[Tristan]

Sister Hinewai and I reached the Library storeroom after a brief stop at the reference desk in the reading hall. The librarians used to keep a box of matches and a couple of oil lamps in the drawer to use in case of an emergency. I wondered what kind of emergency could happen in a library. Probably someone falling asleep while reading some particularly unexciting tome or having to look for a book in the middle of the night because one of the scientists had had an idea so bright it couldn't wait till morning. Anyway, Sister Hinewai and I took the lamps and the matches and went to the storeroom.

It was a wide and bright room, with empty shelves running along the walls and three crates in the middle. The crates had been pried open with a metal crowbar that had then been left on the floor, beside the discarded lids. Some of the contents of the crates were scattered around, thick notebooks full of meticulously handwritten text, formulas, and drawings.

"This is it," I said.

"You sound surprised."

"Well, I am. A little. I know I shouldn't. Besides, it's a lot of stuff."

"Doctor Bailey spent weeks debriefing the survivors of the Libraries," Sister Hinewai pointed out. "And with hypnosis you can memorize a lot more stuff than studying it the old-fashioned way."

"All right." I picked up the notebooks on the ground and put them back into the crates. Then nodded at Sister Hinewai. "Let's do it."

"Are you sure there is no other way?"

"Yes," I said. Agatha and I had discussed it at length the night before but had found no other way. If enough people followed us, we could divide the notebooks among them and carry them away with us, but if we lacked the manpower, the only sensible thing to do was burn them all. If the Library fell into the hands of the League, we couldn't leave all that research for them to grab hold of.

I unscrewed the burner from the bowl. "Are you sure this isn't going to burn the whole place to the ground?"

"The storeroom floor and walls are fireproof. It's a safety measure to protect the books. As long as the flames don't reach the door, the rest of the Library should be safe."

"Right."

Sister Hinewai too unscrewed the burner from her lamp's bowl, and we poured the oil on the notebooks inside the crates, one crate each, and then together into the third crate. We dropped the empty oil lamps into the crates.

Then I fished the box of matches from my pocket, and one by one I lit the matches and tossed them into the crates.

***

[Agatha]

The first of the three airmen standing watch aboard Cloudswimmer raised his hands faster than lightning when I knocked on the boarding hatch and aimed two guns to his face at point blank range as he opened the hatch.

"Who the hell are you?" he wheezed.

"Army of the misfits," I grinned. "We are seizing your airship."

"I don't think the Helmsman will let you steal Cloudswimmer," he pointed out.

"Guess we'll have to kidnap it at gunpoint, then."

I gestured with the barrels of the guns, and he stepped back as I entered the gondola. There was only a flimsy retractable gangway connecting the airship to the spire, and it was swinging merrily in the morning breeze.

The others followed me inside. Jack was keeping the abbot and the abbess in his sights. In the end Tristan had had to hand him his gun. I could not deal with the turncoats alone. Saoirse had thrown a tantrum because she too wanted a gun and that was unfair, but after I threatened to throw her off the spire she had fallen into a grim silence.

"How many of you are there on board?" I asked.

"Me plus two."

I pointed my guns at his chest. "You sure?"

"Yes. It's just a skeleton crew. You know, to steer the airship back if she breaks the moorings and for some reason the Helmsman doesn't step in."

"Call them over the intercom. Have them join us here."

"Sure." He took a microphone hanging from a hook beside the hatch. "Greta, Hans. We're being hijacked. I'm not kidding. A crazy nun is hijacking the airship. Get to the boarding compartment to abandon ship."

"I'm not a nun," I pointed out.

"You're dressed like one," he shrugged. "No offense meant."

"None taken," Sister Hinewai chimed in, walking through the boarding hatch.

I could swear I had felt the airship drop an inch as she shifted her weight from the gangway to the gondola floor.

Tristan followed her inside.

I felt like a big weight had just been taken off my chest.

A moment later, the other two airmen entered the boarding compartment, with their hands already up. In the end it was just a civilian crew of a cargo airship.

I nodded at the hatch. "Get out. Now."

They scrambled out of the hatch and down the gangway and disappeared into the spire.

That left me the abbot and the abbess to deal with.

And Tristan knew it.

"Agatha."

"What?"

"I too loved the Grahams."

"Then you understand what I'm about to do."

The two lowlifes were staring at me wide-eyed, drops of sweat running down their temples.

I raised my guns and pointed them at their foreheads. In the small, crowded space of the boarding compartment the muzzles were mere inches from them.

"No, I don't." Tristan stepped closer to me. Put his gun into his waistband. "Using love and kindness as a weapon against people who know only hate and prevarication is the best revenge. Quote unquote"

I clenched my teeth.

"Steve Graham's words, not mine," Tristan pushed on. "If you want to honor his memory, you know what you have to do."

I closed my eyes.

Breathed in.

Breathed out.

"Go away," I finally said. "Go right now. And don't say a word."

***

A few minutes later, Jack and Sister Hinewai found a couple of axes and cut the mooring cables.

Then I told the Helmsman that we were ready, and we set course for Pegasus Library, wherever it was.

[Tristan]

The view over the Caladrius Plains was amazing. Cloudswimmer was cruising at a height of six thousand feet, engines droning at low rpm, only the sound of rustling air to keep us company. It had stopped raining a few minutes before, and Cloudswimmer had gained altitude to fly above the cloud cover. Now the clouds were all white and cotton-like, the threatening dark gray hue of the early morning dissolved in the heavy rain showers that had just ended.

In the widening gaps between the clouds, the thick forest of the Caladrius Plains was beginning to show, all tall firs and birches crowding together, plowed through by thousands and thousands of blue streams that joined together in hundreds of lakes.

I was sitting in the pilot's seat on the command deck and enjoying the view, taking sideways glances at the dials and levers and control knobs that from time to time moved, instructed by the Helmsman that was piloting the airship. I was pretty sure that if there hadn't been a Helmsman on board, our getaway would have ended in a matter of minutes against the Library spire or the surrounding hills.

And yet here we were, already twenty-four hours and almost fifteen hundred miles away from Typhon Library. The route Cloudswimmer had devised and proposed (not that any of us had had much to say one way or the other) had us fly alongside the Shellycoat Massif for three hundred miles, cross a small stretch of sea called the Carbunclo Straits, and leave the Thevetat region behind. Agatha had shown us the route on a detailed map, following Cloudswimmer's instructions in her head, and it hadn't looked too challenging: a little more than three thousand miles, mainly over forests and prairies, slaloming through mountains and hills to avoid altitude changes, trying to follow the thermals and tailwinds whenever possible to preserve fuel. Three thousand miles meant reaching the limits of Cloudswimmer's range, and the Helmsman had advised against stopping to refuel, because seeing a crew of teenagers in command of an airship was going to raise a few eyebrows, even if word about the hijacking hadn't already spread.

Pegasus Library was one of the oldest and biggest Libraries of the Order of Remembrance, according to Sister Hinewai. It was almost a little town by itself, with more than two thousand monks and nuns, seven separate libraries and (it was rumored) a full battalion of Royal Marines led by a lieutenant colonel as a garrison. And for a very good reason: Pegasus Library straddled the border between the Republic of Evelune, a tepid Kingdom supporter, and the Grand Duchy of Huidemar, whose Grand Duke Wischard was a distant cousin of the Chancellor himself. After the Miracle of Finisterre, the League had reinforced its military presence in the Grand Duchy, while the Republic of Evelune, probably smelling trouble, had decided to let League and Kingdom sort out their beefs by themselves, and had washed its hands of the Library.

I heard the floor creak and didn't have to turn to see that Sister Hinewai had entered the command deck.

She came to sit in the engineer's seat, on the right of the pilot's.

"Are you all right?"

"It's very sweet of you to ask," she smiled.

"And?"

"It's a lot to take in, you know. I've grown up thinking that all the Order of Remembrance members are wise and fair people. Some are ill-tempered, some are disagreeable, but in the end, I believed they were all good people."

"They are. Most of them anyway."

"Yeah. It's that... the abbot and the abbess? Seriously? The guy and the gal that should run things according to the mission that King Bruce has entrusted the Order with all those centuries ago, being turncoats?"

"And killers."

"That too." She fell silent for some moments. "I don't know what's worse, betraying the secrets of the Order to the League or hurting and killing people. Those Grahams Agatha talked about, they sounded like alright people."

"They were."

Sister Hinewai settled more comfortably in the chair. "What now, Tristan?"

I looked down. "Well, first of all I beg your pardon for lying to you back at the Library. About the reason why I wanted to see the stuff about the Miracle of Finisterre, I mean."

"Forget about it. You didn't know if you could trust me."

I nodded. "Thanks. Well, now the plan is to reach Pegasus Library and to warn them of the betrayal of Typhon Library."

"We could have asked the Helmsman if there was a Library closer to us."

I shook my head. "I have to find those books about the Invisible Light. The Grahams were right, everything revolves around the Miracle of Finisterre, and now I know the Invisible Light made it happen. I'm sure that if I understand what the Invisible Light is, I'll understand what's wrong with Agatha."

"She's weird. In more than one sense."

"I know. But I have to try. I swore to protect her, and I don't feel like I've done an upstanding job so far."

"Well, she's still alive."

I shook my head. "She's the one who saved me, not the other way around. Both at Castle Vostok and at Typhon Library. I want to understand what's wrong with the stuff inside her head and help her fix it. It's the only kind of help I can give her."

"So that's the plan? We reach Pegasus Library, you study the books about the Invisible Light, and then?"

I inhaled deeply. Sighed. "Promise you won't laugh."

She traced a cross on her heart with her right thumb. "Promise."

"All right. You mentioned Agatha is weird. Well, she is in a hell of a lot of ways. You already know she talks to the Helmsmen in her head. Well, she feels the minds of the Abominations, too. And she can cross the Miracle Bridges without feeling sick."

Sister Hinewai nodded. "It's a little hard to swallow but go ahead."

"Okay. Back at Typhon Library, it turned out nobody was able to extract the research she has in her head, and that she's immune to drugs."

"Really?"

"Really. Doctor Bailey wasn't able to extract anything from her through hypnosis. He drugged her, and it didn't work. At first the drugs knocked her out for some time, but later not even that. So, she pretended she was out cold and overheard everything."

"Your friend has most unusual abilities."

"I know." I yawned. "We spent most of the night going over what we know so far. According to what she overheard from Doctor Godefray back at the Library, there's something in her blood that may explain her abilities. In his suicide note, Doctor Bailey wrote that in his opinion the Helmsmen and the Faraway Bridges are somehow connected to Agatha's blood. And finally, that checks out with what Stargazer told her when they first met. It said her High Blood was strong, almost untainted."

"What is High Blood?"

"One more thing I hope I'll understand at Pegasus Library. After I find out about the Invisible Light."

Sister Hinewai nodded. "So, you really think that the Invisible Light might be the key to explain Agatha's weird powers."

"Yes. The Invisible Light, and that mysterious Holy Key everybody is looking for, but nobody seems to know anything specific about. I think that if I find the answers to all this, I'll be able to give Agatha the help she needs."

"You are very noble, Tristan, but I don't think you'll be able to stop the League. The hunt for Order of Remembrance research has been going on for over twenty years."

"No, you're right. But if we understand what's the matter with Agatha's abilities, the Kingdom will protect her even if the Order can't retrieve the information in her head. She'd be safe."

"No offense meant, but this sounds well above your pay grade, as the Royal Marines use to say. You're no scientist and no soldier."

I nodded. "Yeah, thanks for the gentle reminder."

"No, sorry, I just... it's that... it's a pretty tall order you've given to yourself."

"Don't tell me."

***

NEXT UP: Pegasus Library draws closer, but there's a whole lot of trouble ahead.