Ending Maker novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Ash Library

"I'm not going to ask you," I said.

We were standing in Tavi's grandmother's kitchen, two hours later, with apple jam on the table and the whole village cleaning up the square outside.

Emmett sat at the end of the bench with his back against the wall.

"That's a first."

"I'm going to find out for myself."

He went completely still.

"How?"

"Tavi's grandmother said the first priests of Dawnreach buried the Joining under the old library."

"The Ash Library."

"You know it."

"I know it burned."

"Burned, not collapsed. There were cut tablets in the beta. You said so."

"I said it might be cut content."

"You said 'might.'"

He pressed his hands to his face.

"Greer, you can't do this."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm asking you not to."

"That's not a reason."

"It's the only one I have."

I looked at him for a long moment.

Then I got up and wrapped a loaf in a cloth.

"We go at dusk," I said. "Alone. I don't want anyone else hurt."

Tavi's grandmother pressed a lantern into my hand and a small bronze key into Emmett's.

"The east door," she said. "If it still stands."

"Why him?" I asked.

"Because he's the Nightwarden," she said calmly. "Dark doors know their own."

Emmett took the key and said nothing.

The Ash Library stood on a hill at the edge of Dawnreach, a ring of blackened columns around a crater of ash.

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