Page 14 of The Deadliest Candidate (The Last Grand Archivist #1)
Chapter fourteen
The Path
That night, long after the 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 her eyelids 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.
She would find 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 went only 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 vast underground 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 .
It was only a beginning, but it was proof that the night’s journey had not been in vain.
Fern took off her coat and changed into her pyjamas, more than ready for bed. Before that, she slipped into her bathroom and placed her new map in the makeshift hiding place behind the ventilation grille.
If anybody should find out what she was doing, she would almost certainly be dismissed from her candidacy, perhaps even prosecuted.
Her things safely hidden away, Fern climbed into bed. Feline steps dipped the mattress near her feet, and soon after, she felt the warm weight of Inkwell settle against her side. She fell asleep quickly, completely, already dreading the tiredness of the following day.
Despite sleeping in longer than usual, Fern awoke feeling groggy, sluggish and poorly rested. Her sleep had been haunted by dreams of something dark and slow-moving, something seeping and insidious, which crawled towards her and called out to her in her parents’ voices. She’d started awake a little after sunrise, heart beating erratically, skin drenched with cold sweat.
An odd and disturbing dream, but only a dream.
After a hot bath, Fern dressed for the day: white blouse, grey woollen trousers, hair tied back. She observed herself in the mirror, almost expecting to look different—she felt different. She felt raw. Exposed. Almost nervous.
But the mirror only reflected the familiar image of a young woman with grey eyes, a straight, serious mouth and dark blonde hair pinned back in a reasonable knot. She looked clean and professional in her crisp blouse and woollen waistcoat. The sight of her reflection, looking exactly the way it always did, was oddly reassuring.
She made her way to the dining room for breakfast; it was deserted. Her shoulders slumped in relief.
When empty, she rather liked this room. The midnight-blue upholstery and tall windows gave it an atmosphere of calm airiness. Fern poured herself a cup of coffee and buttered two slices of toast, sitting to get some reading done while she ate.
She had just flipped a page of her book and started her second slice of toast when the door opened. She glanced up.
Léo Lautric was making his way towards the table, dressed in black trousers and a sweater of rust-brown wool that seemed slightly too large for him. Though his appearance was as tidy and unassuming as ever, his black hair was ruffled, as though he had simply brushed his hand through it instead of combing it.
If Fern felt tired and raw this morning, she could not imagine how Lautric felt.
He looked exhausted . The shadows beneath his eyes were so pronounced they looked like bruises, and his eyelids were heavy and hooded. His skin seemed almost translucent, pale blue veins visible around his eyes and chin. Even the fawn constellation of his freckles seemed to have faded somewhat.
He trudged to the table and sat down, then gazed at the carafe of coffee without moving or saying anything .
Fern stared at him. He blinked slowly, eyes unfocused and glazed. Then he reached for the carafe and poured himself a cup. His movements were strengthless and lethargic, as though he moved in a dream.
Fern returned her attention to the pages of her book, but her mind refused to turn the letters into words.
What was wrong with him? Was he ill? He seemed ill. But even the Lautrics would not have sent a sickly family member here. They might be utterly ruthless, but their unquestioning loyalty to their own family was well-known and well-documented.
If he was not ill, then he was tired, tired beyond exhaustion, but why? She had never seen him work hard amongst his group. Was it all just a show, a charade of idleness?
“What are you reading?”
She looked up. Lautric indicated her book with a lethargic gesture of his head.
Fern remembered the deal she had witnessed, the three Sumbra books. If she set the precedent of answering his question honestly, might he follow her example when the time came?
The truth was a calculated choice in this case. “I’m reading Alivett’s Complex Transmutations for the Modern Age .”
Lautric nodded, took a sip of his coffee. He wasn’t quite looking at Fern, but his gaze still rested on her book.
“You’re a scholar of Sumbra,” he said in a low, thoughtful tone, “is that not influencing your selection of symbols? ”
He was asking her about Sumbra again. Why? Was he trying to find out what she was researching? He was the last person she would ever discuss it with.
“Sumbra is my area of expertise academically,” Fern answered. “Professionally, I am a librarian. The job I am applying for—just like you, Mr Lautric—is that of archivist. In the grand scheme of things, Sumbra does not matter anywhere near as much as you seem to think it does.”
His eyes rose to hers. His blinks were slow, the skin around his eyes was murky. But his irises, that pellucid brown, were clear and clever.
“If Sumbra doesn’t matter,” he said, “then why are there so many Gateways in Carthane?”
Fern had never questioned the presence of Gateways in Carthane. To her, they were as much part of the library as any of its bricks or statues or books.
“Because human knowledge has limits, I suppose,” she said.
“Unlike human greed,” Lautric said.
Fern’s mouth almost fell open at this, at the simple, shameless audacity of him , the scion of House Lautric, bringing up the limitless nature of human greed. She slowly closed her books, watching Lautric carefully now.
“Greed is for power and wealth, not for knowledge. This, Mr Lautric, is what differentiates those who would use the Gateways for ill and those who would use it for the betterment of civilisation.”
“Call me Léo,” Lautric said, and a gentle smile stretched his pale lips, which no food had passed since he sat at the table. “And you’re wrong. Everyone who uses the Gateways uses them for the same reason, because they want something—because of greed.”
“Wanting something isn’t the same as greed,” said Fern.
And Lautric’s eyelids drooped over his brown eyes, and he tilted his head ever so slightly. “No, but only in the sense that want and greed are two different points along the self-same path.” His eyes brushed over Fern in the most curious of ways, almost a caress. “A path you and I may one day meet on, Miss Sullivan.”
Fern shifted in her seat, uneasy now.
She could no longer fathom Lautric’s purpose, as though the puppet strings with which he was controlling their conversation were no longer visible to her. Fern could tolerate an attempt at manipulation, so long as she was aware she was being manipulated. She closed her book, raking her mind for an excuse to leave even as she spoke.
“I did not realise you had such an interest in Sumbra,” she said, artlessly dragging the conversation back to firmer ground. “You must be very well read on the matter.”
She feared, for a moment, that she had spoken too brashly and that Lautric would know she had seen him take the books from Vittoria Orsini. But Lautric had no reaction except for a slow shake of the head.
“Compared to you,” he said, “I know nothing at all.” And, almost sweetly, “Perhaps you will be so kind, one day, as to share some of your expertise with me.”
He yawned and rubbed his face after he spoke, knuckles brushing across his eyes. No matter how hard Fern looked for it, she could not discern any hint of deviousness or cruelty in his expression. He seemed to mean what he was saying, simply, without artfulness or emotion.
And somehow, that was far more intimidating than any of the men and threats his family had sent after her over the years.
Before she could think of a reply, the door opened, and Emmeline Ferrow appeared, a vision in emerald silk, her amber hair loose and glossy as satin on her shoulders. Her brother was at her side, and both appeared in high spirits.
“We are going to the Alchemy Wing, Léo. Will you join us?” Emmeline said brightly, sweeping up to Lautric. Then, noticing Fern, she added in a tone of surprise, “Oh, good morning, Miss Sullivan.”
Fern stood and quickly gathered her things, grateful for the opportunity the Ferrows had just given her to make a quick exit.
“Good morning, Miss Ferrow, Mr Ferrow. If you’ll excuse me, Mr Lautric. Good day,” she said all in one breath.
She slipped between the Ferrow siblings on her way out, forcing them to stand apart from one another, and hurried out of the room without another look at Lautric.