Page 39

She couldn’t tell if he was angry at her or completely mystified by the actions of Skaldi. In a quiet voice, she continued.

‘Well, he’s rescued Erann a further few times, and me once as well. Why?’

The Librarian slumped once more, and for a while, he didn’t speak. His next question carried an underlying tension Sereh didn’t understand. His reaction to her story was unexpected. She assumed he knew more than he was saying. Now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe it was all as new to him as it was her.

‘Is that it?’ he asked bluntly.

‘Well, other than he took Arrow and me to his home, and then brought me here, and has been looking for Erann ever since, I don’t think so. Oh, and I can see him too, now.’

She was totally unprepared for the Librarian’s reaction. Looking the fiercest she’d yet seen, he turned and almost violently pushed her up the stairs. His hands clasped tightly to her arms, and once she was outside, he shut the door on her surprised face.

A moment passed, and Arrow was also unceremoniously jettisoned from the Library. She stood there, struck speechless as she heard something being dragged across the floor on the other side of the door.

There was a loud thunk and she realised the Librarian had barred the doorway.

17

SEREH

Stunned, she looked from Arrow to the barred doorway. What part of her words had angered him so much?

‘Librarian,’ she banged on the door. ‘What did I say? Let me back in, please,’ she begged, her words softer now. She didn’t want Ralf and Freya to discover they’d argued. They might not let her stay then, once Erann had been found. And she needed somewhere to call her home. It would be foolish to anger the people, and the person who might be able to help her. She wouldn’t be getting in again until he wanted to speak to her.

‘Come on, Arrow. Let’s find something to eat and drink while we wait.’ Feeling disgruntled, she sulked along to the kitchen. For all the time she’d spent with the Librarian, it was still too early for Freya to be awake. She disconsolately stoked the fire and set the water to boil for tea. She didn’t feel hungry, but Arrow did, and so she fed the wolf-dog, and then sat staring gloomily at the fire as the flames licked around the blackened pottage pot hanging above it.

Arrow ate with some unsettling crunches and made herself comfortable on the floor, closing her eyes. Sereh wished she could sleep. She envied the wolf-dog. But her mind was alive with images of Erann, Skaldi and the things she’d seen recently. What did she truly know? What had she said to the Librarian that had occasioned such a reaction? She rubbed her arms where his hands had so roughly removed her from his presence. She’d have bruises forming under her clothes from his very firm grip.

Again, such a grip belied what she suspected about how old he was. He possessed incredible strength. The bright jade eyes that flashed at her seemed rotations younger than he pretended to be. Well, when he remembered to act older than Ralf.

She sat up. ‘Green eyes, he has green eyes, like Erann and Skaldi. How did I miss that?’ Arrow looked up at her, her yellow eyes baleful. Sereh couldn’t help thinking the wolf-dog had made the connection much sooner.

Absent-mindedly, she made tea and moved the pottage pot higher so as to avoid the brightly leaping orange flames. She didn’t want to burn the food. Her mind was ablaze with the realisation. ‘The Librarian and Skaldi have something in common, and they share it with Erann. I need to speak to the Librarian again. Now. But he won’t let me in. By the Gods,’ she growled, having stamped towards the door, only to remember why she was in the kitchen in the first place.

And the mystery ran deeper. While Freya had a lovingly rendered dragon curving around her chair back, it was evident she knew nothing about the existence of the dragons, or drekki as she called them.

And how old was the damn Librarian? Every script she’d read within the Library seemed to be written with the same hand. But that couldn’t be. Could it? Was he ancient? Like the Library? Did he know such things about the dragons because he’d witnessed them?

All day she sat impatiently, waiting for him to request her presence. She helped Freya and Ralf with their tasks around the steading, from cracking the ice over the stream, to cutting meat for the pottage, but the Librarian didn’t show his face again. Finally, she slouched off to bed, overtired and underwhelmed by what had been a bad day.

The next morning, she woke happy to help Freya and Ralf, oblivious to their concerned looks regarding her bright mood and behaviour. She ignored Arrow’s demands for a long walk away from the Library, throwing snowballs for her close to the building. When Arrow growled angrily at her, as she aided Ralf carrying water into the kitchen, she simply slammed the door on the wolf-dog, until Ralf took pity on Arrow and went outside once more, muttering about checking the roof for too much snow, allowing Arrow to escort him.

The next two days were similar. She loved being around the grumpy old Ralf and the more vocal Freya. She loved feeling helpful and doing things because she wanted to. Each night she slept well untroubled by dreams or nightmares, and every day, Arrow looked at her balefully, and sulked in the corner, making her grow frustrated with the wolf-dog’s difficult behaviour.

Ralf looked after the wolf-dog, because every time she went near her, Arrow tried to bite her arm and drag her towards the door.

‘You should banish her outside,’ Freya demanded, angrily. ‘With all that fur, she’ll be warm enough, and it’ll be better than her growling at me all the time.’

‘Ah, woman,’ Ralf spoke in defence of the wolf-dog. ‘She’s trying to tell us something, although what it is, I don’t know. I’ll look after her, and keep her with me. We’ll go hunting, now the thaws underway. We might catch something tasty. We could do with some more hares.’

On the second night, Sereh went to bed, tired and angry with the wolf-dog, cautioning Arrow to stay away from her. She’d barely closed her eyes when she felt Arrow push open the door, and make herself comfortable along the line of the door as if she was protecting it. She wanted to send Arrow away, but sleep slurred her words. She slept deeply and soundly for some time. When it was still so grey as to be almost dark, she woke, sweat-drenched and crying.

Erann. She remembered him. She remembered everything. She dressed in the strangely subdued light of the room, and falling over Arrow where she lay asleep across the door, fled her room. She went to the small room Freya presided over during the day, while a vision of Erann swam before her eyes. She grabbed her backpack, and a water jar, and stumbled to the front door. She needed to find Erann. Now.

She fumbled with the door bar and finally worked it loose and struck out in the fierce wind blowing straight into her face. She was unaware Arrow followed behind. Her vision blurred. She saw simultaneously where she was heading, and also what Erann was doing.

She gasped against the harsh wind. It snatched her breath as she fought her way through it. Erann was huddled before her, and again she felt as though she could reach out and touch him.

He looked awful. He shuffled awkwardly, hobbling and every so often falling and leaning against the tunnel wall to keep upright. ‘I will find you, Sereh,’ he whispered time and time again. ‘I will find you, my love,’ he vowed. His beautiful green eyes glowed dully in the gloom, but she could see the fierceness of his resolve.