Excerpt: Storehouse of Memory

Olivia sat in her favorite spot in the reading room, chin cradled in her palm. A black leather book lay open before her, its thick pages yellowed with age and tradition. She had found it the night before, wedged down behind a reading desk in the great library. Cobwebs clung to the cover, and mice had nibbled through one corner before deciding the taste wasn’t quite to their liking.

Last night she’d stayed awake long after the rector announced lights out, losing herself in an amber world of history and fact, conjuncture and prophecy. The texture of the words slid across her skin, chafing like raw silk; she pulled them close, smoothing them down with her palms and humming as she read.

Ragged with exhaustion, Olivia clambered out of bed just after dawn and, book tucked under her arm, padded barefoot down the halls to a small reading room adjacent to the library. Her thin cotton dress provided no solace from the sharp morning air, but the chill helped her stay awake after hours of nearly obsessive study.

She skimmed the page, ran her tongue over parched lips, and rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn’t imaging things again. A yawn prevented her from reading aloud, but the words on the page remained unchanged.

She retraced the sentence with her right forefinger, tried to conjure up an image of Master Thaddeus’ reaction to the disturbing rumor—it was only a myth, surely, or an old wives tale to scare truant students—and yawned again.

Usually the master preferred solitude. At this hour he was likely down undercity, strolling along the silt beach that rimmed the shanties and docks of the inner sea district. Students were forbidden to leave the academy grounds without a teacher or overseer, but Olivia had never had much regard for the rules. After her father’s death, her mother had made a career of following rules: once so powerful, she died an insignificant dishwasher.

Olivia glanced at a side door, let her eyes wander along the rafters, and peered down shadow-shrouded rows of old bookshelf lined with green hard covers (scripted in flowing gilt-gold titles that inspired Olivia to dream of foreign lands and exotic men with feathered caps). Wary of company, but certain that no one else was in the room or watching from the corners, she unlaced a ribbon from her hair. Her hands threatened to tremble as she slid the ribbon between the pages, but she was stronger than that.

Before she could find Master Thaddeus, however, the book needed a hiding place. It wouldn’t do to descend into the depths of the city with a book in hand—she might as well carry a banner proclaiming easy money. She pushed back from the desk and crept to the back of the room, where she pressed up against the smooth plaster of the wall and stretched her arm out behind one of the bookshelves as far as she could manage to reach. No one must see the secrets the book contained before Master Thaddeus had a chance to deliver his verdict.

A great weariness descended on her as she placed the book on the planks of the floor, like a massive palm pressing against her chest. She filled her lungs, held a breath, and closed her eyes as she exhaled. The feeling slowly passed. After wiping the cobwebs off her arm she slipped down the hall to fetch her walking boots.