[Tristan]

As conspirators, we weren't worth a damn.

Jack, Saoirse and I met Agatha in the doorway of the dining hall, grabbing her by her robe lapels and speaking all at the same time. She swore briefly at us and wriggled free, but there was a puzzled look in her eyes. She glanced nervously over a couple of times at the abbot and the abbess. Doctor Bailey was nowhere to be seen.

Agatha sat down at the head of the table, motioned for us to sit beside her and glared murderously at everyone who remotely looked like they were thinking about taking a seat in the vicinity. I won't repeat what she said when Eva tried to challenge her and approached Jack, let's just say she retreated hastily, blushing vividly.

Jack warned Saoirse that if she dared to repeat even just one of the words that she had heard, she was in for a good spanking.

As dinner began, the abbess stood up and announced that the next morning the cargo airship Cloudswimmer was expected to dock to the Library spire, and after breakfast there was going to be a little speech by Cloudswimmer's captain, so everybody better reschedule their engagements accordingly.

***

In dribs and drabs Agatha told us about her conversation with Doctor Bailey.

"So, what are you gonna do?" Jack asked.

"Go see what's waiting for me in the lab."

"What if it's a trap?"

"Dude, are you serious? They're gonna torture me tomorrow, what else could they do?"

"We could run away tonight," I suggested.

Agatha slapped herself on the forehead. "There I go again. I wish I had thought of that." Shook her head. "We just have to dodge the dragon lady guarding the dorms, and then abseil down a one-hundred-feet-high wall. Not to mention that afterwards we'll find ourselves in a town in the middle of nowhere with the League Army closing in. A walk on the beach"

"You too will have to dodge the dragon lady to get to the lab," I pointed out.

"Nope. She doesn't take her station before having her goodnight infusion. I'll go to the lab right after dinner, and I'll come up with an excuse if I get back to the dorms too late."

"How about us?" I asked. "What can we do?"

"The little carrot sleeps as usual. You two wait for me."

"Got anything on your mind?"

"Maybe. It depends. Just wait and see, okay?"

***

[Agatha]

I muttered something at the dragon lady, but apparently her core responsibility was keeping us kids from making out, and she waved me away. I went down the stairs as quickly as I could before she changed her mind and reached the lab without meeting anyone. Navigating the hallways and the stairways alone in the light of the gas braziers was kind of creepy, but even creepier was the fact that I had got so used to being ushered around by jailers.

The door was closed. I knocked but got no reply.

"Doctor Bailey," I half-called, half-whispered. No reply.

I tried the door handle, and it turned. The door wasn't locked.

I stepped into the lab holding my breath. All the lights were on. I closed the door behind my back and looked around. The enhanced interrogation equipment was still in the metal briefcases, which were neatly positioned on desks facing the interrogation chair. The stainless-steel hospital trolleys were still positioned on both sides of the chair.

Someone had added a mop and a bucket to the equipment.

Doctor Bailey was sitting at a desk in a corner of the lab, a triangular slab of marble wedged into the angle of the wall, with his back to the door I had just come in through. His head was resting on the headrest of the chair, and I could see a balding spot on his crown.

"Doctor, I'm here," I called out softly. The lab was soundproofed, but somehow, I felt uncomfortable raising my voice.

No reply.

I reached Doctor Bailey and realized why.

He was dead.

His eyes were closed, and there was a calm expression on his face. There was an empty syringe on the desk close to his right hand, with the plunger pushed all the way. His left sleeve was rolled up above his elbow, and there was a tourniquet just above the crook of his arm. The label on an empty vial close to the syringe read Sodium Thiopental.

"What have you done, dude," I whispered.

Neatly lined up on the desk, a couple of spans from the edge, there were four revolvers, with large caliber bullets already chambered. Close to the wooden grip of each revolver there were two speedloaders, with six bullets each.

On the desk, in the free space between the line of revolvers and the edge of the desk, there was a folded sheet. My name was written in elegant characters over it.

I took it and opened it.

It was a letter.

Dear Agatha,

today you called me an old fool and a coward through and through. I wish you were right. I wish those were my only sins, but unfortunately this is not the case. I am a fool and a coward, but I am also an accomplice to treason, homicide and torture. I never did those crimes with my own hands, but I never took a stand to stop them. I've always been too weak and spineless.

Now I won't beg for your pardon, because I don't deserve it, and I don't pretend I'm making up for the bad things I have committed, because they are too many and too grave. But here is all the help I can give to let you and your friends escape your fate. The guns come from the Library armory, the last resort for Library personnel in case the Royal Marines are overwhelmed. They are in perfect working order, I checked myself. I don't think my colleagues will miss them, most of them would just shoot themselves in the foot should the need arise to defend themselves.

As for your situation, I can't explain everything, because I don't understand everything, but there's one thing I can tell you: your ability to talk to the Helmsmen and to cross the Faraway Bridges unscathed are linked between them and are both related to your blood. Doctor Godefray suggested it might be High Blood. I will not comment on it, that would be really too much to wrap my head around even now that I am about to leave all this behind, but it might be worth looking into.

I'm afraid you will have to go alone from here, though. This is all I can vouch for, the rest is up to you to find out.

Godspeed, child.

Horatio Bailey

I felt something in my throat.

I waited a few moments for it to pass, inhaling and exhaling deeply.

Then I went rummaging around in the lab, looking for a bag to carry the guns away.

***

[Tristan]

Agatha sneaked into the boys' dorm shortly after midnight, carrying a heavy canvas bag on her shoulder. Jack and I were waiting in our room, with the door ajar and a burning candle so she could find us more easily. Everybody was asleep in the rooms, or so I hoped, and the wood floor creaked softly under her feet.

Jack and I were sitting on Jack's bunk bed.

"Any problem with the dragon lady?" Jack asked as Agatha sat down on the floor. Something clanged inside the bag.

"Snoring like a beached walrus," Agatha sniggered. "You could organize a marching band and probably she'd just fart and turn to the other side."

"What's in that bag?"

"Enough to conquer a small city-state."

At that precise moment the door opened and a pimply face popped in.

"What's up, guys?"

"Go away," Jack and I replied in unison standing up. I bumped my head into the upper frame of the bunk bed.

The pimply face grinned and came in, followed by the rest of the body, an expression of amazement and admiration visible under the pimples. It was Connor Ward, the local rubberneck.

"Whoa there, guys, you should have told me." He crossed the room, walking around Agatha and her mysterious bag and raising his hands. Jack and I automatically raised our hands and he high-fived us. "Way to go." He glanced down at Agatha. "I mean, not a pin-up, but hey, there's no accounting for taste, right?" He winked.

Agatha stood up, a murderous look in her eyes.

I quickly grabbed Connor by the wrist and dragged him to the door. "Thank you for your appreciation," I whispered, pushing him out. "Now, could this be our little secret?"

Connor made a gesture with his fingers like zipping up his mouth. "I'll be as silent as the grave."

"Great. Now, if you excuse me, I have to go back to... um... to the thing we were doing."

Connor nodded sagely. Winked. "Go ahead, guys. I want all the details tomorrow."

"Count on it." I closed the door and breathed out, rolling my eyes. "Damn, that was close. Luckily Connor is just a random pig."

Agatha sat back down and looked Jack in the eyes. "Your decision, pal."

Jack frowned. "About what?"

"Things are gonna get dangerous from now on. It's me the bad guys are after, not you. If you back out right now, I'm pretty sure the League won't hold it against you to have only been in the company of a runaway. I think they'll question you thoroughly, but then they'll let you go. You are not a Library survivor. Count Delauney has no interest in you whatsoever."

"Somehow I doubt he'll just pat me on the back and let me go," Jack replied.

"You are of no value to the League. And you have Saoirse to take care of."

"No, Agatha. I'm not as bright as Tristan or as brave as you, but I owe you big time. And I'd entrust you with Saoirse's life any day of the week."

Agatha nodded. Turned to me. "Tristan?"

"Where you go, I go. End of story."

Agatha grinned. "And to think that Jack just called you bright. All right. Now listen to me."

And explained her plan.

***

We entered the dining room exactly on time at eight in the morning. I hadn't been able to sleep a single minute since Agatha had gone back to the girls' dorm at around two in the morning, and now I could barely keep my eyes open. I had tried to put the guns in my belt, but the matte steel revolvers were so big that as soon as I pulled them out my trousers dropped to the ground. In the end I had ripped a strip off the bedsheet and used it as a belt, then I had put on my real belt very loose and stuffed the guns in the space between belt loops, sandwiched between the belt and the waistband. It wasn't the most comfortable of arrangements, but at least if things went pear-shaped, I was going to die with my trousers up. The speedloaders in my pockets threatened to tear a hole through the fabric, but there was nothing I could do about it.

With our shirts untucked and the guns underneath, Jack and I looked like we had grown a pair of saddlebags overnight. Luckily, our charade was going to last only a few minutes at best.

Agatha too had bulges under the robe, but her robe was loose enough it showed much less. I noticed she wasn't wearing the Library's standard-issue belt. It had to be under the robe, holding her guns. She nodded at me briefly as we entered the dining room.

The abbot and the abbess were already in their seats, with a short man in a blue civilian aviation uniform sitting in front of them. It had to be the captain of the Schmidt Lines cargo airship that had docked in the early morning. Two more people in blue uniforms were sitting on his sides, probably the first mate and some other aide.

Typhon Library was built on a hill too steep to have room for a proper airfield, so a mooring dock had been built in the top levels of the central spire. I had heard the droning sound of the airship engines approaching shortly before the clock struck six, and after orbiting the Library for some time waiting for full daylight to pull in safely, the airship had docked and killed the engines at seven.

There were about twenty crew members in the dining hall, sitting all together at the end of one of the common tables, getting annoyed glances from the nuns and monks whose usual seats they had occupied.

The abbot and the abbess were shining bright smiles all around, playing the perfect hosts. Monks and nuns in waiter uniforms were busy serving tea, coffee and pastries to the VIP table, while the commoners were helping themselves to food and hot beverages from the pitchers and platters on the serving table.

I was feeling the palms of my hands slick with sweat.

Saoirse popped out from behind Agatha and waved at me. The girls shared the bedroom, and I wondered what Agatha had said to the little girl to explain the guns. As for the instructions about what to do in the dining room, Agatha had sworn she was going to be adamant with Saoirse: get under the table and wait for the whole mess to end.

I looked around. We had waited until the very last minute to reach the dining room to be sure to be among the last. The Library rules were that breakfast was served from half past seven to eight in the morning, and the monks and nuns could leave the dining hall after half past eight.

No Royal Marine was in sight, they had their own dining hall in their barracks, and a civilian cargo airship delivering crates of books didn't deserve their attention.

Saoirse went straight to her favorite seat at the end of the section of the table where Cheetah Library and Echidna Library survivors used to eat.

Everybody was seated and munching.

Jack and I didn't sit down.

I made eye contact with Agatha.

She nodded.

Showtime. 

***

NEXT UP: the bullets start flying