Bookburners The Complete Season Two

by Max Gladstone

  • • •

  Liam braced for the first bullet, which would probably be the last bullet. When it didn’t land, he thanked God, until he saw the rifles raining from the rooftops.

  Then he thanked Grace.

  A brief reprieve. No doubt there was a backup team. He sprinted to the fallen pearl, glowing quiescent on the stone. Above him, a wave of fire tore from Christina through the night.

  Fly, Sam said. Well, fucking how? There wasn’t exactly a seat to this thing. Not like he could just wish, Up, and then—

  The pearl rose two inches off the ground.

  Oh.

  With a running leap, Liam scrambled onto the pearl and stood, precarious, every muscle tense. The surface looked slick, but felt stable. Still, if he fucked this up, he’d die.

  What else was new?

  Fly, he told the pearl, and it did.

  Christina knelt in midair, weeping fire. Her hands clutched the edge of the circlet. Blood trickled from where the silver touched her skin. Light tore from her, through him, but it lacked weight or strength. He expected heat. Instead he felt, in waves, the sudden terror of being seen.

  He teetered as the pearl drifted toward her, but he did not think about the seven-story drop beneath, and he did not fall. He reached for her with one hand, and his other hand reached for the circlet. “Christina. Hold still.”

  She snatched his wrist. Her nails tore his skin. She opened her eyes. Their whites burned red.

  “No, Liam.” Her voice was the same, with fire underneath. He would have fallen, but the light that held her in midair held him too. “We need this.”

  “That thing is killing you. My side must have put a curse there.”

  “You don’t understand.” Her voice broke in the middle of the last word. Her face twisted. “You don’t fucking get it. They stole you from us—your kit, our tools, our work. We’ve spent years putting it back together. This is our last chance to make things right.”

  “It’s no goddamn chance. You’re going to die.”

  “Then I die for the cause.”

  He didn’t know what that meant. He didn’t want to know. With his free hand, he cupped her cheek, and wiped away the tracks of burning tears. “Christina. I know what the circlet means to you. But you can’t kill yourself for this. Let it go. Please.”

  That word was a corkscrew through him. He didn’t know this woman. She knew him, and hoped he remembered. He was faking. He was pretending. Using her feelings to get what he wanted. He didn’t care about her. He didn’t remember what it felt like to wake with her on a cold dark morning, to shift beside her and run his hand down her breastbone to her belly. He wanted the circlet. This was the only way to get it.

  Right?

  She released his hand.

  He caught her around the waist and drew her to him, and, gently, as if crowning her, he took the circlet from her head.

  5.

  Grace found Wang Jianguo in the burning courtyard. The woman shone with sweat and her eyes darted from the fire to her fallen soldiers to the denizens of the Bizarre disappearing down back alleys into Shanghai, and finally to the descending pearl, upon which Liam stood, holding Christina and the circlet for which they’d come so far.

  Wang Jianguo drew her sidearm. Grace took it from her.

  The woman rounded on her, snarling.

  Grace ejected the magazine and threw the gun away. “You weren’t kicked out of the Bizarre,” she said. “You were never invited in the first place.”

  Wang dove for Grace. Grace didn’t bother burning, just stepped out of the way. “Who are you?” Wang spat.

  “The names,” Grace said. “Tell me what you learned about the names I gave you.”

  “They’re nothing.” She was sobbing. “They’re no one. They’re gone.”

  The words hit Grace harder than any fist. Friends. Lovers. Comrades. “What happened to the Bureau of Official Secrets?”

  Wang’s face twisted. “How do you know that name?”

  Grace ran cold. She saw faces she’d never see again. History collapsed on top of her. She almost didn’t notice when Wang Jianguo punched her in the face.

  A drop of blood rolled from her lip. The cut healed. “You killed them,” Grace said.

  When the next swing came, Grace tripped Wang Jianguo and twisted her arm behind her and pulled it until the cartilage made a sound like crumpling newspaper. The woman screamed.

  “You killed them.”

  “I don’t know!” She panted for breath. “Things change. We don’t know what came before us. Snatches of old records. Logbooks. Nobody wrote things down. Nobody dared. When the monsters came back, they told us to stop them. And we have. One by one. So far. But this—dragons and demons and wizards. What’s going on? What was the Bureau of Official Secrets? Who were the names on that list?”

  Grace let her go and turned away, to face the empty courtyard.

  Good. Liam was gone, at least. He didn’t have to see her weep.

  “Who are you?” Wang Jianguo screamed.

  Grace didn’t answer. And then she was gone.

  • • •

  Liam closed his cell phone, and joined Grace by the stone railing of the Bund. “That was Sansone’s contact. Our exfil’s set. It’ll cost.” He patted his jacket. “But this thing is more than worth it, if it gets the Orb working again.”

  Grace leaned out over the water. Pudong shimmered across the black Huangpu waves. “I used to think I’d never see anything uglier than Pudong,” she said. Now some shining sci-fi dream rose across from the old French and British facades: improbably curved glass and steel, and in the middle of it all an enormous three-legged tower taller than right or joy, an upthrust knife to wound the starless sky. “Warehouses and fishing shacks and opium dens. And now there’s that. Tallest freestanding structure in the world. Or it was, a few years ago. Maybe the Dubai one beat it.”

  She didn’t seem to want him to speak, so he didn’t. He watched across the river with her, and thought about Christina—thought about laying her bleeding on the stone, thought about Tom emerging from a burning alley, soot-caked but okay, to heft Christina over his shoulder and recede into shadows. He thought about the question he hadn’t been asked out loud, and had not been forced not to answer.

  He set his hand on Grace’s shoulder. It felt like touching steel.

  “You were right,” Grace said. “We can’t go home again.”

  He could have caught them. Could have fought Tom down, even without Grace’s help. Taken Christina captive. She was a threat, an unknown. He could have done it.

  “Yes,” Liam said, to the waves.

  But he was not so sure.

  Bookburners

  Season 2, Episode 7

  Fire and Ice

  Amal El-Mohtar

  1.

  Sal’s face hurt. Her whole body hurt, but her face was a mass of stinging needles beneath the warm washcloth the Society’s clinic’s nurse had thoughtfully provided. She exhaled slowly, trying to manage the pain.

  “You should’ve let me deal with it,” muttered Grace, left arm cradled in a makeshift sling rigged from Liam’s shirt.

  “You said that already.”

  “You didn’t look like you believed me.”

  “You didn’t look like you could deal with it just then!”

  “I’ve dealt with frost demons before. Have you dealt with frost demons before?”

  “No, Mom.”

  “For the love of God,” Liam groaned from his own bed, “let it go!”

  There was a pause before Sal started chuckling. Liam narrowed his eyes.

  “What?”

  “I just thought you were about to burst into a thematically appropriate song.”

  He stared at her. Then he snorted. Then they were both laughing while Grace rolled her eyes. Sal sobered first.

  “Sorry, it’s—”

  “I got the reference.”

  They lapsed back into quiet. The doctor came in to set Grace’s wr
ist and arm, tutted over it being broken in three places, and then left again. For almost twenty-four hours everything had felt wonderfully normal—though, Sal thought, frowning, what had her life become that normal was facing down a magical blizzard in the Alps to close a book made of black ice? But everyone had been on point: Sal had noticed an unusual number of British tourists complaining about the inclement weather in Livigno; she’d mentioned this to Liam, who looked up the fact that the forecast for Livigno had nary a storm in sight; they’d reported this to Asanti and Menchú, who woke Grace and sent them off to investigate. They solved the problem, fought the monster, bagged the book—it had all gone so beautifully according to plan, minus the frostbite and broken bones. She’d missed this.

  But the cracks papered over by a successful mission were already breaking through. Menchú and Asanti had gone back to their knife-edged civility, walking on the broken eggshells of Team Four and Society politics; Liam looked a million miles away, nursing his bruised ribs, probably thinking about the ordeal in Shanghai with his ex—And how do I feel about that, anyway? wondered Sal, before stuffing it into the overfull mental closet of deal with it later—while Grace …

  Grace looked vaguely furious, as she always did when she had to burn time to heal a serious injury, but there was a peculiar edge to it now, something simmering, volatile. Sal was imagining her as a taut, fraying thread when Asanti came in.

  “Fantastic work!” she said, beaming—then looked around, took in their faces, and quickly calibrated her enthusiasm to the tone of the room. “…You’re all right? Nothing too serious?”

  Grace looked away. Liam shrugged. Sal, after waiting for a second, tried for a smile she hoped wasn’t too wan. “We’re fine, Asanti.”

  Asanti looked at Grace, who kept her eyes on the wall. She sighed. “I’m glad. There’s—something pressing I may need help with—”

  “Grace needs time to heal,” said Liam. “Can it wait?”

  Asanti hesitated. “It … can’t wait, but I don’t think Grace needs to come. It’s probably nothing—a chance to help a fellow archivist in Canada and kill two birds with one stone—”

  “Canada?”

  They all turned to Grace, who’d narrowed her eyes at Asanti. “Where in Canada?”

  “The capital. A friend was recently appointed Associate Librarian to Parliament, and—”

  “I’m coming.”

  “What?” said Sal and Liam, in stereo. Grace shrugged.

  “I need a vacation.”

  “You mean a day off?” Sal asked, cautiously. “Like—”

  “No.” The word had sharp edges. “I need four days to heal and I don’t want to do it here. If I have to be awake, I may as well follow along with you. You can take care of whatever Asanti needs while I”—she gestured at her broken arm as at a showroom vase—“vacate.”

  “Huh,” said Sal, sneaking a look from Grace to Liam to see if she’d missed an inside joke, but he looked as baffled as she felt. “But … Canada? This time of year?”

  “After we just battled a frost demon?” added Liam.

  Grace shrugged. “I’ve never been.”

  “Seriously?” said Sal. “In all the time you’ve been with the Society, Team Three’s never had business in Canada?”

  “Not that I’ve been needed for.” She turned to look at Asanti. “Unless you have any objection?”

  Asanti held her gaze a moment, then sighed. “No. Of course not. Though Menchú—”

  “Fantastic.” Grace swung her legs off the hospital bed and onto the floor. “You talk to him. I’ll go pack.”

  “I’ll see you at the Archives for the briefing,” said Asanti, but Grace was already walking away and did not look back.

  • • •

  Menchú sat in his room and reflected, not for the first time, on how impossible it was to truly know someone.

  He’d known Asanti a long time; they’d shared drinks, stories, hopes and fears; they’d solved problems, fought battles, chased mysteries. Whatever opposite ends they began from with regard to magic, he had always been assured of their meeting in the middle as friends—or at least teammates, if friends grew strained. But now, seeing her gather resources—seeing the glee with which she pursued knowledge of the things they’d been fighting all these years—he wondered if she’d outgrown his knowledge of her, shedding it like an ill-fitting skin.

  It disturbed him to realize he was thinking of Asanti as a serpent.

  Not least because she was knocking gently on his half-open door.

  “Arturo. May I speak with you for a moment?” She was smiling a little, sadly, he thought; he felt his own smile answer in kind.

  “Of course. Please, come in.”

  She approached his desk and sat down on the edge of his bed while he adjusted his chair to face her. “The team’s back. Everyone’s fine, though Grace has some bones to heal.” She hesitated. “She wants to come on the excursion I mentioned.”

  Menchú frowned. “I thought you said you wouldn’t need her.”

  “She seems to have her own reasons.”

  “Ah. Well, good, that’s good.” He paused, letting the quiet hang between them. “Asanti—”

  “I heard about what you did,” she said, softly. “That you stood up for me, against Monsignor Fox.”

  He went very still for a moment, then shrugged. “It was the right thing to do.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “It means a great deal to me. I want you to know that, to know—I do not take these things for granted, Arturo. I know it is hard for you to see things as I see them.” She drew a deep breath. “Do you know the story of Muawiya and the single hair?”

  He blinked. “I’m afraid not.”

  She smiled a little. “Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan was the first caliph of the Umayyad dynasty. He led a fascinating life—a very political life.” She looked up at him. “Among other things, he is famous for this saying: I do not apply my sword where my lash suffices, nor my lash where my tongue is enough. And even if there be one hair binding me to my fellow men, I do not let it break. When they pull, I loosen, and if they loosen, I pull.”

  Menchú frowned, but nodded. “A wise man.”

  “It is said, in Arabic, that when fighting—especially with friends—it is important to keep the hair of Muawiya between you, and to not let it break.” She reached for his hand; he let her take it. “Arturo—the Society slackened its hold, and I pulled. I’ve never made a secret of my views or my aims. And you know how important the team’s supervision is to me in the pursuit of those aims. I need to feel your tug in response.”

  He chuckled. “It’s an interesting metaphor,” he said, “but you see this tug-of-war as happening on a horizontal line, with you pulling us into the future and me—be honest—digging in my heels stubbornly to keep us in the past. That is not how I see it.”

  Asanti frowned. “How do you see it?”

  “On a vertical line—with you climbing deeper and deeper into a dark, dangerous well while the rest of us stand around its mouth, feeding you slack and making sure you don’t fall. And you’ll forgive me, I hope,” he withdrew his hand, “if I want something stronger than a hair to be binding you to us in this situation.”

  Asanti sighed, and stood up. “We need to learn to speak to each other without recourse to metaphors. They make everything so dramatic.”

  Menchú chuckled. “Do you really think metaphors are responsible for the drama of our situation?”

  “We need to be on the same team, Arturo, even if we are not on the same page. I can see how much it bothers the others when we are not”—she waved a hand—“speaking. As it were.”

  “I agree with you there,” he said, “but until we can be assured that what we’re speaking is the same language—”

  Asanti threw up her hands and rolled her eyes. “Enough with the metaphors!” But there was a spark of humor in it that gave him hope. “Yes, I see the impasse. Very eloquent. Well. I should go brief the others. Is there anything you
would like from Canada?”

  “Your safe return and Jeanne’s good wishes will suffice.” He paused. “And some maple whiskey. If it isn’t too much trouble.”

  Asanti chuckled. “I’ll sneak it into the expense account. I suspect you’ll need it, to sustain you through Monsignor Fox’s … gekkering.”

  Menchú chuckled. “Perhaps you could help me drink it.”

  “I’d like that,” said Asanti. “Very much.”

  She left.

  • • •

  “So what’s in Canada?” Liam asked Grace while Asanti bundled documents. “Besides snow and ice and things that want to eat us?”

  Grace narrowed her eyes—likely, Sal thought, at being asked to repeat herself. “I’ve never—”

  “Sure, you said that, but it’s not the only place you’ve never been, is it? Bet you’ve never been to the Bahamas, or Hawaii, or a million other places that are warmer than bloody Canada.”

  “It’s not that bad,” said Sal, looking from Grace to Liam, aware of a weirdly unlikely need to defend the one from the other. “You just dress for the weather. It’s a dry cold.”

  Liam shot her a look. “Oh, you’ve been, have you?”

  “I worked at a ski lodge in Vermont for a while. That’s practically in Canada.”

  “All right,” said Asanti, raising her voice a bit. “The Canadian Parliament’s recently appointed Associate Librarian, Jeanne Richelieu, is an old friend and loosely affiliated with the Society—”

  “What does that mean?” asked Sal. “Is that even possible? Loosely?”

  Asanti shrugged. “She’s done research for us remotely on occasion. The point is, she could use our help; it appears her country’s previous government was remarkably zealous in its destruction of archival material, and eliminated originals of certain texts which we are in a position to help replace.”

  Sal frowned. “I heard about that. But I thought the stuff being destroyed was mostly about fish? Fisheries and oceans, environmental science, that sort of thing. Why would we have—”

  Liam and Grace both looked at Asanti. Asanti looked slightly embarrassed.