse the library entirely.” Yute frowned.

“It’s worth a try.” Mayland nodded, his meaning ambiguous.

“It’s collapsing anyway.” Clovis waved at the ceiling where cracks large enough to be seen from the ground now ran. “The worst outcome is that it happens faster. Let’s do it.”