As I turned left again, following the last of Sarah’s directions, I came upon the entranceway. It was marked by a carved-out arch, and I passed slowly underneath, hardly breathing for fear I would disturb the air. Before me was a cavernous library, located in the very center of Gibnor like some long-forgotten vault. The cavern flickered in the light of dozens of torches, mounted at eye level, and the only noise was the woosh of the flames.

I paused to take in the sight. At first glance, it was obvious that the library had been engineered with a loving and thorough hand. From floor to ceiling, shelves a foot deep had been carved into the rock walls, with each one running the entire circumference of the cavern. Combined with the library’s tapering structure, they created the illusion of a spiral.

At the very top of the cavern, holes had been bored into the rock to allow air to circulate, and directly beneath each hole was a basin-like bowl likely designed to catch precipitation. The ledge that served as the library’s second story was at least twenty-five feet above the cavern floor, and I counted four ledges total, each accessible through a mechanical lift. Every few yards, wooden ladders of various lengths had been attached to the rock so that the books at the highest shelves on each level could be retrieved. Openings along the cavern floor led to smaller, darker caves, and their contents were scratched above each arch: Inventory. Census. Historical Records. Some were sealed off, and others were protected by glass panels that I assumed regulated the climate inside.

The library’s crown jewels were the books themselves. Each shelf was fitted with hundreds of books and scrolls of all different sizes and colors, a far greater collection than was housed in Historical Amberasta. I imagined the scouts bringing back the tomes one by one. They must value their books above all else. Even food isn’t given this treatment. I suddenly recalled how I’d switched my DNA with a man’s, hoping to hide my identity. If I had had access to such a resource, I would not have been so ignorant about the workings of the world.

I was not alone inside the library. Spread across the levels, at least a dozen people read and took notes by the torchlight, using slats of wood as writing surfaces and balancing on the ledges as easily as rams. As I walked below, they looked up from their work only long enough to nod at me.

When I had caught my bearings, I approached the lowest shelf and tried to make sense of the organizational system. It seemed that the books were sorted neatly according to topic and author, but the vastness of the cavern still made the hunt utterly daunting. Within a few minutes of fruitless searching, I sighed and leaned against the shelves. I thought of asking another patron for help, but decided against it, as they all seemed engrossed in their work.

“Would you like some help?” a soft voice said behind me. I whipped around to see a young, dark-haired woman with an armful of books. She had appeared as if from nowhere. “What are you looking for?”

“Um, the sections on technology and engineering.”

She nodded once and wordlessly took off across the cavern, leaving me to try and keep up. She stopped at the nearest lift, tapping her foot as she waited. As soon as I stepped onto the platform, which was hardly wide enough for the both of us, she tugged on the rope and we rose jerkily upwards.

“Where are you from?” she asked. “I haven’t seen you before.”

“Karakul. I arrived here just over a month ago.”

“Welcome,” she replied, smiling softly. “So, what do you think?”

I shook my head, unsure of how to respond. “I think… well, I think it’s probably the only city of its kind on earth.”

She shrugged, seemingly satisfied with my answer. “Perhaps, but I wouldn’t be so sure.”

I simply blinked at her, taken aback. No one, not even Nico, had suggested to me that other groups lived outside of Amberasta’s borders. Before I could respond, she clamped the platform in place and we dismounted onto the second story. With a fluid motion, she gestured to the second shelf above the ledge. “This is our section on technology. Civil engineering is on the fourth floor, and blueprints are in the third cave on the ground, marked ‘documents.’”

“Thank you,” I said, shaking her hand. “I’m Anabelle.”

“No problem. I’m Gizem, and I’ll be at the top if you need anything else.” With that, she turned and remounted the lift, pulling away to the upper floors. As I watched her go, I whispered her name once under my breath. It sounded foreign, unlike anything I’d heard in the common tongue. More than that, she moved with a certain type of grace that only came from years of familiarity. Could it be that she was one of the few children born and raised in Bellgate?

Once the noise of the lift came to a halt, I shook her from my mind and began to search among the shelves. It was slow going, but I finally located several titles of interest, including Modern Day Printing and Industrial Impressions. Afterward, I returned to the floor of the cavern and searched the blueprint room until I had several clear examples of building design.

Balancing my books and scrolls in one hand, I grabbed a wooden slat from against the wall and sat crossed-legged on the floor. From my pants pocket, I pulled an envelope that contained a small stack of newly-purchased paper. I spread out the first blueprint in front of me as a formatting guide. Then, I raised my pen and closed my eyes, picturing everything I remembered about the Fortress.

***

Nico was laying across Bushnell’s floor with his head hidden underneath the printer. A diagram was open by his side, and I marked it with a black pen every time he informed me of a missing or broken part. It was our last full inspection of the machine, a process where we started at the top and worked our way down to the bottom. At this point, the printer had been fully disassembled and reassembled three times.

There was a snapping sound as Nico removed the last broken roller and tossed it into a bucket. When he reached out his hand, I handed him the replacement: a segment of a wooden curtain rod, recently salvaged from another storage chamber. He fitted the new piece into place and slid out from underneath the printer. The corner of my mouth quirked upward—he was covered in dust from head to toe, like an errant child who had spilled a sack of flour. He frowned indignantly and brushed the dust from his clothes in my direction.

“What’s the verdict?”

“That’s all I can do without a power source. And the motherboard might be screwed up, I’m not an electrician.”

“At least the elders will be able to see the vision now. We’ll need their permission to access a power source.”

He nodded, then sat against the wall with his legs splayed out. “Are the blueprints ready?”

“They’re really close. Two more days, max.”

“Then I’ll schedule the meeting for Thursday, November twenty-second.”

I nodded stiffly. Even once all of the components of my plan were complete, nothing could prepare me for my presentation to the elders. My only consolation was that Nico would be by my side. The week had been spent researching, writing, and repairing the old printer, and he had only left my side for his duties in Bellgate’s military.

I sat beside him, resting my chin on my knees. “Have they given you another date for deployment?”

“Not yet. If I had to guess, they’ll want to send me to Karakul again to monitor information on the prison break.”

“Can you say no?”

“Yes and no. I can request to stay here and help with your plan, but I don’t want to refuse them outright. We should avoid angering them when we need their help.”

“You’re wary of them,” I observed. “I thought Bellgate would be more democratic.”

“The elders are nothing like Keon,” Nico snapped. “They’re just trying to protect us.”

“You’re afraid.”

He sighed, moving the hair out of his face. “If they shut us down, what will you do then?”

I set my jaw. “No matter what, I’ll find a way.”