Silvie slid down the alley between two pale mortar buildings, whether warehouses or residences she could hardly tell—all the buildings were the same basic rectangular shape. Then they were at the back of the stables without having raised a single alarm. What’s more, Billos and Darsal were waiting.

“Don’t spook the horses,” Silvie warned.

Darsal indicated a long row of carts along one wall. “These are all of them?”

“There are more on the other side. Quickly, exactly as planned.”

Billos nodded, and they split up again. It took them an hour to position the carts, primarily because they had to move them with painstaking caution. Finding enough rope had been the single greatest challenge, and it took Darsal sneaking into a shed five houses down to get enough to tie into long strands.

Still no sign of Shataiki—maybe they’d all fled the city after the sun had gone down.

They gathered at the stable and stared out at their handiwork, which, thankfully, couldn’t be seen in the darkness: two carts on either side of the door at the courtyard’s edge; ropes strung to the large curved handles, then laid along the ground at forty-five degree angles. Billos and Darsal would take the far rope, Silvie and Rosa the near one.

“You’re sure we won’t burn the temple down?” Billos breathed.

“Only enough of it to preoccupy Witch,” Silvie said. “He won’t like the idea of losing the library any more than you do.”

Sweat beaded Billos’s face. “So light them and then pull them in.”

“Light all four carts,” Silvie said. “We pull only when the blaze is large enough to burn the front door. Then get your tails to the back window where we go in.”

“What if the distraction doesn’t take?” Darsal asked. “Witch might know exactly what we’re up to.”

“Then we fight our way out,” Silvie said. “You have a better idea, it’s not too late. I said this would be suicide, didn’t I?”

“Let them come,” Billos sneered. “Where would you say the missing books might be?”

“Forget the books,” Rosa said. “First Johnis.”

“We’d be fools not to take every opportunity to get them.”

“I have no clue. There’s a large room underground—I could imagine Witch hiding the books inside. If we get that far, we’ll be passing through. Ready?”

A lone shriek carried through the night. Shataiki. But no sighting yet.

“Ready?” Silvie asked again.

“Let’s go.”

Darsal touched Billos’s arm. He gripped the flint in one hand and the resin-dipped fire sticks in the other. Then Darsal was off into the night with Billos after her like a shadow.

Silvie wiped the sweat from her brow and tried to still the tremor in her fingers. “As we agreed,” she whispered.

“I should go with you,” Rosa said.