We followed the flickering white candle lights through the sewers. At first, they were spread apart so much, I sometimes had to scout passages ahead to find the next one. My initial suspicion was that we were going the wrong way. An old trick a friend of mine had taught me was to hold your hand to the wall, right or left, and as long as you did so as soon as you entered and kept the same hand on the wall, you would eventually reach the end of a maze. Unless the maze decided to change.

But that wouldn't help here. The lights were not connected by walls, they held their own places in a tunnel system that spanned the entire subterranean network of one of the largest cities in Avengard. The time we had spent in the sewers barely scratched the surface of its true extent.

Eventually, the flames appeared more often and closer together. At first it was hardly noticeable, rare enough that I could fool myself into thinking it was just my imagination. But then we saw two in the same hallway. And then three. And four.

After several hours of hunting, which Eskir jokingly assured me would likely not have taken anywhere near as long if he weren't barred from his curse from guiding us, the lights grew to the point where Eskir could put out his portable imitation light. They surrounded us in brilliance, dancing their unpredictable glow around the tunnel. This spot was hardly a tunnel. We must have descended further down at some point, as the ceiling in this room was far taller than the rest, and it stretched out above us like a cathedral.

It felt like I was at a festival. Senvia had earned the monicker of the City of Lights, and these reminded me exactly of the ones that danced around Senvia. They were different enough that I didn't attempt to rationalise a connection, but the feeling I had, standing in the middle of Senvia, surrounded by a thousand, thousand floating candle-like flames raining a flickering yellow paradise down on my eyes, was perfectly replicated in the sewers. For a moment, I forgot about the ick on my hands, I forgot about the fact that we were in a sewer, I forgot about my hunt for the truth.

For a moment, just a fading few minutes, I was a kid again. Lyana was just around the corner, beckoning me with a paper lantern I could release into the sky to join the lights. Senvia was whole and filled with life, and the night streets bustled with carts of festival food. Every corner I turned, there were more of them, and I had a stupid-silly grin plastered across my face as I chased out the thickest batch of them I could find. Most people were comfortable to prop up a chair, and many homes in the city had been built with patio-like rooftops that met the edges of other buildings' shingles, specifically for the festival of lights. Another corner passed, and I looked up to see a wooden platform constructed higher up, nestled in-between two brick buildings with an ivy ceiling and the lights finding their way into the alcove, illuminating it like a yellow dawn. I envied whoever had the chance to sit up there, whoever owned that bridging balcony, whoever had the talent and motivation to build a piece of architecture like that. It was the sort of hidden-away spot that I pictured Lyana longed for in her hunt for that perfect bookstore with stacks of ancient, dusty books rising from the floor and forming ever-narrowing dimly lit aisles. The crisp air of an almost-winter hit my breath like mint, and I wrapped my scarf around my neck to compensate. Lyana was there, just looking up at the sky and smiling with a joy I so rarely got to see in her eyes.

For a moment, just a fading few minutes, I was home.

The white lights in the sewer invited us onwards from that underground cathedral, moving from passageway to room, room to tunnel, tunnel to hall, until we finally arrived at a large stone door emblazed with a blue gem in the shape of a diamond. The lights danced over it like they were announcing its impending existence and celebrating all that it held inside.

Eskir and I both fell against it. The door groaned out in response, but it did open, creaking with the sound of a door that only ever opened when it absolutely needed to.

Light burst out from the other side of the door, but this was not the white light of our companion flames. It was a normal light from an arcane fixture. A sign of civilisation.

We each stepped inside, and I forced the door closed behind us. It was unexpectedly heavy, even for me, and it took most of my strength to force it shut. Eskir's help had actually made a difference in opening it in the first place, and I noticed the contrast when the room available to us restricted him from helping me to close it.

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We found ourselves at the foot of a curving staircase. It wasn't very long. Some distance above my head, the wall broke away and opened to a larger room that we couldn't yet see. I almost said something to Eskir before catching myself. I didn't know who else was here. Surely, they'd heard the door. Still, announcing my identity — and potentially worse, Eskir's identity, to the same organisation that had stolen his voice, tried to kill us, and even angered a Deacon, seemed like a bad idea.

We walked up as quietly as we could. My hand traced the stone wall, devoid of any hand holds or railing. It was cold and silent. The warm light didn't diminish the loneliness that sank into my hand.

The relative dark of the recessed stairs broke as we poked out heads out. The room we were in was not a room at all, but a small section of a much larger network of chambers forming up the largest library I had ever seen. This is what Lyana must have dreamt of in her searches. Books, scrolls, unbound manuscripts, loose pages, letters, ephemeral newspapers, paintings, hand sketches, and every other collection of paper you might think of. A saintly preservation of knowledge hosted in mass.

Our small section, adjoined to the rest by a square archway that lined most of the far end of the wall, was packed with newer-looking books of varying sizes and assortments, and a few older ones as well. They lined the walls, not only on bookshelves, but stacked on their sides as well. An old wooden table filled most of the middle of the room, with a few matching stools perched around it for sitting, though most of them, and the table too, where filled with their own collections, mostly loose papers, scrolls, and archival tools rather than books.

"The cataloguing room," said Eskir, then gave a disapproving click when he noticed the stacked books. "How many times have I told them? It's bad for the books!"

I pointed out beyond our room. "Not to... but there's stacks out there too."

He waved me off. "That's fine. We have charms to protect the place, including the collections, from damage. It won't stop someone shredding a book in half or anything, but light, humidity, pressure, those are all managed."

He started unloading the books from the nearest stack, trying not to bump into other stacks, precariously piled against each other like dirty dishes towering high in a kitchen.

"What is this place?" I asked, mostly to the room. "This library... it's massive."

"Technically, it's an archive," said Eskir, examining the title embossed on the spine of a book.

"Oh, that you're allowed to tell me?"

He shrugged. "Grammatical technicality. Technically, we call it the Athenaeum. Oh... that worked."

"Anything else?" I suggested. "No more truths you might suddenly be allowed to speak?"

He opened and closed his mouth a few times in a fish-like motion. "No," he sighed. "The Athenaeum is just a name. That's probably why it works. It doesn't actually mean anything or give you any information. Doesn't put us in any extra danger, not now that you know about it."

I narrowed my eyes. "Am I a danger?"

His expressed softened as he looked up at me from a small red chapbook of poems. "Oh, Xera. You're the greatest threat to ever lay eyes on this place."

"I take it Kindred aren't very welcome, then."

"Kindred are fine, but you..." he trailed off, his expression still... sympathetic? No. Pity. His eyes were filled with pity.

"... I shouldn't have brought you here," he concluded. "We should go."

I laughed. "Oh, I'm not leaving."

"Xera—"

"You bring me to the biggest library I have ever seen, far bigger than anything Senvia had, you call it an Athenaeum, you say I'm a threat, and you expect me to just leave? There isn't a chance of that."

"Please, this was a mistake, I'm sorry. There will be another way, but I don't want you to—"

"What, see this place? Read a few books? It would take me lifetimes to go through everything in this place, and that's just from what I can see. There are other rooms branching off. This place goes on, I can tell. How does it even fit? It's too tall. It the ceiling is three times as high as any indoor chamber or hall I've ever seen. Aren't we below Bell Haven?"

"Stop asking questions," he begged. "At least while we're in here. And keep your voice down!"

"Why?" I gave a hoarse chuckle. "This place is empty."

Eskir's eyes widened, and I realised my back was to the archway. A voice shook out from behind me.

"Not quite empty, I'm afraid."

I spun around, my ring finger readying for... an old man. He stood in the archway, wearing what looked like a housecoat and holding a book in his hand.

"Hello, Eskir. It's good to see you again."