burrowed into the crumpled balls of paper. After Elisabeth had said her name several times, she snorted awake and rolled straight onto the ground. Elisabeth winced at the thump she made on the rug.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Katrien stumbled over to the mirror, squinting in the morning light. “I was going to ask you the same question, but I see you’re eating breakfast in bed.”
“I’m safe, for now.” Elisabeth hesitated. “Katrien, you look . . .”
Pale. Overworked. Exhausted. She cursed herself for not noticing it the other day. The bags beneath Katrien’s eyes and the grayish pallor to her brown complexion spoke of far more than just one night’s worth of lost sleep.
Her friend glanced over her shoulder at the door, and paused for a moment as if making sure no one was outside. “Director Finch has been running the place like a prison,” she confessed, lowering her voice. “The wardens perform random room inspections every few days. He’s doubled the amount of work apprentices have to do, and we get thrown in the dungeon if we don’t finish it.” She rubbed her wrist, where Elisabeth glimpsed the swollen marks of a switch. “If you think I look bad, you should see Stefan. But don’t worry. This won’t last for much longer.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d tell you, but I’m worried we’ll run out of time again. Trust me. I have the situation under control.” She leaned closer. “So, I managed to have a look at the records last night.”
Elisabeth sat up straighter. “Did you find it?”
Katrien nodded. “There were only two copies of the Codex Daemonicus ever written. One went missing hundreds of years ago, and the other is shelved somewhere in the Royal Library.”
“So Ashcroft must have the missing copy. . . .” She trailed off, thinking hard. She had found out from Silas that the Royal Library was one of the spired buildings overlooking the river, a short walk from Hemlock Park.
“Elisabeth,” Katrien said.
She looked up to find the frost creeping back across the mirror, swallowing up Katrien’s face. Elisabeth’s heart leaped to her throat. “Only sorcerers are allowed into the Royal Library,” she said rapidly. “And scholars, if they receive permission from the Collegium—but they have to have credentials. I need to find a way in.”
“That’s easy enough,” Katrien replied. “Get a job there as a servant.”
“But they’ll never let a servant study a grimoire.”
“Of course they won’t let you. You realize what you have to do, don’t you?”
Elisabeth shook her head, but her mouth had gone dry. Truthfully, she knew what Katrien was going to tell her, and she didn’t want to hear it.
“I know you don’t like it, but there’s no other way.” Her friend’s voice was fading quickly. “You have to find out where the Codex is shelved in the Royal Library. You have to get in there,” she said, “and then you have to steal it.”
NINETEEN
FINDING A JOB at the Royal Library proved less challenging than Elisabeth had anticipated. As it turned out, a maidservant had quit just that morning after a giant booklouse skittered up her leg, and the Royal Library was in need of an immediate replacement. Elisabeth demonstrated to the steward that she would be an ideal candidate by lifting up one end of a cabinet in his office, uncovering a booklouse underneath, and stomping on it, much to the delight of a young apprentice who happened to be passing by. She then sat down opposite the steward’s desk and answered a number of job-related questions, such as how quickly she could run, and whether she strongly valued keeping all ten of her fingers. The steward seemed impressed that she found all of his questions perfectly reasonable. Most people, he explained, walked straight out the door.
“But this is a library,” she replied in surprise. “What do they expect—that the books won’t try to bite off their fingers?”
After her interview with the steward, she had to meet with the Deputy Director, Mistress Petronella Wick.
Elisabeth had never heard of a Deputy Director, but she gathered that the Royal Library was large enough to need one. She instantly understood upon entering the office that she was in the presence of an exceedingly important person. Mistress Wick wore the indigo robes of a decorated senior librarian, clasped high about her throat with a golden key and quill. Her hair had turned silver with age, but that didn’t diminish the elegance of her artfully piled braids. She had dark brown skin against which her