Thread of Darkness

Ch. 28: Maribel

Penny clung to the railing.

She'd been to some very impressive buildings before. Helos Castle. The Weeping Tower. The Ruined Bridge (which was, to her surprise, not in ruins, but a glass bridge that looked like solidified moonlight). But none of them held a candle to the Great Library. Not even close.

"This place is insane," Penny murmured.

A large room stretched out below them. White marble bookshelves lined the room, wrapped in green plants; wooden ladders snaked toward the ceiling. A large orb floated at the heart of the room, like a glittering, golden apple, suspended above a sunken pool. Pale light filtered through the glass ceiling, colouring everything in inky blue.

Grayson smiled. "Do you want a tour?"

Penny spun. "There's more?"

"Come on, Princess." He started down the stairs. "I'm about to blow your mind."

Grayson showed her rooms filled with teapots that sung. Rooms where it felt like you were standing in the stars, rooms with whispering books, and rooms filled with white stones that translated books written in different languages. He showed her a humid greenhouse filled with extinct plants. A room with a three-dimensional map of Mondia, where a person could walk through each kingdom.

They paused in a conservatory. A piano sat near the glass wall, accompanied by several chairs and a table. Penny raised her hand to the cool glass. An orange fish — small, with a fin on its top that fluttered like a fan — nudged at her fingers. She could make out marble pillars in the distance, like the ruins of some sunken city.

Penny dropped her hand. "Where shall we start?"

"With lunch," Grayson said. "I'm starved."

He was leaning against the doorway. Blue light coloured his face, carving out his cheekbones and jaw. She could see his tattoo peeking out from his shirtsleeve: the delicate curve of the compass; the hard line of a wave.

Penny looked away. "There's so much research to do."

"We can start tomorrow."

Penny glanced at the sunken marble pillars. "It's still so early."

"It's almost evening," Grayson said. "We've been down here for hours." He must have seen the surprise on her face because his smile turned grim. "This place has a way of playing tricks on you. Time passes differently here."

Penny sat at the piano. "That's impossible."

"In a sense." Grayson hesitated. "Have you heard of the scholar Antocles?"

"Of course." Her tutor, Briar, had spent an entire afternoon telling her about the ancient scholar. According to legend, Antocles had been so overwhelmed by the sight of the Library that he wore a blindfold for the rest of his life. "Everyone's heard of him."

"Well," Grayson said, "only some of the rumour is true." He sat beside her. "Antocles did visit the Great Library. He was searching for a cure to Dragon Pox, you see. Zarobian healers told him that this was the best place to look."

Penny pressed down a key; a low note filled the room. "Did he succeed?"

Grayson shook his head. "The cure came hundreds of years later. But Antocles spent weeks down here researching. He became obsessed with his work; he didn't eat. He didn't sleep. And eventually, he withered away."

Penny lifted her finger. The note went silent. "He died down here?"

"He did." Grayson's blue eyes were steady. "I know you, Penny; you don't do things in half measures. And if I let you stay down here..." He shut the piano lid. "You'd work yourself to death."