Emeth shook his head. “I don’t know. A spy was found in Medan’s household, and right after, someone disappeared-someone along the chain I work with.” Cold understanding chilled Jai’s blood. His father was like a number of others who aided the resistance: only a small link in a chain. He would, now and then, hand a note to a tailor, information disguised as an order for clothing. He’d speak a word to one of the bakers in the household of a woman known for her shy and retiring ways, something that only seemed to be about bread or the price of wheat. Intercepted, these seemingly innocent messages and others like them would appear to be nothing more than the daily business of an ordinary man. But in the right ears, they were more. No man or woman passing a word understood the whole of the message, but all the words together became news when they reached their destination. Somewhere, perhaps in a dark and deep forest glen, the leader of the resistance, that fierce warrior known as the Lioness, would see to it that a plan of the Marshal’s would turn suddenly sour. Black-breasted Knights would die with elven arrows in their necks, and the elven warriors would vanish.
Simple men and women made this work, risking their lives and the lives of their families every day in the cause. Now a link in the secret chain had been broken and the delicate trust betrayed to the enemy.
“The damage has been done, Jai,” his mother said. “One by one, those who had to do with this matter will leave the city. You, your father, and I will go at dawn, for we have a plausible excuse for leaving and will arouse no suspicion.”
They would go to Mianost, the three of them. They would leave before first light, making sure that messages were left behind to say that Emeth’s uncle was failing fast, that the family wanted to gather one last time to be with their venerable relative. Passes would be secured to take them safely out of the city and past the checkpoints manned by the Dark Knights. In an occupied city, not every elf was trustworthy, not everyone a partisan. The whole of the plan to escape was not revealed to everyone who had part in it. Each knew only what he must.
“This much your mother and I know,” Emeth said, “for the rest, we will do what we’re told when we arrive in Mianost. We are confident that once we reach Mianost there will be a way to true safety.”
Stunned, Jai spoke without thinking. “Leave…” He shook his head. “I just got to the last page of the histories of the kings-”
“Damn the kings!” Emeth cried. “Jai, listen to me. We have no choice. If we don’t leave tomorrow, we must take our chances here. I forbid that.” His hard expression softened. He was not unaware of his son’s love for his work. Indeed, he had fostered it. “I’m sorry, son. Events give us no choice. We must leave. I know very little, but if I were ever made to tell even that, others would be found out.”
Jai heard that as though hearing his father’s death sentence, for there was a place in Qualinost not so old as the lovely houses and homes of the elves. It dated only to the time of the dragon’s conquest-a crouching, ugly building of sandstone, hard planes, and biting comers. Narrow windows, like suspicious eyes, glared round the square structure. Ironbound doors opened only at the order of one of Marshal Medan’s soldiers. There the Knights were barracked, and below that place was an unlit hole of a room. In that chamber, no man or woman had ever survived the torturer’s attentions with all secrets intact. The telling was the fee paid for death at last.
Quietly, steadily, Jai said, “You don’t have to stay, father, but I don’t have to leave.”
Marise rose, turning her back on the window. “You do, Jai.”
“But I don’t know anything! I don’t know who you talk to, when or where or what you say. You’ve always made sure of that, so there’s no need for me to flee. I couldn’t tell anyone anything if I wanted to. Go to Mianost and leave me behind-”
“No,” said Emeth, and now his face wasn’t so pale. His hands didn’t tremble. “No, Jai. If Medan ever came to suspect us, he would take you to torture.”
The Knights would break him bone by bone in that terrible place beneath the barracks. Jai’s blood went cold. “But I would never- Father, you know I would never-”
Emeth held up a hand, a gesture Jai knew well. “No more, Jai. You would never tell, but you would be killed for your silence. That won’t happen. You will come with us. No more will be said.”
Jai took in a long, difficult breath. In his mind he heard the words of the Lady Librarian, spoken only today: We can’t forget who we were, Jai. It’s how we know who we are, and how we can guess who we will be. How could he abandon the holy work? Breathing again, he understood he could not, and he knew it would gain him nothing to continue to press his case with his parents.
“Jai,” Marise said. “Son, go back to the Library.”
He shook his head, not understanding.
“Have your supper and then go back. You always do at this time. It would seem strange to anyone who might be watching if you didn’t tonight.”
Jai looked to his father, who nodded slowly. “Yes, but be back before the moon is highest. Say nothing to anyone about our plans.”
Jai did as he was bidden, and when he left his parents’ home, his were the usual lurching steps, his hitching gait well-known to his neighbors and to any minion of the Marshal who might be watching.
Jai sat in silence among the histories of the kings. He had no plan for staying behind. He had not even the smallest thought or idea to turn into a plan. He had only his work, and this he did, trusting that some idea would spring to mind. So sunk in concentration was he that the sound of a footfall startled him. His heart jumped, and he looked up to see Annalisse standing in the doorway.
“Here you are,” she said, entering the room. “I’m not surprised.” She slipped a finger around the edge of the first page of The History of Kith Kanan. “You are the best of my students and the most faithful of my apprentices. Any of the others would have left this work for tomorrow.” She fell silent a long moment, her silence like shadows creeping. “And yet, I don’t know how many tomorrows there are.”
Jai looked up. “Lady?”
“Don’t you hear it, Jai?” She looked at the manuscripts and books, at the sturdy tables and high stools. She turned, looking out the door, and Jai knew she saw what he did: gracefully spiraling staircases leading down into winding corridors, reading rooms, the silent nooks where once scholars came to study, and the vast, high arched chamber in the middle of all, where the most prized pieces of the library’s collection were displayed. There, in older days, elven kings had entertained poets and philosophers.
“Jai,” she said, “This place has been a temple, in its time as sacred as any raised to gods. Treaties were signed here, laws enshrined here. All that we are is contained in the towers of this place. In the march of Medan’s Knights I hear an ending coming.”
The scent of ancient ink and venerable parchment filled the room. Jai looked around at the folios, the books, the tightly rolled scrolls all here for repair. Sometimes in quiet hours, when there were only these for company, Jai thought he heard the scratch of ancient quills, the voices of elves many long years dead as they spoke the words of an age-old ballad or tale. And yes, he could feel an end coming.
“Do you think the dragon will fall upon us, lady? Do you think…?”
Annalisse shook her head. “Who can know? But I feel… something. Like the future knocking on the door of the present. I have spent so much time among the histories and the long tales that I often think I can see the pattern of how things work out. You feel it, too, don’t you Jai?”
He admitted that he did. An end was coming. To a kingdom, to a long and many-leafed branch of a shining history…
Annalisse’s eyes went soft and sad. “I feel something else, a closer ending. Are you leaving, Jai?”
Shock ran like lightning along Jai’s nerves.