I slipped out of Letus Commons at a quarter to midnight.
Sylas wasn't in his bed, and I could only assume he was off on another one of his inane Lion Hall pre-rush errands. If it was anything like the one I saw in the mausoleum, I almost felt bad for him.
Then again, it was hard to feel bad for someone who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and who'd probably call up his dear old Papa to slit my throat if he ever learned I was an Irregular.
With those cheerful thoughts in mind, I slipped out of my pajamas and back into the uniform I had worn earlier that day. No sense in getting a fresh one dirty.
I went to my desk and opened its drawer, taking out the piece of finger bone I'd pilfered from the mausoleum. The conduit gave a cheerful surge of necromantic energy at my touch. I carefully took it in, drawing on the finger bone in small breaths and filling myself to the brim with mana. If I was going to break into the library, I'd rather do so with as much fuel for spells as possible.
According to Professor Ogg, each mage had a set capacity for the mana they could hold. A sort of internal working in our bodies called channels. As a mage continues to practice spells, their channels grow and they can hold more mana as a result, allowing them to fire off more spells and Workings without needing to recharge with a conduit, or even pulling off more powerful Workings that require scores of mana.
I wove a Working around myself as I slinked out of the dormitory and toward the library.
Soundless. Sightless. Eyes see no evil. Ears hear no mischief.
I still moved with the practiced grace Lord Woodman drilled into me, wanting to put as little strain on the spell as possible. The less of the Working I used to make me soundless, the more of it would go to prevent prying eyes from detecting me. Or at least that was the theory I'd decided on, and I could really use as much help as I could get on the errand.
When I finally reached the library, only needing to weave past a few students and faculty running clandestine late-night errands because apparently I wasn't the only one up to mischief, the moon had hidden itself behind a cloud and cast the building's front door in shadows.
I tried pulling the library's door open and quickly discovered it was locked.
Swearing, I removed a pair of metal lock picks from my pocket and leaned over the handle, searching for a lock.
There wasn't one.
Because of course there wasn't.
Frowning, I leaned in closer and it was only then I detected the slightest hint of a Working on the door.
Only the permitted. Only the allowed. Only they shall enter.
I frowned.
I was… less than confident in my ability to override a Working put in place by either faculty or some other mage with much more experience than me. But I wondered if I could trick the door into thinking I was allowed in at this hour.
If I did, using brute force might get me better results than being delicate about it.
I nibbled at my lip. At some level, doors wanted to be opened, didn't they? That was the point of doors. To be opened and shut. I had learned little about creating Narratives of my own, but maybe if I played into the idea of doors being made to open…
I withdrew the finger bone and focused, using it to draw in mana.
I am permitted. I am allowed. I told the door
Only the permitted. Only the allowed. Only they shall enter.
The door's working pushed back at me, like a hard slap across the face.
I gritted my teeth and tried again.
I am permitted. I am allowed.
My Working slammed into the door's and rebounded, hitting me even harder. My eyes stung and I tasted salt and iron. I tightened my grip on the finger bone and my channels ached as mana rapidly entered them then existed to fuel my Working.
I AM ALLOWED. I roared at the door. I let the smells of death and sickly sweet decay fill my nose. The cold of a stone grave marker pressed against my back and the sound of great beating wings roared in my ears.
Death comes for you Theodore Crowley.
The door to the library flew open, its hinges screaming out in whining protest.
At the same time, the finger bone blackened and turned to dust in my hands. I stared down at the little pile of ash.
"Oh shit," I said.
That was easy. Far easier than it should have been, right? My blood ran cold as I thought. This had to be some sort of trap or trick. I couldn't—
I forced those thoughts down violently.
I had received my first real task from Lord Woodman, and I would be damned if I didn't complete it.
A quick assessment of my channels confirmed I still had mana left, thank god, but I was only running on half full. Hopefully, I wouldn't need to do any more major spells.
Then again, with my luck, there would probably be a similar set of Workings on the entrance to the library's forbidden section. I ground my teeth and proceeded inside.
***
Oddly enough, there weren't any sort of protective measures to keep people out of the library's restricted aisles. I could only assume the librarians believed anyone stupid enough to go traipsing around through shelves of books considered too dangerous for the general public, both because of the knowledge they contained and the fact that many of the books evidently contained Narratives so powerful that paying to close attention to them could prove hazardous to one's health, deserved whatever happened to them.
I can't say I disagreed.
I'd destroyed the initial letter Lord Woodman had sent to me, as was common procedure for coded correspondence, but I'd first written the title of the book he wanted me to find Le Journal De La Voisin and where it was supposed to be in the restricted section. Row seven.
I moved through the books as quietly as I could, and I did my best to ignore the murmuring incessant babble the different texts gave off, while also trying to stay alert for footfalls or any sign that someone besides me was there.
There did not seem to be, and I continued on my way.
I soon reached the plain red ribbon cordoning off the beginning of several shelves of books of the restricted section of Angitia's library. I approached the boundary cautiously, and I touched the ribbon, expecting some sort of Narrative to be in place. An additional lock designed to keep undesirable persons out.
But there wasn't one. The ribbon was just a ribbon.
I frowned and stepped over it and into the forbidden shelves.
The change in the books was immediate. Suddenly, there was a chattering buzz several octaves above the rest of the library. Bits and pieces of Narrative wiggled their way into my head, encouraging me to open the corresponding books and start using their workings.
My eyes were drawn to a book with a dark red color, glowing slightly like all the light in the room was being drawn toward it. I walked toward the shelf and reached out with one hand to touch the volume's spine.
I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood. The metallic taste of my blood drew me out of the temptation and I backed away from the shelf. My hand shook. So much for the rumor that the books in there were safer than the rest of the library.
I grimaced. I need to stay focused, otherwise I'll find myself drawn into something I really shouldn't be messing with.
I count the shelves of books and stop when I reach the seventh.
Before I searched through the shelves for it, I reached into my pocket and checked the book's title.
I counted the books in row seven one by one. A few are so small they cram their way into the shelves and are almost impossible to pick out if I wasn't looking for them. More than once, I realized I've accidentally skipped counting a book and I restart the entire process. It takes the better part of an hour before I find what I believe to be the right book. It's a shabby brown thing, thick in the way of dictionaries or encyclopedias. I frowned at it, uncertain if I had the right book. I thought I was looking for a journal, but the book looks far too thick to be one.
When my bare hand touched the spine of the grimoire, though, I knew I'd found the right book. Necromantic power sings through it, and I immediately feel the pull of mana being temptingly offered to my channels. There's power in it, rivers and oceans for the taking. If I used it as a conduit, then the world could literally be mine for the taking.
Then again, that kind of thinking was why mages took the world away from nulls. Walpurgis Night 1888, more than a hundred years had come and gone since then, but no one could ever forget it. If you heard a mage like Lord Woodman tell it, they took the world back from magicless folk because it was "The proper thing to do."
They had power, and we didn't. "Might makes right," "the strong shall inherit the Earth," and all of those half dozen other proverbs wizards loved saying basically boiled down to a simple truth: magic had returned to the world that night in force and gave all the sorcerous people of the world a chance to express years of pent up aggression and desire for power. That's the version you hear when the mages tell stories about that night. A glorious liberation and a new golden age of magic ushered in by our Eternal Queen.
If you heard a null tell the story of that first Walpurgis Night, you'd first need to make sure there were no magical ears that might hear you. It's the sort of story that could only be told late at night, when the fire is just burning out and your da's been too much into the turnip wine again.
It is said that the Eternal Queen herself, then still known only as Queen Victoria, stood before her people in mourning clothes under the light of a full moon and announced that the era of magic had returned to the world.
There had been laughter, and more than one look of concern passed between government officials who were already whispering that their queen had lived for a rather long time and was likely beginning to slip into the grips of senility.
Then the skies had opened and what can best be described as "The Hordes of Hell" descended upon London, killing a significant portion of the population with fire and brimstone.
The decade-long "Unification Wars" followed soon after, and the British empire then wound up controlling most of Europe. I had little idea if you'd find similar stories in Shang, the Theocracy, or wherever else, but I got the impression that was likely the case.
I'd never really understood that mage mentality, that if you had power, then the world was yours for the taking. At least not until I'd touched that book and felt like I could quite literally do anything and everything I wanted with the necromantic energies it offered.
Then it occurred to me that if whoever made the book had actually possessed the power to take over the world with the help of that grimoire, I probably would have heard of them and they would likely be more than just some footnote Lord Woodman had likely stumbled over in some obscure diary or the like.
With that in mind, I removed the book from the shelf and checked the title on the front to confirm that it was, in fact, Le Journal De La Voisin. It was, thank Christ. I tucked the grimoire into my bag. My fingers still lingered on the cover for a heartbeat too long, and I felt that rush of power again.
The Dead shall dance, and dance and—
The whispers of Narrative left my mind as I securely stored Le Journal De La Voisin in my bag.
Mission accomplished, I turned to make my way out of the library.
I froze.
There was a lantern lit where there hadn't been one before. The light shone through the bookshelf a row away from me, and there were hushed voices and footsteps.
It was, of course, at that exact moment my Working of Concealment fizzled out around me.
I swore inwardly and moved away from the light as quietly as I could. I rewove the Working around me, but I couldn't focus on the Narrative as I moved, trying to make sure every step I took and breath I made was as quiet as possible.
The Working spluttered as I tried to form it and my mana fizzled around me and my channels grew more and more depleted as I tried to force the concealment.
Deciding to cut my losses, I abandoned any pretense of silence and ran.
And that's when someone found me.
Because of course it was.
A hand grabbed my arm and pulled me into the darkness. Blood turning to ice, I dove desperately into my core. There was only a bit of mana left. Enough to fill a saucer. Enough to blow a hole in someone's head. I twisted it into the Working Rosamund had taught me only a few hours prior, hoping I could get it right. If not, I'd give my assailant a face full of the stench a rotting body makes, and that might give me a chance to pull my arm away and run like hell.
Bend. Shatter. Break.
I threw my spell out in the direction of the figure pulling me into the shadows behind the bookshelves.
Then I stopped as the figure holding me resolved itself into Sylas Thorne.