Their ride stopped before the great glass dome of the Archive, and Tomas opened the door for them. The only entrance to that marble edifice was a pair of bronze doors with a dozen languages all saying the same thing—there is one evil: ignorance.

They were assaulted by grassy notes stained with something sharp, something that promised power. There was a hint of vanilla there too, mixing with the mustiness … it was unmistakable, that scent of old books brought beneath one roof, and any athenaeum graduate would be familiar with it. The glass dome and many arching windows allowed the sun easy access to the interior.

A strange feeling wormed its way into her gut when they crossed the threshold, a raw wrongness she could not place entirely.

“So why is it you wanted to come here?” Tomas asked.

“To figure out what language this is in,” Mydea said, showing him the script she’d copied from her father’s journal. Her fingers itched and twitched, begging her to reach for something that was just out of grasp. Was she going mad?

“This isn’t in any language spoken in the Empire, I think,” Tomas said. “Not from New Thrage either, and the easterner scripts look entirely different from this. Pyrian maybe, though I cannot say they are a people who think highly of writing. We can ask the hystors.”

Tomas led her past the lines of strawborn in the marble atrium, right up to the counter where a scribe collected entrance fees. Besides him was a man with a well-chiseled chest and thick trunks for arms. “Tomas, welcome back to the Archive,” the man greeted. “Have you grown taller?”

“I’m the same height as always, Jorge,” Tomas said.

Jorge frowned. “Huh? I could have sworn … well, how can the Archive help you today?”

Tomas gestured to Mydea. “This is Lady Mydea of House Kolchis. She’s a guest of the Empress and requires access to the Archive.”

“Ah, where are my manners then?” Jorge said. Twin hexagrams of ink snaked their way up his neck and onto his cheeks, proudly marking him as a hystor. “I am Polyhystor Jorge, Administrator of the Archive. I welcome you, and recognize the first right.”

The right to study, to be accepted at an athenaeum and learn from the wise ones was what separated the stoneborn from the strawborn. From the moment of birth, a spot was carved out in those halls for even the lowest mage-at-arms without need for tests or tuition, though whether they graduated was entirely on their own merits. Whole wars had been fought when greater lords thought to deny lesser ones access to the athenaeums, and that right extended to the use of the Archive and any library attached to the Six Schools.

“Thank you,” Mydea said distractedly. “I’m sorry, does anyone else feel that strange sensation?”

“Is it your first time in the Archive?” Jorge asked. At her nod, he continued, “House Langoure has oathsworn maintaining wards on this structure against the making of fire. That itch you’re feeling is from a limited application of their signature spell.”

“Does it get better?” Mydea asked.

“Not really, and the prisons are even worse,” Jorge said. “I caution you against spending too much time here. We’ve had people suffer from madness after prolonged exposure.”

If this was what a limited application of Severance felt like, she hated to think what the spell in all its power could do to her. Death might be preferable.

“Have you ever seen this language before?” Tomas asked, showing him the paper. “I think it might be Pyrian, but I’m not certain of that.”

Jorge studied it for a moment, his brows furrowing. “I must confess, I have no clue what this is. We have few books with the Pyrian script to compare it too, but I’ll see what I can do. Follow me.”

One did not appreciate the sheer size of the Archive until you’d strolled deep into its confines. There were hundreds of thousands of books sitting upon thousands of shelves on every subject under the star and storm. Narrow, numbered rows crisscrossed forming a labyrinth Mydea would have easily lost herself in.

Every so often, the endless sea of shelves would be interrupted by displays encased in boxes of glass. There were swords, stone tools, and clay tablets; coins from foreign shores and the days of yore, the finger bones of ancient royalty alongside their stoney visages and shattered crowns; and even a mythuselah’s fang!

Librarians marked by their pink pins patrolled the halls, while scribes and servants of either sex inspected certain shelves, rearranging the order of books or pulling them out for a good dusting—always by hand, for fear that magic might damage the books.

I wonder if anyone’s died of hunger here? Mydea thought as she fought a sneeze from escaping her. The urge passed after a while, when dusty shelves gave way to better used ones.

“Prince Jaeson will be returning any day now I heard,” Jorge said as he stopped at yet another shelf to scan its contents, and even opened a book to skim through, before moving on.

“Not for another month,” Tomas said.

“You would know,” Jorge said. “That must make you popular with the women, if he’s still absent. Have they started throwing themselves at you yet?”

“Only the one so far,” Tomas answered.

“I hardly threw myself at you,” Mydea said.

He grinned. “Need I remind you of when you paid me attention at Aigis?”

“Need I remind you that that served a different purpose?”

“I think you enjoyed it a little too much to be just that,” Tomas said.

“Of course I did,” Mydea said. “Have you ever had ambrosia? It’s divine.”

“You didn’t drink ambrosia that night,” Tomas said. “Honeywine was your poison of choice, if I recall rightly.”

She smirked. “Who was paying attention to whom again?”

“Here we are,” Jorge interjected before she could claim victory over Tomas, though they both knew the score. “A Comparative History of Old Ilyos by Gidyon the Traveller. It is still in Ilyosi, mind you, but he has written down some of the Pyrian words as part of his work.”

The book began with a familiar tale. In that land called Ilyos, they dared steal sleep from summer.

“I was mistaken,” Tomas said, glancing between the book and the paper. “These are not the same language. Half the letters look wrong to me.”

“How curious,” Jorge said. “Where did you get this from?”

“One of the old books from home,” Mydea lied easily. “I think it might have been a poem? Really, it’s just to sate my curiosity. Do you have a book on languages I could borrow?”

“I’m afraid not,” Jorge said. “By the Empress’ decree, no thing is to leave the Archive, not even for the House Imperial. I’ve no answers for you today, but we could arrange for a diviner specializing in languages to take a look at it. I will have to check when she is available. There are many demands on her time.”

“I appreciate the offer,” Mydea said. “Please send me word at the Seraglio whenever she’s free.”

Their exit was greeted with the other half of the Sage’s saying—there is one virtue: knowledge.