Millennial Mage novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Every Page Hollow

There were six hundred and twelve ledgers in the first hall, and I had one night.

The clerks lit every lamp in the archive and carried the books to me by the armful.

I sat at a long oak table with my sleeves rolled up and set my thumb on the first page of each.

Hollow, hollow, hollow.

The official books were so false that after the first hundred I stopped feeling the hollowness and started feeling the pattern.

Every false line was a piece of the same lie, repeated in a different place.

Forty barrels delivered.

Thirty barrels received.

The difference went somewhere, and the books never said where.

"It's like reading a very long apology," I said, "from someone who isn't sorry."

"Is that bad?" the archivist asked.

"It's boring, and that's how he's gotten away with it."

At the second bell I had a pile of three hundred hollow books, and Teo had made me a cup of something that tasted of tar.

Isaura had climbed to the archive roof to watch the street.

She had taken her cap off before she was out of the door.

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