He stepped into the room, his weapon raised. In the middle stood a makeshift bed with its sheets pulled to one side. A chest of drawers was set against a wall, covered with medicines and other supplies. Hendaya examined every corner and dark area before going any farther into the room. The air smelled of alcohol, of wax, and of something sweet and floury that made him salivate. He walked over to a small table standing next to the bed, with a candle resting on it. There he found an open ink bottle and a wad of sheets of paper. On the first of these, in sloping, free-flowing handwriting, he read:

Alicia

Hendaya smiled and went back to the doorway. He looked at the keeper, who was still struggling with the handcuffs that tied him to the pipe. Farther away, by the entrance to the labyrinth of books, he noticed a slight wavering of shadows, as if a raindrop had fallen on the surface of a pond, leaving a trail of ripples spreading across the water. As he walked past Isaac, he picked up the oil lamp without bothering to look at the keeper. There’d be time enough to settle the score with him.

When he reached the foot of the huge structure, Hendaya stopped to gaze at the basilica of books soaring before him. He spat to one side. Then, after checking that the revolver’s magazine was full and there was a bullet in the chamber, he stepped into the labyrinth, following the scent of Alicia and the echo of her footsteps.

20

The tunnel traced a slight upward curve that drove into the center of the structure and narrowed as Hendaya left the entrance behind him. The walls were lined with book spines from top to bottom. A coffered ceiling sealed the passage, made out of old leather book covers on which one could still read titles in dozens of different languages. After a while he reached an octagonal hallway with a table in its center. The table was packed with open books, lecterns, and a lamp shedding a soft golden light. A web of corridors spread in multiple directions, some descending, others climbing upward.

Hendaya stopped to listen to the sound of the labyrinth, a sort of murmur, as if of old wood and paper in constant movement, barely perceptible. He’d decided to take one of the descending corridors, assuming that Alicia would try to find another way out, hoping that he would get lost inside and give her time to escape. That’s what he would have done in her place. A second before entering the passage, however, he noticed it. A book hung from one of the shelves, as if someone had started to pull it out but left it dangling, about to fall. Hendaya drew closer and read the title:

ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

Lewis Carroll

“So we’re in the mood for games?” he asked out loud, his voice echoing through the tangle of tunnels and halls. There was no answer. Hendaya pushed the book back against the wall and continued along the passage, which soon started to go uphill, becoming ever steeper, eventually forming steps under his feet at short distances. The farther he penetrated into the labyrinth, the more he felt that he was moving through the bowels of a legendary creature, a leviathan of words that was perfectly aware of his presence and of every step he took. He raised the lamp as far as the corridor’s vaulted ceiling allowed him and kept walking. Some ten meters farther on, he stopped dead in his tracks. In front of him loomed the figure of an angel with wolfish eyes. A fraction of a second before firing, he realized that the figure was made of wax. Its hands, which were large and looked like tongs, held a book he’d never heard of before: