None of this would ever happen.
Only a Stonewalker could bring her and take her back out. She'd bought her way in here on a bluff, and now she needed to produce results. Her heart pounded in her rib cage.
"Haste is necessary," Ore-Locks said, sliding out the first chest. "We do not know when the … the spirit—"
"Wraith," Wynn corrected.
"Yes, as you say … and we do not know when or how it will return."
"I'm well aware of that. This isn't like looking up something in a library volume. Just get the other chests out. Search for freshly scribed folios of translations so far."
Ore-Locks dragged out the second chest.
"And the codex," she added. "It's a large volume laced together with waxed string. I need something to help decipher the originals, and their order, without my …"
Wynn went silent as she opened the first chest.
"What?" Ore-Locks asked. "Did you find it?"
Resting atop the piles therein were five volumes she hadn't seen in half a year. Their soft leather covers were lashed closed with wrapped leather laces. They looked rather worn and even travel-weary to her eyes.
"My journals," she whispered. "My stolen journals!"
Ore-Locks peered into the chest. "You wrote those?"
When she didn't answer, he turned away and hauled out the third chest.
For a moment all Wynn wanted was to gather those five leather-wrapped volumes, leave this place, and hide them where no one could take them from her again.
"Is this it?" Ore Locks asked.
Wynn looked up.
He held up the thick codex where he crouched. Inside the third chest were piles of bound sheaves, translations like the ones she'd seen at the guild. There were so many—but maybe she'd forgotten how much work had been done. It had taken her a whole day to just scan quickly through them.
"What about this other one?" Ore-Locks asked.
"What other one?"
He reached into the chest and held out a thinner volume than the first—but it had the same temporary wax stitching.
"Give it to me!"
Wynn snatched it from him and slapped it open upon the chest's edge. Inside were entries of completed or ongoing translation work, like the ones she'd seen in the first volume that day in the catacombs. She looked at all the sheaves, even a few folios, stacked inside the third chest.
"Valhachkasej'â!" she cursed.
Thoughts of Sykion—and especially High-Tower's resentments toward her—began to build until she stammered in anger.
"You … you two … !"
Wynn couldn't think of anything vile enough to call them. She was holding a second codex.
They hadn't shown her everything. Only what they thought she'd believed was all the work so far, just enough that she might lean their way, in their urgency to keep all of this a secret.
"What is wrong?" Ore-Locks demanded.
Wynn tried to regain her self-control. "Nothing," she hissed.
"Truly? You are this upset by nothing?"
She wasn't about to explain herself to him. He and Cinder-Shard had both expressed opposition to the translation project in High-Tower's study. She doubted he would empathize with her bitterness. But more important for now, she had more to work with—more translations—to help her fight her way through the original texts.
Wynn dug through the second chest to gain an idea what it held, as well as the first, which had contained her journals. She set those aside for use and looked up to the shelves filled with all the varied books, tomes, and sheaves she'd taken from Li'kän's library.
"What was it like," Ore-Locks asked, "the place where you found these?"
Her mind flashed back to that long, sleepless night. She and Chap had carefully chosen what seemed important, readable, or merely sound enough to take from among a wealth of decaying sources. Her friends had helped her carry away so little compared to what they left behind, now half a world away.
"Older than you can imagine," she answered. "So old the only guardian had forgotten the sound of speech … or her own voice."
Wynn shook off the memory of that naked, deceptively frail undead with slanted teardrop-shaped eyes like no breed of human she'd ever seen.
"Stop bothering me," she said. "I need to work."
Ore-Locks stepped back as she began pulling out translation sheaves and folios and made a quick mental account of the other two chests' contents. They contained the more frail volumes versus the ones on the shelves. Where should she start first?
At present, information concerning the wraith was most dire. It seemed to have targeted folios mentioning the Children, the Reverent, and the Sâ'yminfiäl—the Eaters of Silence. From Wynn's encounter with Li'kän, she knew it was possible that minions of il'Samar, Beloved, the Ancient Enemy by whatever name or title, still existed to this day.
Cinder-Shard had called the wraith the "dog" of Kêravägh—the Nightfaller.
Apparently he believed it was, or had been, a servant of the enemy. Li'kän, Häs'saun, and Volyno had been three of its thirteen Children, all Noble Dead but vampires. So if the wraith was a servant as powerful as they were, she reasoned that it may have been someone just as important. Perhaps someone who'd once held a position of note as part of one of the other two groups.
But Wynn had little idea what the titles "Reverent" or "Eaters of Silence" actually meant. All she had were lists of names from one day of reviewing the translations. She'd found only hints that the Reverent might be a religious order.
For survival—for credence in being here—she first had to find solid information for Cinder-Shard and the duchess. Second, she needed answers for herself on anything regarding Chane's scroll, and thereby any mention of Bäalâle Seatt.
She almost glanced back at Ore-Locks, growing sick inside at the thought of that thing—that lone tomb—separated from the Fallen Ones. Then it dawned on her that of all the Stonewalkers, if she must have a guard, Ore-Locks might be the most useful.
His eyes had lit up at mention of Bäalâle Seatt, though she hadn't fully known why at the time. Perhaps, his interest was a way to gain his compliance, if and when she needed it.
Third and last, with little time for it, she hoped for any mention of an ancient elven sanctuary.
Chap—as well as Magiere—had caught some of Most Aged Father's oldest memories from the time of the Forgotten. He had seen Aonnis Lhoin'n—First Glade—the place where no undead could enter. The place the Lhoin'na had left hidden in plain sight since that time.
Members of the elves' guild branch sometimes visited the one in Calm Seatt, yet not one had ever mentioned the great age of First Glade. At its mention, Chuillyon had feigned ignorance, according to Chane. Why would they keep this a secret?
Wynn needed to know. If the undead could not enter the glade, then such a place, such a haven, might be indispensable in days to come.
"Why do you hesitate?" Ore-Locks said. "Is something missing?"
Wynn realized she'd sat too long doing nothing. "No, I'm deciding where to begin."
"Were the texts not in your possession for some time? Did you not study them on your journey home?"
"Not enough," she whispered. "My domin, Tilswith, suggested I wait to rejoin my peers—more experienced cathologers. It made sense … because I was a naive girl! But I don't think even he expected the texts to be confiscated."
As soon as her mouth closed, she regretted telling him anything.
Yes, she'd perused some of the works on that journey. Curiosity had gotten the better of her more than once. But events in the Farlands had been fresh in her mind, along with losses. Some days of the journey, the texts had been too much of a reminder of what their acquisition had cost.