Creatures of Charm and Hunger (The Diabolist's Library #1) - Molly Tanzer Page 0,8

interest in the cinema was academic, not romantic. Where else in Cumbria would she learn to act like a lady? The romance plots of films, for Jane, were always just a distraction from the tensions of a drawing room or the currents of a party sequence.

“But if you did fancy him . . .” said Miriam.

“Why, Miriam!” Jane pantomimed surprise. “Do you fancy Sam Nibley?”

Miriam blushed. “No!”

Jane leaned in, a shark’s smile on her lips.

“Are you sure??” she drawled.

“Yes!” Miriam was now pale as a sheet. Jane genuinely couldn’t tell if her friend was feeling upset at being found out, or was mortified to be accused of something she did not feel. Either was possible, so Jane let the matter drop and turned her attention to the last few pins Miriam’s hair needed to stay in place.

When she was done, she stepped back and looked Miriam over with an exaggerated critical gaze, hand on her chin.

“I think you look marvelous,” Jane declared, “but how do you like it?”

Miriam finally looked up from her twisting hands. “Oh! I barely recognize myself. It’s far too glamorous!”

“Oh, stop. You look lovely.” The hairstyle wasn’t “glamorous” at all—it just showed off Miriam’s face rather than hiding it. “Now budge up and let me put myself together.”

Jane spent an enjoyable half hour making herself ready anew. A very fidgety Miriam hung about as she did so. She was anxious and doing a poor job of pretending not to be.

“All right,” said Jane, with a satisfied pat of her hair. “I think that’s all I can do.”

“Let’s go down to the Library, then!”

Miriam truly loved the Library—she would live down there if she could, Jane suspected. In fact, Jane was amazed Miriam had made small talk with her that afternoon instead of leaving her for the more solitary pleasures of its shelves and aisles.

Jane, on the other hand, couldn’t bear the darkness or the quiet for very long. In summer, she wanted to be under a tree, a tatty blanket under her bottom and a picnic basket by her side; in winter, feeding the wood burner in the kitchen with a kettle singing in the background. That wasn’t to say she didn’t love the Library—she did. She’d been nursed within its walls, taken her first steps across its floor, and said her first words to the sigils and guardians that were some of the cavern’s oldest protections.

Not for the first time, Jane wondered what the other residents of Hawkshead would think about this place. Most of them would simply be amazed to know a cave like this existed near them; nature enthusiasts would be a bit more unsettled to note that the curiously squared-off walls had been carved from no local slate or granite, but rather some decidedly imported tufa. The carvings were all authentic Etruscan, but it was a mystery whether its presence here, in Cumbria, was due to the efforts of ancient diabolists or more modern ones. They had records of its existence dating back to the fifteenth century but no further; no one knew how it had gotten there, but there it was, and the climate within always perfect for the preservation of the written word whether it be recorded upon paper, skin, or materials stranger yet. Not only that, but all attempts to move the Library had failed, and those few who had sought to destroy it had met with terrible fates—indeed, that had been the end of the diabolists’ organization previous to the Société.

The Library also seemed to expand to accommodate new works, though interestingly its measurements remained the same whenever anyone tried to calculate its size. It was an astonishing work of diablerie, and Jane never failed to be moved by it. She just knew that there were other astonishing wonders out there in the world, and she wanted to see them, too.

“Ah, girls!” Jane’s mother was in the process of receiving an ancient scroll through the Library’s Basque Lens, a tool used by every diabolist in the Société to send written messages over distances. The Basque Lens lay flat upon Nancy’s large oaken desk, and while it would indeed reflect the viewer’s face, it did so much more than that. Its surface had been infused with various diabolic essences and coated with layers of specific armamentaria, and once a Master made theirs, they could send written requests for chapters of books, or even entire volumes—from the Library, or from their fellow Masters. Merely press a scrap of paper bearing