chapter twenty-six

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THE PALACE LIBRARY WAS located in the West Wing, on the first floor, blocked by doors clouding over with dust, spiderwebs and only Khuda knew what the brown-blue stain on the upper right corner of the hinges were — mold, most probably, but I couldn't be convinced that the palace staff would just leave mold hanging onto the doors of a castle.

At the same time, though, judging from the look of it, very few people had been here in what seemed to be an eternity. I wouldn't be surprised if no one had.

After all, even as I was sneaking over to the admittedly still blocked wing, holding my breath and sneaking behind altar shadows, praying that no maid or butler or, Khuda forbid, Ismal would be walking along and see me scurrying like a thief in broad daylight, the halls had been completely empty.

It shouldn't have been surprising, given that the 'incident' — it was tempting to use the word 'murder,' instead, but the word chilled the back of my spine and after breakfast, I wasn't sure whether I needed or wanted to take anymore cold sweats for the day — had happened on the third floor, instead, and there was no reason for the guards to patrol the corridors leading up to the library, but as I tip-toed up to the doors, there was an odd feeling I just couldn't shake.

Even if the first floor was not a place of concern, it seemed strange that security would be so lax around this area.

And, as I placed my hand onto the door knob — it was dusty, immensely so, and immediately coated my fingers with a thin layer of dark gray — I couldn't help but think that I made it here a little too easy.

Was Maria wrong? Has the West Wing already opened?

But no. Maria wouldn't be wrong — had the West Wing been opened, I would have long have been kicked back into my old room.

But the entrance to the palace is the ground floor. What if thieves made their way into the palace?

Admittedly, that was a far more far-fetched notion. After all, how could thieves even make their way into Palace grounds? Past the gates, the guards, the shadow men hanging onto the cement walls, wielding sabres that glinted and shone in the sunlight?

There wouldn't be thieves. Or trespassers. Or anything of the sort, because this was the Palace of Persia, the Home of the Gods. Even if there were no guards that I could see, there must've been something, or someone, protecting this place.

And if that's the case, then chances are, they've already seen me.

I have to go quickly.

Surprisingly enough, the moldy hinges didn't even make a squeak, and when I reached out to push the door close, I barely heard the ensuing thump.

Was that not even odder?

To have a moldy door hinge that didn't squeak, a dusty gate that didn't thump was odd. And I supposed I would have found it much, much odder had I taken the time to actually sit down and think it over, turning the thought over and over inside my head like a clicking, clocking mechanism much in the way that I always did, and once I had I'd probably find that the pieces didn't fit, and that there must've been something wrong with this library somewhere, somehow, and I should have gotten out.

One, not the first and most definitely not the last, of the many mistakes I would make in the Palace.

But at that moment, I didn't think the thought over. Because whatever thought I'd had of the door had quickly been chased out of the window the moment that I caught sight of the inside of the library.

Holy Khuda.

The library was a gigantic, circular room, with walls lined by towering, gleaming bookshelves, identified as aged only by the slight discoloration of the wood at the edges. It had an odd, open ceiling, almost as if the builder had forgotten to build a roof over top to protect it, and for a moment, I wondered what would happen to each of the books on the offhand occasion that it rained in Persia.

And the truly beautiful — or terrifying — thing was that all of the books, the shelves, the little plants littered across the tables and chairs, plants that Mother would certainly have known the name of but of which I sadly held no interest for, was that everything looked absolutely beautiful, well-maintained in a way that the doors weren't.

This was another mistake I made.

And although I should have realized the oddity sooner, allowed my brain to catch up quicker, I didn't. Because all I could think about in that moment was—

Oh, how Mama would have loved this.

Growing up, Mama was a storyteller. I couldn't quite remember all of the stories she'd told me — if I did, then there would be too many to count — but she'd tell me a new one every night. The Girl in the Mirror, the Little Princess, the Genie in the Bottle. After all, in Babylon, books were not a common necessity. In fact, even on the off times when Mama would be lucky enough to get hired to work for a wealthy family and I'd had the fortune to tag along, it was very rare to see them own more than two or three books, most of which were cared for like one would for gold.

And so, even though Mama loved to tell stories — and read them, too, for she was one of those Babylonian women who still loved and hungered after gossip, much like any other of the market womenfolk— she'd never buy any storybook. She'd tell them all, with her eyes shining and voice raising in pitch every so often, trying to scare me into hiding behind the little scrap blanket she'd knitted for me back when I was two, and she'd insist that all of these stories were real, and were stories that she'd heard from her own mother a long, long time ago, back when she was my age and still living in Arab.

Growing up, I'd believed her, though I hardly did now. Stories, in the unfortunate way life always was, was not real. Much of anything that brought people joy were not real.

And yet, though I knew this, and I sincerely believed this, seeing the library made me jolt.

Mama and I could have spent hours in here, had we had a library like this back home.

Slowly, I walked to a bookshelf, pressing my hand against the back. It came out clean, with no sign of dust, and when I put my hand closer to myself, I could smell the slight stench of wood varnish.

Hm.

The bookshelves were tall, lining the walls like armor, and towered over me enough that I had to lift my chin all the way up to be able to see the top aisle. Even from that distance, though, I could see that most of the books had yellowing pages and a large crack down their spines.

Clearly, most of them were very, very old, and held a sharp contrast against the few new ones scattered amongst the aisles.

What a pity.

I reached up and grabbed one thick, red-spined journal, only to be disappointed when I flipped open a page and was met with odd, odd drawings.

Was this a sketchbook? Why would a sketchbook be in the library?

Or perhaps it's a different language.

For a moment, I couldn't help but feel my excitement flare up.

It was a shame to say that even though Mama was Arabic, and had been very proud to be so, that I could only read the language. As a child, I remember her trying on multiple occasions to teach me more than just 'hello,' 'goodbye,' and 'thank you,' but perhaps I was just never blessed with linguistic ability, because I could never seem to get the words to stick inside my head. Reading was the best my mediocre abilities could go for me.

Still, even to the last time before she left to work in the Palace as a maid, she never stopped trying.

I wondered what she'd think now, knowing that I was now surrounded by books of every different language imaginable, before starting to wonder if she had once been in the exact same spot as I was in right now.

After all, she had been a maid in the palace. It wasn't too far-fetched to assume that she probably cleaned around the West Wing a couple of times, and perhaps, had even stepped foot and cleaned this exact library.

The thought brought a little thrill inside me, and when I looked back down at the book in my hands, I noticed my fingers shaking.

The last place is been together with Mama had been home, Babylon, and as of now that felt like a lifetime ago.

Knowing that there was even a sliver of a chance of Mama having been here brought an odd, stinging sense of nostalgia that had my nose turning sour.

She would have been so happy to be surrounded by this many books.

I couldn't help but wonder how proud she would've been if I managed to teach myself a new word or two.

Slowly, my eyes drifted back down to the book in my hands, pages still flipped open.

I had no idea what language this was, but with this much reading material, I refused to believe I wouldn't be able to find a dictionary of some kind.

I looked back up the shelves, frowning.

But how would anyone find anything in this place?

Maybe I should just randomly guess.

But just as my hand reached up to grasp a thinner, blue book, a loud voice echoed around the library, bouncing off its circular walls and into my ears at a volume so deafening it grated against my eardrums.

"Who's there?"

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the next chapter will have quite a few hidden treasures, so keep your eyes out for those :)

KAY ©️ 2020

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