No one chose to say what they had been imagining, but it was also true that they now felt a little uncomfortable near Snowden. He shrugged.
“You can work out how to get it out. I don’t want a fight with the great Terren.”
Rosa and the others held a brief discussion. Hanbun insisted that he could take the blame while they escaped with the staff. But the problem was that it was morning. Soon people would flood in, and even if they broke the case, getting the staff all the way to the Grand Theater would be almost impossible. On the other hand, Gene’s condition was too dangerous for them to wait until evening. It would have been best if they could bring him here, but that was hardly easy either. Luke asked,
“Your magic wasn’t ordinary in Ayanad, Rosa. Couldn’t you do something like teleport?”
Rosa shook her head.
“What I showed there wasn’t my true ability. There was a power flowing through Ayanad that amplified magic. If I could cast spells like that one after another, why would I have struggled so much during the siege? I think Ayanad really is a paradise made only for mages. It makes even mediocre mages powerful. On the other hand, people who know no magic become utterly helpless there.”
Unable to think of any solution, they all grew anxious. Then footsteps sounded behind them. Tahyang turned first. The woman looked like a librarian, and they all tensed. She seemed to make a circuit of the relic room, then came over to their glass case. She hesitated, as though she wanted something.
“Excuse me…”
They all flinched when the librarian spoke. Already guilty in their hearts, not one of them wore a natural expression.
“I happened to hear a little of your conversation… Oh, of course I wasn’t deliberately trying to listen. But there aren’t many people in the library yet, so it’s quiet, and… my hearing is rather sharp.”
The four faces were quite a sight. Stealing a glance at them, Snowden struggled not to laugh. Then he spoke.
“You seem to have elven blood. I hear quite a few librarians do.”
“That’s right. My name is Setilla.”
Luke suddenly exclaimed in surprise.
“Are you the librarian who hired the Shadowhawk to retrieve a book?”
Setilla looked puzzled.
“How did you know?”
“Oh, that… Well, never mind.”
Setilla looked at the glass case and spoke in a small voice.
“There’s something you might want to know.”
They all drew a tense breath. Merely bringing up theft might not be enough to earn a punishment, but a librarian had the authority to ban them from the library. And in truth, they had been holding a conversation that would justify treating them as dangerous people.
Rosa opened her eyes wide with a child’s innocent expression. Luke hid both hands behind his back and wore a bizarre smile. Hanbun stood rigidly at attention as though declaring, I haven’t done anything yet. Tahyang looked serenely at the entrance, as if gazing at distant mountains, but the tip of his tail kept moving.
Setilla continued.
“Even precious relics have to be taken out for maintenance now and then. About once a month.”
Morning had come to Port Square too. In Delphinad, unlike Ayanad, it was still too early for the café to open. A man nicknamed Kenneth the Swallow by his friends, because he never took off his black jacket even in summer, wandered around the empty square carrying his fiddle.
Kenneth had drunk himself unconscious early at a party at a friend’s house, and as a result was up alone at dawn. He had come out intending to drink a cup of coffee on credit when the Blue Peacock Café opened. Since there was still an hour to go, he decided to make a circuit of the square and look for fallen coins. Discovering, beyond his hopes, a silver coin bearing Queen Julia’s face, he snatched it up and muttered,
“The early swallow gets the beauty.”
On one side of the square, traces remained of the enormous crowd that had gathered there until yesterday. The shop in question was still closed, but a notice said winnings would be paid out that afternoon. Kenneth looked at it with some regret. The day before yesterday, he had been paid fifty alpion to play his fiddle for the café’s customers. He had wondered whether to put it on the wager, then drunk it away instead. Of course, he could no longer remember which of the two he had intended to bet on.
Hoping to make up for that small disappointment, he went into a corner beside a fence where two jars stood and tried to sleep.
Huddled in the fence’s shadow with his eyes closed, Kenneth was inwardly cursing the birds whose chirping announced the morning when he heard a conversation.
“The man who suggested this to Leonis was the same one who made that speech yesterday?”
“They say he’s the one who wrote The King of Mea. He also borrows books that require watching from the library. Fortunately, he takes them after tearing out pages.”
“That fellow seemed to know something as well. The power he displayed in the duel, the poet, and all the evidence we’ve lost here and there: the Shadowhawk will discover something soon. We have no time to delay.”
“Is the general still hesitating?”
“He won’t be able to now. By this evening, he’ll be sunk in despair. The moment the power vanishes, it feels like a cold ten times as strong.”
“Then that will be our opportunity.”
“The officiant will already have made all the preparations. Huan, go and meet our agents at the Grand Theater. Find out whether he’s dead or alive.”
“You saw the blood beneath the stage, didn’t you? He could hardly survive that. We’ve bribed the doctors in that area, so he won’t have received proper treatment either.”
“Still, make certain. If he does survive, we’ll have to move the plan forward. Have the withdrawal orders been issued?”
“Yes. The main force has already gone, and the rest will all be out within three days. It’s a shame we won’t see the Grand Theater collapse. The damned citizens of Delphinad running like a flock of quail would make a fine spectacle too.”
“Hardly a spectacle worth risking your life for. Come to the manor this evening, then.”
“Yes. I’ll bring good news.”
When the speakers had gone, Kenneth sat up, scratched the back of his head, and muttered,
“If I meet that fellow, I’ll have to make him buy me a drink at the Emerald Tavern. What a bother.”
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