Page 13 of The Deadliest Candidate (The Last Grand Archivist #1)

Chapter thirteen

The Deal

When a distant bell chimed lunchtime, the other candidates left, but Fern stayed. She was too nervous to eat, trepidation filling her stomach and leaving no room for food. The more she read and wrote, the more she realised the enormity of the work ahead.

One hundred symbols was a lot; she had barely made a note of forty she intended to use for her list.

And that was the easiest part of her task. She must yet research the rest of the symbols, decide which were most powerful, research cases when those symbols had been used to great success or impact. And that was before she could even get to the practice of the illustrations and the memorisation of the symbols, some of which were incredibly complex and detailed.

One week was just not long enough for a project of this scale, and Fern had also been planning to visit the Sumbra Wing to continue work on her own research. This, clearly, would have to be put on hold for now, unless she was ready to give up sleep to work.

Something she was more than willing to do .

“Oh.”

Fern started at the sound of a new voice.

She peered over the pile of books blocking her view of the room. Lautric was ambling up the aisle, the sound of his footsteps swallowed by the blue carpet. He was looking around with a slight frown at the empty desks. His gaze caught on Fern, and he faltered in his tracks.

“Where are the others?” he asked.

It was Fern’s turn to frown. Had he not heard the bell?

“Taking their lunch.”

“Oh?” Lautric pushed back the overly long sleeve of his sweater and glanced at his watch. He sighed. “Ah, right.”

Fern watched him with interest. Where had he been? Several hours had passed since they’d been told about the assignment—what could he possibly be prioritising over that?

Lautric looked up from his watch, and Fern’s curiosity was reflected in his gaze.

“Are you not taking lunch?” he asked.

“I’m not hungry.”

“No… neither am I.” He drew closer to her desk. “Is your research going well?”

Fern said, “Probably about as well as yours is.”

He shook his head. “Ah, I’ve not even started my research.”

“You have more important business to attend to?” Fern had tried to ask this in a light tone, to soften the suspicion in her voice, but the question came out a little tart.

Lautric let out a quiet half-laugh. “I suppose you could say that, Miss Sullivan.” He glanced down at her desk, his limpid brown eyes skating across her books and papers. “You work fast. I thought your field of expertise was Sumbra?”

Fern could not help the sense that he was trying to get something out of her. She thought of Symbols of In-Between Doors , which both herself and the Lautric House had coveted. Fern—for her research, and the Lautrics—well, that was the more interesting question, of course.

Fern said, “If you have an interest in my work, Mr Lautric, I am happy to recommend you some of my publications.”

He smiled, an artless, unguarded thing. It brightened up his features as if a sudden ray of sunlight had made its way out of a tangle of clouds and fallen directly upon his face.

“No need, Miss Sullivan. I’ve read all your work already.”

He might have been lying, or he might have been telling the truth. The Lautrics probably worked hard to keep themselves informed on all their enemies. Their house words, after all, were Savoir et Souveraineté —knowledge and sovereignty. They probably lived by the adage regarding how close one’s enemies ought to be kept.

Fern had no intention of letting herself be kept close to anyone, let alone her enemies.

If she should rewrite the adage according to her own philosophy, it would sound something like: Keep your friends at a distance and your enemies as far away as possible .

“Was it Mr Boussard who recommended you my work?”

She asked this question as she folded her papers away so he could no longer see them, but she did look back up to catch his reaction.

For a second, his expression was blank, his lips forming the pout of the question who? But no word came, only the shape of it. And then he blinked, a slow scrunch of his eyes, a gesture of—what? Amusement, or realisation, or annoyance? She could not tell. But he stepped back, and he said, “I wish you luck on your assignment, Miss Sullivan.” He hesitated, then added, “Should you need any assistance, you need only ask.”

He turned and left without awaiting Fern’s reply, leaving a heavy silence in his wake. Fern stared after him, and her eyes remained on the dark arch of the doorway long after he had disappeared through it.

Lautric wanted something from her. Why else this odd conversation, this unsettling friendliness?

Unlike her fellow candidates, Fern did not come with the affiliation of any great institution behind her. She had no connection to the Reformed Vatican or the Poison Tower or the Jathvi Empire. She was nothing more than the orphaned daughter of a groundskeeper and a caretaker, and she had no notable association aside from the libraries she had worked at over the course of her career.

So it must be something else Lautric wanted. But what?

As the days passed, Fern began to establish and perfect a routine for herself.

Her three years at the St Jerome Orphanage had inculcated in her the importance of keeping to one’s schedule; it kept the body busy and the mind tidy. Fern had hated every last day she spent at St Jerome, but she’d never shaken away its lessons.

Every morning, she would wake at eight, feed Inkwell and dress. She would take her breakfast in the dining room, a quick coffee and two slices of toast, reading as she ate. Then she would make her way to the Alchemy Wing, working until and through lunch. She sometimes took a break after the other candidates returned from lunch, to stretch her legs and explore the library.

After lunch, she would leave the Alchemy Wing, which was a little louder in the afternoons since most of the candidates congregated there, spread out amongst the desks in their new-formed alliances. Dominating the desks in the centre of the hall was the golden alliance the twins had so skilfully assembled: themselves, the aristocratic Lautric and Orsini, and Baudet, the Reformed Vatican archivist.

General Srivastav and Dr Essouadi, though they seemed to be working independently, sat together and would often fetch one another cups of tea. Vasili Drei and Josefa Novak, like Fern, kept themselves to themselves.

Cooperating on this task, Fern thought every time she observed the golden alliance, was both an advantage and a risk. On one hand, Fern could see how the group had rapidly compiled their list before portioning out the research amongst themselves .

But it was a risk, too: they would all be presenting similar information; they would all become each other’s rivals the moment they stepped into the assignment hall.

The more Fern watched them work, the more it became obvious that they were not all contributing in equal measures. The Ferrows seemed to lead the group, with Orsini and Baudet focusing on the research.

And as for Lautric… most of the time, he was nowhere to be seen.

It took Fern two days to decide on her list.

She selected some obvious choices: five of the seven Divine Transmutations, Iosis, Inversion and Annulment symbols. Then she included some unlikely choices with unique case studies and some symbols she could trace back to Sumbra and its entities, since she could back those up with her own research.

Reluctantly, she included several transgressive symbols, too. Blood Alchemy was illegal in most countries, but it was undeniably powerful. Death Alchemy, like most forms of magic involving death, was taboo, but Fern would be going up against candidates like Lautric and the Poison Tower twins. They would make bold choices without concerning themselves too much with ethics, so she could not afford to let her scruples hold her back.

On the third day, Fern began her research.

It was several hours after the dinner bell, just after the other candidates had retired for the evening, and Fern was perched precariously on top of a ladder on the upper floor of the Alchemy Wing when she heard voices below.

Fern froze, debating whether to announce herself. She was deep within the confines of bookshelves, the ladder leading her up into shadows. She had a perfect vantage point over the lower floor of the wing, and when she saw who had walked in, she closed her mouth and grew completely still, listening with intense concentration.

Lautric had just entered the room, Vittoria Orsini following him. He closed the door and they stood close together to speak. Though they were quiet, Fern’s position made it easy to overhear them.

“Sentinels?” Lautric asked.

Vittoria shook her head. She was a beautiful woman, dark-skinned and dark-haired, and together, they formed a well-matched couple. But before Fern could wonder if she was witnessing a dalliance, Lautric pressed on.

“Do you have them?”

Fern frowned.

“Of course,” Vittoria said.

Reaching into the elegant leather bag she carried with her everywhere, she pulled out three books. Fern leaned forward in the shadows, her eyes fixed on the books, but she was too far away to see the titles. Lautric took them, turning them over in his hands.

“You cannot keep them for too long,” Vittoria said, closing her satchel. “The Sumbra Wing is well-monitored, and my pass has a short lifespan. ”

Lautric nodded, putting the books away into his own bag. “Thank you for this.”

Although his voice was wan and quiet, there was true relief in his tone. He was genuinely grateful for the favour Vittoria had made him—grateful for the books he had just put away.

Which only made Fern’s desire to know the titles of those books flare brighter.

“Don’t forget our deal,” Vittoria said to Lautric.

“I won’t.”

They left without another word. In the silence that ensued, Fern’s mind raced. Vittoria’s field of research wasn’t Sumbra, and besides, all the candidates were working on the alchemy assignment.

How had she convinced her mentor to write her a pass? She had clearly done so for Lautric, but why? What had Lautric promised her in exchange? And what could he possibly want to know about Sumbra, and why had he not asked his own mentor, Dr Auden, for a pass?

Fern remembered once more her journey back from Santico. Hector and his henchman, the short and unpleasant fight, the Lautrics’ entitlement to the stolen book of Gateway symbols.

So the Lautrics had an interest in Sumbra; nothing surprising there. The Gateways and their cosmic entities, with all the knowledge and incantations they were capable of offering, always attracted the ambitious and the power-hungry. How could it not?

Only now, the youngest Lautric scion had made his way into Carthane, which famously housed several Gateways, and he was making deals with other candidates to get him Sumbra books. Whatever Lautric was up to, it was almost definitely why he had tried to ingratiate himself to her earlier.

Whatever Lautric was up to, it could not possibly be good.

Fern would have paid handsomely to find out the names of the books Vittoria had purveyed for him. She could not ask Vittoria herself without alerting Lautric, and she could not ask for a pass to the Sumbra Wing until her absent mentor returned, hopefully sooner rather than later. To find out those titles without having to wait, Fern would need to access the Sumbra Wing in secret to check its borrowing registers.

Lautric had plenty of power to wield, but Fern had not entered Carthane without a trump card of her own.

Perhaps it was time that she should start using it.