Chimes at Midnight
Page 22

The dusty silence didn’t change. I exchanged a look with Quentin and Tybalt. “Should we wait here, or go looking?”
“I honestly have no idea,” said Tybalt. He shook his head. “I’ve always been more interested in oral histories than written ones.”
“Waiting, maybe?” said Quentin. “Seems polite.”
“Okay.” I turned to study a bookshelf. Quentin and Tybalt did the same. Several minutes slipped by, until finally I turned and called again, more loudly, “Hello?”
“Coming!” shouted a cheerful, British-accented voice from somewhere in the maze of shelves. “Hold on a moment, shall you? I’m coming as fast as I can!”
“We’ll be right here,” I called back. After several more minutes, a small figure slipped out from behind one of the shelves, her arms full of books. Her clothes were dowdy, suited to rummaging through dusty old tomes and cobwebbed shelves: an ankle-length black skirt, sensible shoes, and a tweed sweater over a white blouse. She looked about fifteen years old. There was an odd bulge on her back, like she was wearing some kind of brace.
“Hullo!” she said. “I hope you weren’t waiting too long. Time can be a mite squirrelly in here.” She dropped her armload of books on the nearest available surface—another pile of books. Near as I could tell, the Library was a paper avalanche waiting to happen. “Welcome to the Library of Stars.”
She was short, maybe five-two, with a slim, almost frail build. Her hair was the bright copper color of new pennies, and cut short in a bob that framed a heart-shaped face dominated by enormous dark blue eyes. Something was wrong with the way they focused. I squinted, trying to figure out what about those eyes was bothering me, and then dismissed it with a slight shake of my head. I was jumpy. Being exiled does that to me.
“I’m October Daye; Li Qin Zhou called about me,” I said, offering my hand. “These are my friends, Tybalt and Quentin. Are you the Librarian, or do you know where to find her?” She looked like a teenager, but in Faerie, that didn’t have to mean anything.
The girl smiled, taking my hand and shaking it. “If you want the last Librarian, best of luck with that. I’m Magdaleana Brooke, and I’m currently in charge here, inasmuch as anyone is. Call me Mags—it’s easier to shout if something’s about to fall on you.”
“Really?” asked Quentin. “But . . .” Then he caught himself, reddening.
Mags turned her smile on him. “Appearances can be deceiving. I’d tell you to ask my mother how old I am, but I’ve not seen her in about three hundred years, and I don’t know where she is. Off harassing some poor musician, I’ve no doubt. That was always her favorite game.”
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” said Tybalt gravely.
“And yours,” she said. “I’ve never met a King of Cats before.”
There was something off about her. I breathed in, trying to catch her heritage, and stopped, blinking. “Wait. What are . . . I mean . . .”
“You mean to ask what I am, and don’t want to give offense by saying I don’t come across as fae to your blood magic.” She reached around to rub the lump on her back, wincing slightly. “I’m a Puca. You’ve caught me in my street clothes—I was out and about when Li called, and I’ve not had time to change.”
“Oh!” I said, realization dawning. “I’m sorry.”
“No need.” She smiled again. “Just come and have some tea while I get changed, and then tell me what you are, and we’ll call it even.”
“Sure, but we’re also here looking for some information.”
“Isn’t everyone? Come on.” She waved for us to follow her as she turned and headed into the stacks. Not wanting to get lost again, we hurried after her.
She led us through the maze, taking turn after turn until we emerged into a space the size of a normal living room, if normal living rooms had walls made of bookshelves. A table, two couches, and several chairs were set up in the center of the space, carefully arranged on a faded rug. “I’ll be right back; make yourselves comfortable, there’s tea and such in the kitchen.” Before we could say anything else she was gone, vanishing between two bookshelves.
“On the plus side, I don’t think she was offended by my dress,” I said.
Tybalt snorted.
Puca are shapeshifters. They have no skill at illusions, but they don’t need it: instead of making themselves look human, they turn into humans, hiding their strangeness under veils of too-solid flesh. Of course, they’re not perfect. There’s always one thing they can’t change, one fae feature that refuses to be hidden. It got a lot of Puca killed, back when humanity still believed in us, and eventually, they faded as a race, nearly becoming extinct.
“I’ve never met a Puca before,” said Quentin.
“Great. This night is already educational.” I looked around the little square of furnishings, all of which seemed to be at least fifty years old. “When she gets back, we’ll ask for the books on Kingdom history, and we’ll get started.”
“Kingdom history, is it?” Mags appeared from between a pair of shelves—not, I noted, the ones she’d disappeared between before. “That’s an interesting topic. The Mists is a young Kingdom, but it’s had its share of troubles.”
“Yeah, it has,” I said, fighting back the urge to stare.
She was still wearing the long black skirt, but the tweed sweater was gone, as was the lump. Instead, she had pliant-looking dragonfly wings, two on each side, which trailed down to her knees in a wash of translucent rainbow color. They twitched as she walked, making minute corrections in her balance and leaving a thin haze of red and copper glitter in the air. She didn’t have a pixie problem. She just had herself.
Mags chuckled as she caught me staring at her wings. “Unlike some of my luckier cousins, who only had to contend with goat’s feet or webbed hands, I was born with a full set of wings. It makes travel by public transportation ever so entertaining.”
I winced, but it was Quentin who spoke, saying, “Binding your wings like that must hurt.”
“You get used to it.” She glanced aside, expression briefly grim. “You get used to a lot of things, really.” The grimness was gone when she looked back, replaced by her earlier amiability. “Li Qin doesn’t ask for passes often, and certainly not for such interesting groups of people. You said you were looking for the history of the Kingdom? What part?”