The library is not particularly interesting to me.
I am in Delumine often enough that it has ceased to be novel. At times I find it hard to remember why it is that I come here at all, seeing as I have read a good portion of its books, though I am not quite arrogant enough to say most. Many of the volumes have been copied into our own shelves in the palace; I have taken particular interest in tragedies ever since I was a child. Yet I keep coming back. It is a weakness, I know. But these people are quite captivating. So quaint, and often apolitical—or ignorant, even, not of the stuff inside their books but of the changing world around them.
Perhaps it is that which draws me back. In Solterra, I am not often awarded a respite from statecraft. Here, although there are volumes upon volumes of war tactics, of Court history, the origin of government itself, I owe nothing to anyone.
Here they do not know they are beneath me. I think I find it charming.
There are many of them in the library with me today, even more than usual. But, as always, the hallways are quiet; people do not speak, only whisper; do not run, only walk; the only real distraction is how intense my urge is to watch them, as if observing a science experiment, and the faint, sweet sound of leaves rustling overhead as the wind passes through with a wintry bite.
I am at peace, watching them, as if through a microscope. The many scholars with their nibbed pens, their wide, curling scrolls. Women with moony eyes picking through the romance section. Many children, reading fairytales and curled up on cushions, and all of them surprisingly well-behaved; I understand now why no one has ever said Delumine was lacking in manners. In my own corner the world is quiet. I am splayed over the floor, alone, and watching the crowds over the rim of a book I am only pretending to read, because I already know it by heart—Crime and Punishment.
So of course I see him coming, from farther away than anyone else does. I am the only one in this godforsaken library who is paying attention to anything.
He is small, actually, but so am I. It would be hypocritical to complain. In the dappled light coming through the leafy roof his coat is dusky, perfect black, save for a few threads of white on his wing, under his lip. I sit up straighter. Now I note, for the first time, that he is wearing wire-rimmed glasses, only just visible thanks to the glare the light makes on the lenses; something in my stomach alights, or maybe it is inside my chest.
When reason fails, I think to myself, amused, the devil helps.
And I wait.
@
