said Silas. “The dead do not need light to see it.”
“But we do. And so would anyone else who came down here.”
“If this is your attempt to waste more time—”
“Why do the grave robbers hang their oil lamps down on ropes?”
“In case they need to escape quickly from a warden patrol,” said Silas. “They can pull everything up and be gone in moments. What is your point?”
“Da’ru and Artemis would have carried their light down here, like us. So would the bonemen.”
Silas looked at the lantern, then at the walls. “I fail to see the relevance of any of this,” he said.
Kate grabbed the lantern and walked back to where the ladder met the floor. A small metal hook was sunk into the wall beside it. She ran her hand across the ruined wall, feeling the deep welts in the stone where the grave robbers stealing the lapis had cut too deep.
“Everyone assumes the bonemen wanted to hide the library,” said Kate. “But what if they didn’t? What if it was just an ordinary place in their time? And when they disappeared, people just assumed it was a secret place because no one knew how to get into it.”
“Except for the Skilled,” corrected Silas.
“Maybe. But Artemis is not one of the Skilled. He can’t do anything any ordinary person can’t do. If he found it, anyone can.”
“Why would the spirit wheels test for the blood of the bonemen if the library was not a secret place?” asked Silas.
“There are places in the council chambers where ordinary people can’t go, aren’t there? The council don’t want people wandering around their private rooms; maybe the bonemen didn’t either. People were able to visit Fume back then, to come and pay their respects to the dead. What if the bonemen wanted to keep some areas of the city to themselves? They didn’t need wardens to stand guard over everything; all they had to do was restrict information to anyone who asked about it.”
“You are making a lot of assumptions,” said Silas.
“The grave robbers didn’t find the library because they weren’t looking for it,” said Kate. “And I think the wardens did not find it because they were looking too hard. Here!”
Silas followed her to where another metal hook jutted out of the wall just above her head, exactly like the first. “And?” he said when she pointed to it, clearly unimpressed.
Kate lifted the lantern up onto the hook and let it swing there as she studied the wall more closely. “Why would that lantern hook be there if there wasn’t something around here to see?” she said. “If that mosaic was still intact, I bet we’d be able to see the door easily, but with all the damage the grave robbers have done to the walls, no one has noticed it. The bonemen must have made the door blend in with the wall and they wouldn’t ruin the look of a mosaic with a big door handle. So if there’s no handle, there has to be another way to open it.” Her hand went to a small black stone, too neat and square to have been part of the cavern rock, and she pushed.
Something rumbled gently within the wall, a small door swung slowly back and the smell of old ink and leather wafted from the depths of a shadowed corridor lined with books.
The two of them stood staring into the dark.
“See?” said Kate quietly. “It wasn’t so well hidden after all.”
Silas left the lantern on its hook and drew his sword. “Stay close,” he said, walking forward as distant voices carried from within. “And say nothing. Leave everything to me.”
Kate followed him in, hoping that Artemis was still somewhere inside. Then there was only the smell of the books, the sprung feeling of a wood floor beneath her feet and the sound of a lock dropping into place as the door closed quietly behind them.
Chapter 15
The Ancient Library
It was hard to see where they were going without the lantern, but Kate could sense that they were entering an immense space. The air was clear and cool, and the sound of voices carried from somewhere nearby. The path opened out a few steps ahead of them, and a silhouette of railings rose up in the dim light, blocking their way.
Silas stopped walking and held her still. “Officers,” he said loudly. “Step forward.”
Kate looked on in horror as two wardens stepped out of the dark. They bowed at once, refusing to raise their heads