Smoke and Memories (The Dark Sorcerer #3) - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,67
have been like had she remained.
“It would help if these were organized in some way,” Jayna said.
The air inside of the room had grown hot and even more humid than usual; she wished the sorcerers had enchanted it in a way that would have regulated the temperature a bit more.
That wasn’t to say that there wasn’t some sort of preservation spell placed upon the library. Knowing what she did about the library at the Academy, and the way the sorcerers protected the books there, she knew there would be something in place. She just didn’t have any way of cooling herself. There were no windows. No airflow. It was simply hot and still. Sweat streamed off her brow, and she wiped it away, turning back to Char.
“I’m sorry our way of organizing things doesn’t satisfy you,” Char said.
“This isn’t your way of organizing things. Not at all. This is somebody else’s.”
“Fine. It’s not mine, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
Jayna just chuckled. “It doesn’t? I would’ve thought that a lack of organization was wrong—and that this would’ve bothered you a lot more than it seems to.”
“I’ve learned to deal with it. I’ve learned to deal with a lot of things,” he said.
Jayna arched a brow at him. “Would you stop?”
“Only if you stop.”
“I’m just telling you that I’m having a hard time trying to find anything here other than the history of Nelar.” She pushed another book back into place after having barely glanced at the cover. “Not that the history of Nelar is altogether uninteresting. Given what I’ve learned, I imagine that everything we might find here would be incredibly intriguing, but I don’t know if that’s how I want to spend my time searching.”
“You’re looking for something on the founding of the Society. Maybe there’s something in the history of Nelar that could reveal that to you.”
“Only if the Society was founded here,” Jayna said.
She paused, holding on to one book. It was a little thinner than some of the others, and the lettering embossed on the cover didn’t give her any hint as to what it was. She had to pull it fully off the shelf, flip it open, and skim the contents long enough to take in what was there before she realized that it was simply an inventory of supplies found within the outpost.
She pushed it back in irritation—one more book that seemed out of place and had no logic behind why it was here, or what purpose they had in keeping it here.
Why not organize this section?
“Could the Society have been founded in Nelar?”
Char glanced over to her. Sweat streamed down his brow, though he didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Maybe he had grown accustomed to it during his time at the outpost, but he was wearing the heavy robes of the Society, much more than Jayna’s jacket and pants, and she was still hot.
“Have you forgotten so much of what you learned at the Academy?”
“I haven’t forgotten anything I learned there,” she said.
“You must have. Otherwise, you would’ve remembered that the Society was founded in Yolith.”
“That’s right,” she said.
She paused, looking around the room. She had worked her way down one entire shelf, peeling out books and finding nothing. She had figured that the histories of the Society would be found in an older text, but she hadn’t uncovered anything so far. She worked as quickly as she could, going book by book, and the more time she spent doing so, the more she began to wonder if any of the sorcerers would have a need to come into the library and inadvertently interrupt them. If Master Agnew found her here . . .
She would leave, but she didn’t like what effect that would have on Char.
“You’ve obviously forgotten other material too,” he said. “We were taught that when the Society was founded, it was as a way to study the world, trying to master the inner workings of it.”
“Yes, that’s what they tell us at the Academy,” she said.
She looked around the library. There was a single wooden chair set into a corner, and no desk or any other place to study. It was poorly lit, though the presence of sorcery was evident everywhere, from the pale glow that suffused the room to the pressure she felt all around her and the musty odor in the air that reminded her of her time in the Academy.
“And that doesn’t make it any less true,” Char replied.