Tucked in the basement network far below the Scilla temples, on a rock just miles from her coastal homeland, Raeia held one of her favourite books. It was an anthology of ancient lore called Short Histories of Lebohra, collected by the Solar Scholar. It was the only thing she’d managed to take from her family’s library before Tassuri had singed it and her dads from existence. Tassuri would kill her if they knew she had it. She wasn’t a minor anymore, and could no longer be protected by child protection laws. Even Dhaherite children had some protection, but Tassuri drew hard lines at lore and mythology. The existence of lore meant questions about gods which led to questions about history which led to questions about reality. For Tassuri, questions were a threat to order. 

But Raeia lived on a Scilla compound, safe from government claws. 

Across from her sat Theo Kestales, impassive still, with eyes that regarded everything slowly but with the keenness of a predator. Raeia had known many like him. Willow had a touch of the same still energy which had at first intimidated her, but Raeia knew there was softness buried beneath. However deep. 

She looked down at the pages again, wishing she could sink into the words instead of entertaining Augustin’s whims. ‘Why don’t you bring our new resident for a tour of the library? It’s best he becomes part of the ecosystem quickly,’ the High Rector had said to her after the cell was prepared.

‘He’s not to be locked up all the time?’ The silence from Blue’s cell was still unnerving her. 

Veil gave a disinterested wave of his hand. ‘He won’t harm you.’ 

‘That’s not–’ Raeia began, but his back had turned and she was left to bring Theo Kestales on her evening shift to the library.

‘Do you like to read?’ she asked instead of committing to the silence she craved. She felt his eyes fall on her but didn’t look up. He didn’t seem like someone who enjoyed perception and, in a way, she could relate. ‘It’s the only thing that keeps me sane,’ she admitted. 

‘My brother used to read to me,’ Theo replied, ‘but I never really took it up myself.’

Raeia nodded. She flicked the pages back and forth in her hands, unsettled. The brush of bound pages beneath her fingers was one of Raeia’s favourite sensations, but it wasn’t granting her its usual comforts. She had grown up in a library. Her dads had brought in copious amounts of new stock each week. Banned books and rare books and old, grubby books; all of them, fascinating. The library was small and cluttered with precarious columns and pyramids of books, but her dads always knew where each title was. Every single one. 

‘What’s it like having a famous sibling?’ she asked, though unsure why. She didn’t even know enough about the infamous Kestales to carry the conversation.

‘Are you his fan?’

‘No,’ she said quickly, too quickly. She looked up to see Theo’s eyes had warmed and crinkled. ‘I haven’t watched any Kagosae since I was a child. I’ve been here, and I don’t much like the Scilla screenings.’

The warmth faded away immediately. ‘I’m sorry.’

Raeia found herself shrugging, a habitual response when anyone offered sympathies. She wasn’t sure remaining an orphaned Dhaherite in Lernich would have led anywhere better. ‘It’s fine, I’m not sure I’d be alive otherwise. They picked me up from the streets and I suppose I haven’t been pious enough to become a rector, so…’ she waved about herself, at the shelving in the hopes it would speak the rest for her. 

Theo glanced down at the book in her hands. ‘You like the Solar Scholar?’

Raeia’s eyes widened instantly, her breath caught. ‘You know of them?’ she asked, nearly hopping from her beanbag. 

Theo stood, his motions decorated by the clink of his chains, and came to sit beside her. ‘Can I see?’

She couldn’t help but watch the unseemly metal slither around Theo’s wrists as he held his hands out to her. They drew taught. ‘It’s hurting you,’ she said.

‘I’m fine.’ Theo took the book. ‘Which is your favourite?’ 

‘The Birth of Monvouros.’

‘Is that what you call it in Hightongue?’ Theo mused. ‘In Lyvanian it’s more like A Dance of Gods for Humankind.’

Raeia stared at the side of Theo’s unsuspecting face. Dark hair fell over his eyes a little as he read her annotations, full lips pursed in contemplation.

‘What?’ he asked suddenly.

Raeia quickly averted her gaze to his hands. ‘I don’t really share my ramblings.’ 

‘You should, they are insightful.’

Raeia’s heart was a storm in her ears. She shook her head. 

Theo closed the book. The chains clinked, an echo between them. 

Raeia did not get a chance to say more on the matter. Donna, a cleric who had been on the Arabella longest after Raeia – three years – hurried down the steps towards them. She looked at Raeia with apologies in her eyes. ‘Lilith won’t be coming. Augustin roped her into some extra kitchen work.’

‘Oh, okay.’ Raeia would generally have been disappointed at the sudden change in plans, but she found herself more relieved. Lilith was a curious recluse who – like Raeia, like Theo – had not been admitted to the Arabella for pregnancy, but clerics didn’t force each other to share their stories. What mattered most was that she was a major asset to Raeia’s library project, but her intensity often threw Raiea in loops. She didn’t have the capacity to deal with the excitable cleric just then. ‘Thanks for letting me know. Does she need help?’

‘Um, no. The High Rector suggested you teach the newcomer instead.’ Donna looked at Theo for the first time and gave him a subtle nod of greeting.

‘Teach me what?’ Theo asked.

Raeia took a couple of seconds to recenter herself then looked at him. ‘Book delivery system.’

‘You alright, Raeia?’ Donna asked. ‘Usually it’s sunshine and positivity with you.’

‘Yeah, well…’ Raeia had always been a ridiculously hopeful person. Willow said she loved that about her, and her dads had always praised her optimism, but Raeia had learned the world often spat on those with too much of it. Hope was a homing beacon. Darkness came to it like a shark to blood. ‘I’m alright, just had longer shifts this week.’

‘Book delivery system?’ Theo prompted after Donna had left them and Raeia remained in quiet contemplation.  

‘Ah, yes. Are you okay to walk about a bit?’ She asked, looking to his chains.

‘Yes, I’m fine.’

‘Normally I have Lilith repeat the protocol to me,’ she said as they walked. ‘She’s a good worker, but the timing needs to be precise so repetition is important.’

They walked along a wide domed tunnel, ten metres beneath the ground floor of The Arabella’s secondary temple to Itta, the temple of Harmony. It was lit the same way the rest of The Arabella was. Colourful, invasive lights which flickered with the swell of the sea around them. Unlike the rest of the complex, Raeia had installed filters over the tunnel lights. The filters were really just rags left over from the clothing of those who’d passed through or died on The Arabella. Blues, blacks, pinks and reds. It reminded her of everyone. 

‘When I arrived at The Arabella seven years ago, there wasn’t one book here. It was one of the first things I noticed once the initial shocks of everything had subsided a little. I always found comfort in books, so it was difficult to exist in a place without any. I proposed this space to the High Rector at the time and she was actually accommodating.’ 

‘My brother would like this place.’ Theo’s voice held no trace of fondness.  

‘I always wished for siblings as a child.’

Theo didn’t reply, only remained at her side as they continued through the dust-ridden library tunnels. No matter the extent of their cleaning, dust always managed to resettle overnight. 

‘There are dehumidifiers installed on the top three levels to protect the books. We need to go down to the fourth for deliveries. It’s far damper there so you might catch a chill.’

Theo nodded, though he didn’t appear particularly invested. 

‘I’m not really sure what Augustin has planned for you. We don’t usually have men as clerics, but I assume he won’t let you work the wards.’ She found herself speaking just to fill the quiet. Theo’s apathy woke something in her that moved her tongue. ‘I’ll teach you the geography down here and the delivery processes. They’re complex, so it might take a while.’

‘You haven’t asked why I’m here.’

‘It’s not my business.’

Theo tilted his head a little, surveying her as if he were trying to strip her of lies. ‘Can I ask why you are still here.’

‘I found out their secrets. I stay or I die.’  

Theo took her reply without a flinch, and she was in no humour to linger on the subject, so got to work explaining the detailed navigations of the tunnels which included the library, the cell blocks, a delivery channel and areas no one ever ventured. He listened rather impassively, so Raeia wasn’t quite sure he was taking any of it in until they had completed a full loop of the library levels and had returned to the entrance.

The Scillas operated with relative freedom under Tassuri’s watch, but books, media and other documents about their arcane beliefs were banned from dissemination. This included mythologies like the ones Raeia loved most. Her dads hadn’t believed in gods or magic, but they were lovers of knowledge, even if it was surreal and far-removed from their reality. Raeia had never known what to believe, but she capitalised on the Scillas’ belief in the goddess Itta. She had proposed they set up a system to begin smuggling Tassuri-banned titles – the rare, forgotten kind her dads had stocked – and so her library had begun. 

Initially, Rector Lisa had set up the contacts list for runners, sourcers and collectors who worked at Scilla complexes on the mainland who could make up a functioning network. When Rector Lisa passed away, Raeia was put in charge of the entire mainland web of library volunteers. Some things, like secretly defying Tassuri, the Scillas did for free. Once the mythologies – which the Scillas called history – collection was flowing, requests started coming from clerics and Scillas alike, for all kinds of books. Romances, crime, historical fiction and memoirs. The Arabella ended up being a holding base for the entire catalogue of eighty thousand titles. It survived because the Scillas hated their truths being hidden, and books were where their greatest truths lay. She was proud of it, and was a little peeved at Theo’s indifference, fake or otherwise.

‘Right,’ she said, ‘repeat all I taught you.’

‘All of it?’ Theo’s calm slipped for the first time, daunted eyes widening for a moment. 

Raeia smiled, pleased by the momentary glimpse of humanity. ‘I’ll nudge you if you need.’

Theo’s chains slithered about, readjusting, pulling Raeia’s gaze down. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. A phrase that became increasingly unconvincing the more Raeia heard it, but she didn’t press him. 

‘I’ll put some salve on it for you later. You’re not the first to arrive with those chains.’

Theo’s jaw clenched but whatever questions had surged to his mind didn’t come out. He walked toward a darkened area of the otherwise pale, marble tunnel wall. ‘Here.’ He tapped the mark. The darkness was no more than two palms wide, a ring of black stone, which Raeia had mistaken for decoration in the early days. ‘This is the central marker, beneath The Temple of Harmony.’ He pointed down the passage which stretched for two kilometres before veering left, northward. Along the walls, dark rings marked distances at odd intervals. ‘The second marker is the Sanctuary of Ridderah barrier. The third is the outer temple barrier. The fourth–’

‘Which temple?’ Raeia asked.

Theo thought for a moment. ‘Jus…no, Virtue. The Temple of Virtue.’ 

Raeia nodded. There were three large temples above them. Virtue was the largest. She remembered thinking the twenty-metre tall, lilac-veined marble columns had been beautiful once. Then she’d been brought inside by High Rector Augustin’s predecessor, High Rector Vaughan. Vaughan had stripped her in front of the entire congregation that day, then left her standing for five days to repent for the five weeks her assaulter had spent in hospital. Vaughan had told her she was an example of what happened to the girls if a Rector was harmed. He told her that she helped quell any misbehaviour. Raeia had never believed her nudity striking enough to do that. All the girls had seen each other, whether at shower time, during health examinations or otherwise, they’d lost any reservations around the body. It was the virtuous Scillas who made her nauseous anytime she thought of them seeing her.

‘Justice is…five hundred metres to the southwest.’ Theo pointed a thumb back over his shoulder. ‘And Harmony,’ he continued, looking upwards, ‘is above us.’

Raeia nodded again. ‘Your memory is quite something.’ 

‘The fourth is the cliff barrier,’ Theo said when they reached the fourth dark ring. It was the final marker before the tunnel crested north. ‘Beyond the cliff barrier, we’re not safe from Tassuri sensors, but we can pass through during surveillance lulls, like now.’

‘And the lulls happen when?’ 

‘Every Crë new moon.’

They passed the fifth and neared the sixth markers. ‘Tell me the process.’

Theo was quiet again for a handful of seconds. ‘Your runners will have left the packages in their designated cubbies at dawn, and the draining process takes five hours, so they’ll be ready for collection now. Any earlier and we would risk breaking the drainage system, but if we leave it too late, the waters will refill the cubbies and ruin the packages. Package bindings will only last eight hours, so with a two-hour swim and five hours of drainage, that leaves us a window of one hour for collection.’

Raeia was a little in awe of his flawless recitation of her explanations. ‘Alright. Let’s get them,’ she said.

They retrieved the books from the twelve cubbies built into the tunnel rock. On their side, there was only a small turn-handle lock and a slight square-shaped indent in the wall. However, when they opened the hatches, they caught sight of the sea and its creatures. Crëglass compartments operated on the outer side of the tunnel. They were narrow, so only a few slim books or one relatively thick book could fit in at a time, but the size helped keep them from Tassuri detection. Tassuri didn’t allow the kinds of books the Scillas and the girls on the rock enjoyed. 

‘Look, as I said, A Dance of Gods for Humankind,’ Theo said after unwrapping one of the larger books. 

Raeia rushed to his side and set down her pile, thrilled to see her long awaited Lyvanian copy of the Solar Scholar’s works. The cover was inscribed with linguistic patterns which she couldn’t have a hope of translating, but she knew them to be words. 

‘You read Lyvanian?’ Theo asked. 

‘No, but I think it looks beautiful.’ 

‘I’ll read it for you,’ he said.

Raeia let out a delighted laugh and hugged him before she could let any of her fears override this simple joy.