9

Tomorrow, Storme had said, but tomorrow came, Ayla woke up at dawn and immediately slipped out of her room to go find him, and . . . couldn’t find him anywhere. She didn’t know where his rooms were, and she didn’t want to draw any attention to herself by asking. So she wandered the palace for an hour, checking every open room, checking the kitchens and the dining hall and the training room and the fields and even the sculpture garden where they’d run into each other last night, but he was nowhere to be found. Frustrated all over again, Ayla decided that if her brother wanted to avoid her like a coward, fine. Let him! She had other things to do.

First on the agenda: learning more about the mysterious Tarreenian weapons Storme had mentioned. What substance, or combination of substances, created bright blue smoke?

If answers existed, Ayla knew where to find them.

The library, said Crier’s voice in her head. Crier talked about the library like some people talked about temples. Holy places.

According to Maris, there were nine libraries in the queen’s palace, each with a different theme: history, philosophy, arts and sciences, alchemy, ancient books, rare and precious books, human storybooks, law, music. Ayla made her way to the alchemy library in one of the high, fang-like towers, at the top of a dizzying spiral staircase.

The door to the library was intricately carved wood, a symmetrical design of scrolls, swords, and the Varnian phoenix. Around the edges, alchemic symbols. To her surprise, Ayla could understand almost all of them. Sun, earth, iron, salt. The symbols associated with the human body. Moon, water, lead, gold. Symbols of change, transformation. Fire, saltpeter, copper. Energy. That which burned.

Ayla pushed the door open and stepped inside, immediately enveloped with the particular kind of silence that she’d come to associate with libraries after sitting there, bored out of her mind, as Crier met with various tutors. A thick, musty silence, heavy with the smell of aging books. The library was a small circular room, windowless, the walls lined with bookcases so tall there were rolling ladders attached to them so you could access the topmost shelves. In the center of the room, there were a couple soft-looking chairs and a writing desk with parchment, a quill, a pot of ink. Ayla let the door close behind her and just stood there for a moment. She’d picked up the Zullan alphabet quickly, but she still couldn’t read more than a few words; she wouldn’t be able to decipher the book titles, let alone the contents. Suddenly she felt very foolish. She didn’t belong in this place.

She turned to leave, only for the door to swing open, nearly hitting her in the face.

“Benjy,” she said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“I followed you,” said Benjy. He was dressed in a green guard’s uniform, dark curls swept back off his forehead. Frowning, he glanced around the library behind her. “What are you doing?”