Beneath the streets of London, a secret community of magical bookshops has existed for millennia. However they’re slowly disappearing, and nobody is aware of why. Just one dishonored bookseller can uncover the reality and rewrite her story—on this spellbinding standalone fantasy novel from the writer of The Metropolis of Stardust.
Learn the primary three chapters of The Bookshop Beneath, on sale November 18th under!
Chapter One
When Cassandra Fairfax was somewhat woman, a bookseller instructed her about Woman Destiny.
Woman Destiny, along with her enigmatic smile and her arms plucking strings throughout the chords of time. Woman Destiny, who might make or break your fortune, who might set your ft astray from the trail you had so determinedly set for your self, or place glory in your outstretched arms. Woman Destiny, the oldest of storytellers.
The bookseller knelt down, in order that they have been eye to eye with Cassandra, and mentioned, “Woman Destiny will fuck you over, little woman.”
It was a number of years earlier than she understood that anybody else can fuck you over simply as simply, no godly intervention required.
Take now, as an example.
She’s standing in entrance of a smooth block of luxurious flats towering over the Thames, questioning if she’s about to make one other monumental mistake. Canary Wharf is stuffed with such edifices, however the home windows above are darkish and opaque, the fl ats largely empty: nonetheless ready to be crammed with designer furnishings, together with the playboys and heiresses to inhabit it. Folks for whom cash is not enough, who’ve already climbed to the very best rung they will purchase, and are actually searching for a distinct type of foreign money to spend.
Her telephone rings.
“Roth,” she says.
“Come on up, Cass.” His honey-glazed accent places her in thoughts of tennis courts and lengthy afternoons by poolsides. “I’ll buzz you in.”
Positively a mistake. But it surely’s too late to again out now.
Nicely, no—she might nonetheless flip round and depart. However her lease is overdue, for one. And she or he’s simply coming to appraise a couple of stolen books: a straightforward, uncomplicated job. Furthermore, Roth pays properly; she will be able to tolerate a couple of hours of him for that.
The lobby is hauntingly darkish, however within the gleam of the day’s final mild, she catches the opulent decor. Veined marble flooring, shiny chrome fittings, and the ever-present safety cameras to ensure the riff-raff keep out. Her boots depart traces of mud throughout the in any other case spotless floor as she walks previous the empty reception.
Joke’s on them, she thinks, this riff-raff has an invitation.
The elevator takes her as much as the penthouse, the place a person lounges within the doorway. She recognises Roth immediately: properly constructed, with floppy blonde hair, and a tan to match the watch on his wrist. A much less discern- ing admirer may name him a golden retriever of a person, however Cassandra is aware of a shark when she sees one.
“It’s been too lengthy, darling,” he says.
“You can rent me extra usually,” she reminds him, as he takes her coat. “And also you’d like that, hm?”
Roth’s gaze lingers on her chest earlier than he drags his focus again to her. She forces herself to smile, to seem not silly however innocent. Possessable. Anyway, she is aware of Roth isn’t actually all in favour of her—so long as she stays in attain.
“Simply a few books,” she warns. “I’m on a decent schedule.”
She’s not, however let Roth suppose that she’s deigning to grace him along with her presence.
“That’s all I ask,” he says.
“And I need the money up entrance,” she provides.
He lastly strikes apart to let her into his flat, however not to this point that she doesn’t should brush previous him. His hand touches the small of her again and lingers.
“What do you consider the brand new place?” he says, his breath in opposition to her ear. “Tempted?”
Cassandra tilts her head simply sufficient for him to see her smile. “Oh, you understand. Seen one, seen all of them, actually.”
His hand falls from her again. One thing chilly slithers into his gaze. “Books are within the library,” he says, his superficial attraction vanished.
“And also you’ll be paid once you’ve executed your job.”
Hire,she reminds herself. And she will be able to’t do this if she offers Roth the slap he so badly deserves.
“Is that an issue?” he asks.
Sure.However she shrugs. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
The theoretical drawback is that Cassandra isn’t presupposed to be right here in any respect. Most definitely she shouldn’t be offering to appraise stolen books—taken by Roth, or by one other collector and then by Roth, or by some underpaid museum curator a long time in the past; who is aware of and, fairly frankly, who cares?—a lot much less promote them on to different unscrupulous collectors. But it surely solely stops being theoretical if she fucks up, and somewhat little bit of unlawful brokering is a safer sport than the one she was enjoying six months in the past.
What a fuck-up that had been.
As Roth leads her via his flat, she has to confess that it’s a stunning area. Hideously outfitted, although, as a result of it’s Roth. The lounge feels extra like a gallery, bedecked in summary glass sculp- tures on gold-trimmed pedestals and topiaries clipped to angular perfection, all dominated by an ivory chaise longue within the centre. However the view is spectacular: an enviable expanse of London, with the Thames shearing via it, tinted by the blaze of sundown.
Roth recovers a few of his showmanship as they stroll via a set of glass doorways. “This, darling, is the place the magic occurs.”
Roth’s library. Final time she was right here, this room was little greater than a building website, the books nonetheless stowed fastidiously in packing containers. However now she understands why he was so eager to maneuver right here, when he’d had his decide of flats. The excessive ceiling permits for endlessly tall bookshelves, every one packed tight with rows upon rows of books. Most, if not all, shall be uncommon editions, coveted by museums and collectors alike, though some are custom-bound in new leather-based with Roth’s identify stamped on the again. A contact, little question, he’s picked up from different aficionados with extra money than style. Cassandra finds herself calculating the worth and origins of every one, envy bitter in her throat.
If she didn’t know Roth higher, she would conclude that that is the work of employed experience. An inside designer with a cautious eye, or a very savvy assistant. However Roth is a collector via and thru; no e book would have handed via right here with out his express, private hand within the acquisition.
She wonders what number of of them got here from Chiron’s bookshop. “Good assortment,” she says as a result of she is aware of he’s ready for a praise.
“It’s nothing particular,” he says, with blatantly false modesty. “I preserve the actual rarities in a climate-controlled library elsewhere.” As if studying her thoughts, he provides, “Seen the previous man these days?”
If she didn’t know Roth in addition to she does, or if it had been another person asking, she might need chalked up the query as passing curiosity. However she’s seen that gleam in his eyes earlier than.
She shrugs. “Have you ever?”
“Oh, I’ve seen him, positive.” Roth waves his hand within the air vaguely. “Round.”
Cassandra can think about. At unique dinners, secretive confer- ences meant for booksellers and collectors solely, underground auctions, the place nobody appears too onerous at a e book’s origins. On the bars afterwards, when the true offers occur, and the alleyways after that, the place money owed are collected and favours squeezed. What’s somewhat drink between previous buddies, in spite of everything?
What’s somewhat blood?
“He isn’t taking appointments anymore,” Roth says pointedly, as if that is her fault. “And there’s a e book I’m merely dying to get my arms on.”
Nicely, Chiron had by no means a lot favored clients within the first place. Or folks, for that matter. As soon as, Cassandra had thought-about herself the exception, together with a handful of booksellers who’d labored along- facet him in his store, every possessing a long time’ price of expertise. Final she’d heard, he’d all however shut the store, the booksellers lengthy gone.
“Weren’t you his apprentice? Protégé?” Roth prompts.
Like he doesn’t know precisely who Cassandra is. Or who she was. She pretends to give attention to a very glitzy set of rebound classics displayed in a glass case. How ironic that it’s Roth, of all folks, who’s managed to place collectively what she’s spent practically a decade hiding.
“Fairfax is a stunning final identify,” he provides. “I don’t know why you’d change it to Holt.”
She retains her eyes educated on the bookshelves. To maintain folks such as you from discovering me, she thinks.
He sidles over to her. “Darling, if solely I had—”
“I instructed you, I don’t know the place the bookshop is. What would you like with him?” she asks, as evenly as she will be able to handle.
“Simply satisfying my curiosity.” Roth rests his arms on the again of a chair and gestures invitingly. “Please.”
Cassandra settles herself on the desk, ignoring Roth’s breath in opposition to her neck.
“The books?” she says.
“Packed away. Let me get them for you.”
Whereas she waits, her ideas flip reluctantly again to Chiron. It’s been years since she’s walked previous a bookshop and lingered at its home windows, questioning what Chiron’s would appear to be now, what ghosts may stroll its empty corridors. What the crackle of a backbone might sound like in a room with no clicking of terse, irritable bookselling enamel, no arms to pluck the e book from inexperienced fingers. What it might really feel prefer to have the books buzzing in her head once more, the rustle of paper and shiny glide of ink, buttery leather-based beneath her fingers and in her thoughts, a complete world on the tip of her tongue as she recites As soon as upon a time—
No, she doesn’t consider it in any respect, anymore.
Idly, she splays her arms out on the desk, and immediately regrets it. Though it appears clear, a sticky residue clings to the floor. Grimacing, she makes to wipe her arms on her denims, then stops. Cautiously, she rubs the residue between her forefinger and thumb, then sniffs it.
Ink…and blood.
Each nerve sparks ablaze with warning.
“Cassandra Fairfax.”
She appears up—and locks eyes with Roth. Though his gaze is regular, his eyes possess a glassy, otherworldly sheen. One which she is aware of all too properly. A dense ripple of phrases slithers up his forearm, disappearing into his shirt. Ink magic.
She ought to by no means have come right here tonight.
“Cassandra,” he says once more, and his voice reeks with the tang of ink and energy. “Inform me—”
She vaults off the chair in an explosion of vitality. Roth lunges after her. The ink writhes on his pores and skin, lending him power. Power {that a} reader has bestowed on him, judging from the way in which he strikes, all leonine ferocity and unnatural velocity.
“Cassandra Fairfax, cease,” he instructions.
The sound pierces her via the sternum, in opposition to the door she’d been so near fleeing via. Her physique seems like lead, gravity exerting its horrible power, because the compulsion locks her ft to the floor.
Roth’s arms cup her face, cool in opposition to her flushed pores and skin. She actually ought to have slapped him when she had the prospect.
“You’ve bought your loyalties, I get that. I actually do,” he says, all real earnestness. “The previous man can be proud. However you’ve already confirmed that. So assist me out, and I’ll assist you, Cass. Discuss to me.”
It’s simply sufficient of a reprieve to permit her mouth to work across the compulsion. “Oh, fuck you, Roth.”
His eyes slim. “Inform me the place Chiron’s bookshop is.”
A wave of compulsion washes over her, seizing her limbs in a painful vice. Phrases bubble up her throat, drag her tongue over her enamel within the pre-echo of a solution. However studying not often works so properly on one other reader.
Even—and maybe particularly—her. “Who learn for you?” she calls for.
Not that Cassandra would know who it was. Somebody silly or grasping sufficient to work for Roth. Somebody like her. However not, appar- ently, that expert. Already, the script alongside Roth’s forearms is shedding coherence, the underside traces dissolving to collect in ink drops on his fingertips.
“Cassandra,” he says, then stops. “You shouldn’t have the ability to converse— you shouldn’t—”
She laughs, her lips bloody from biting all the way down to cease coerced phrases spilling out. “Who do you suppose I’m? Did you suppose this was going to be straightforward?”
Out of the nook of her eye, she sees the sting of the doorway—and past that, all these glittering, costly glass sculptures. Pins and needles shoot up her legs, welcome ache because the compulsion begins to slough off her. Come on, come on, she thinks desperately.
“Why not ask Chiron your self ?” she says, shopping for time. “You haven’t even heard about him, have you ever?” Roth spits.
“I instructed you, I don’t run in these circles anymore. And I don’t care.”
“Nicely, should you don’t give a shit, then you don’t have anything to lose.” His mouth twitches smugly. “However we each know you don’t have anything price shedding, anyway.”
She smiles at Roth and appears pointedly at his beading script, the ink splatters on his shiny floorboards.
“Assume it’ll stain?” she says.
The second he appears down, she bolts. By means of the doorways of the library, to the bleeding glow of his lounge. One leg buckles beneath her—remnants of compulsion—and he or she grabs a plinth to maintain herself upright. Roth crashes after her, fury writ massive on his face. Even with out his further power, he’s nonetheless an athlete, with all these summers enjoying tennis and winters spent snowboarding.
She lets him get shut sufficient to achieve her. His hand snatches in the back of her collar. Then she grabs the ornate vase from the plinth and smashes it over him. Glass shatters. Roth shrieks—whether or not in ache or anger, she will be able to’t inform.
It’s simply sufficient time for Cassandra to stagger in direction of the entrance door. She casts one take a look at the mess she’s left behind: Roth, clutching his face via blood-stained fingers; costly glass all over the place; ink spattered throughout a cream carpet. A ghost of a reminiscence rolls via her and he or she shudders. One other room. Blood in opposition to glass.
Ink slick on her enamel.
“Cassandra,” he says, then stops. “You shouldn’t have the ability to converse— you shouldn’t—”
She laughs, her lips bloody from biting all the way down to cease coerced phrases spilling out. “Who do you suppose I’m? Did you suppose this was going to be straightforward?”
Out of the nook of her eye, she sees the sting of the doorway— and past that, all these glittering, costly glass sculptures. Pins and needles shoot up her legs, welcome ache because the compulsion begins to slough off her. Come on, come on, she thinks desperately.
“Why not ask Chiron your self ?” she says, shopping for time. “You haven’t even heardabout him, have you ever?” Roth spits.
“I instructed you, I don’t run in these circles anymore. And I don’t care.”
“Nicely, should you don’t give a shit, then you don’t have anything to lose.” His mouth twitches smugly. “However we each know you don’t have anything price shedding, anyway.”
She smiles at Roth and appears pointedly at his beading script, the ink splatters on his shiny floorboards.
“Assume it’ll stain?” she says.
The second he appears down, she bolts. By means of the doorways of the library, to the bleeding glow of his lounge. One leg buckles beneath her—remnants of compulsion—and he or she grabs a plinth to maintain herself upright. Roth crashes after her, fury writ massive on his face. Even with out his further power, he’s nonetheless an athlete, with all these summers enjoying tennis and winters spent snowboarding.
She lets him get shut sufficient to achieve her. His hand snatches in the back of her collar. Then she grabs the ornate vase from the plinth and smashes it over him. Glass shatters. Roth shrieks—whether or not in ache or anger, she will be able to’t inform.
It’s simply sufficient time for Cassandra to stagger in direction of the entrance door. She casts one take a look at the mess she’s left behind: Roth, clutching his face via blood-stained fingers; costly glass all over the place; ink spattered throughout a cream carpet. A ghost of a reminiscence rolls via her and he or she shudders. One other room. Blood in opposition to glass.
Ink slick on her enamel.
Earlier than she will be able to look at it too carefully—earlier than she reminds herself that that is one other fuck-up she promised she wouldn’t have—she yanks the entrance door open. The hallway beckons mercifully. With out wait- ing for the elevator, she takes the steps two at a time, her coronary heart pounding with each footstep.
“He’s lifeless, you silly bitch!” Roth shouts after her. “All of them know your identify, the place to seek out you. You suppose I’ll be the final? They’ll come after you, and God assist you to as a result of I received’t. I attempted, Cassandra. I attempted!”
Cassandra retains working.
Chapter Two
Cassandra runs till her lungs burn. Till she has
to cease and retch in an alleyway, though nothing comes up. Only a faint aftertaste of ink and blood, onerous proof that Roth had tried to compel her.
He’s lifeless.
When Roth doesn’t come barrelling after her, a fraction of aid seeps via her. However she feels watched, however, so she takes the lengthy route house, slipping via winding streets and tucked-away alleys till the press of Roth’s fingers not haunts her pores and skin. Midway there, she shivers; though the times are nonetheless heat, London’s nights are starting to really feel the chew of autumn. Too late, she realises that her coat along with her pockets and keys remains to be in Roth’s flat, however she will be able to hardly return for them now. So—no keys, no pockets, and never one penny of her payment.
Then once more, he was by no means going to pay her. If she’s sincere, it’s fortunate that’s all he needed to do: extract data and forged her apart. In his footwear, she wouldn’t have let herself depart. Not with out guaranteeing absolute silence.
It doesn’t take greater than a well-placed shove to bust open the door to her flat, with its flimsy lock and varnished plywood. The bang echoes within the hall, however nobody comes to research. Nobody would. It’s been a very long time since anybody put collectively the identities of Cass Holt, e book thief and ink magic reader, with Cassandra Fairfax, Chiron’s oh-so promising, oh-so disgraced ex-protégé, banished from his doorways eternally.
However Roth had executed it, weeks in the past. He’d made it sound prefer it wasn’t a giant deal, prefer it was simply one other quirky reality so as to add to her reputa- tion. And she or he’d let herself imagine him, though there have been the reason why she’d by no means linked the 2.
Cassandra Fairfax. It’s been a very long time since she’s heard her actual identify out loud.
She wonders how many individuals know the reality now. The booksellers and collectors, with their ravenous eye to amass. What they’d give. What they’d take, for what they needed.
The sunshine flickers in her flat a couple of occasions earlier than it sticks, giving Cassandra simply sufficient to see by. She was hungry earlier than she left for Roth’s, however now she has no urge for food—solely an aching exhaustion. However she forces herself to tug a bookshelf throughout her door, pinning it shut. It’s not sufficient to cease somebody, however it may give her somewhat warning. Shivering, she clambers onto her sofa, pulling her quilt round her shoulders.
Roth’s love for showmanship saved her, actually. That, and the haphazard instincts she’s tried to hone over the previous years. In any case, he’s not the one one that’s tried to fuck her over—simply the most recent. And now that he is aware of who she is—was—she has little question he received’t be the final.
She places her head in her arms and breathes deeply.
He’s lifeless.
It is likely to be true. So what whether it is? The Chiron she knew—the one who had been her mentor—died, so far as she’s involved, the day she’d left his bookshop for good. If he nonetheless slinks into her ideas sometimes, it’s solely ever as a ghost, rummaging via worn recollections to portend a future that’s already occurred. And positive, possibly in her weaker moments, she lets herself keep in mind all of the issues which have slipped away and all of the issues she not is aware of, in order that her poltergeist an increasing number of resembles a blurry, thumb- printed {photograph} with every passing 12 months.
Roth had needed to shock her with the information, and if it had been six months in the past, the joke can be on him, as ordinary. Six months in the past, it wouldn’t have made any difference to her—or a minimum of, it wouldn’t have modified something.
Besides six months in the past, you made the second-biggest fuck-up ofyour life, and too most of the mistaken folks paid consideration.
By means of her parted fingers, she glances on the letter on her kitchen desk, the place she’s let it sit for the final two days. Unable to open it, and unable to throw it away. The handle is written in a hand that she is aware of like her personal heartbeat: Chiron’s.
It’s been years; folks overlook all types of issues in that span of time. She may very properly not keep in mind the place the bookshop is. However she couldn’t persuade Roth of that, by no means thoughts all of the collectors who’ll be lining up behind him—each power-hungry and even power- curious acquirer, able to see the within of Chiron’s bookshop. All determined to get their arms on the e book that would change their life.
Take my cash. Take my first born. I’d kill a person.
Anyway, Chiron won’t be lifeless. If she, say, walked previous the bookshop tomorrow, and got here nose to nose with him, that will arguably be so much worse. His disgraced protégé returned, solely to confess that she’s fucked up once more, and possibly in worse methods than he’s even conceived of. She hates that she’s solely proved him proper; she hates that she cares what he’d suppose in any respect.
Cassandra eyes the letter once more, in his handwriting. Addressed to her: Cassandra Fairfax.
Then she feels the ache in her limbs, the adrenaline rush of terror sinking into an exhausted, leaden-weight throb of worry. She’s slept badly the previous few nights. The final six months, if she’d let herself admit it. For now, Roth doesn’t know the place she lives—what a joke he’d make of her shitty studio condominium—and neither does anybody else, so far as she’s conscious. It’s about the one factor she’s managed to get proper.
She’s in all probability protected for somewhat longer. Lengthy sufficient to place off studying that letter for yet one more day.
Cassandra wakes at 4 within the morning with the style of ink in her mouth.
You don’t should go to the bookshop, she tells herself, as she stretches, and makes herself a cup of coffee within the microwave as a result of the kettle is damaged. Haloed by the cool glow of her historical laptop computer, she climbs again onto the sofa and writes college students’ papers. It’s a fallback that’s usually extra trouble than it’s price, however there’s a high-quality line between what she earns from her different jobs and her lease. And inside that high-quality line is a gulf of a sum. A sum that Roth ought to have paid, after which some, if he hadn’t tried to make use of her personal expertise in opposition to her.
There was a time, not that way back, when the concept of authorized employment had been each unthinkable and pointless. When Cass Holt had been a reputation that rattled each bookseller and collector within the nation—anybody who’d dipped a toe into the murky waters of magic, and determined they needed extra. She won’t have lived in a penthouse like Roth’s, however she’d had her luxuries, the command of a well-furnished flat, her personal little acquisitions within the transient inter- lude when she’d fancied herself a collector. Being a thief, particularly one as proficient as herself, had paid properly.
How far and quick she’s fallen, even when she’d thought there was nowhere additional to fall than thief.
She spends the morning chasing college students for his or her inevitably late funds, then departs to her second job at an area bar. And all of the whereas she feels the press of the letter—actually, swiped from the countertop and shoved into the deepest nook of her jacket pocket. If Roth hasn’t discovered her by now, then he’s absolutely wanting, with each useful resource at his disposal. She’s been cautious, however Roth’s connections run deep, his pockets deeper.
At two within the morning, she winds up on the bar and slips out of the again, away from her co-workers wearily stumbling out the entrance. Her head is weightless with exhaustion, and her physique aches with the fingerprint-shaped bruises from the place Roth grabbed her. She twiddles with the spare set of keys to her flat for a second, earlier than remembering that the lock is damaged and it’s truthful sport for anybody.
She actually doesn’t wish to face no matter’s ready for her there. As an alternative, she finds herself meandering previous the street to her flat, down quiet, ink-dark residential streets, everybody else asleep; beneath the lengthy shadow of St. Paul’s all the way in which to the snarled alleys of Covent Backyard. Even at this unsociable hour, there are nonetheless vacationers and late-night revellers rambling via central London, however they pay her little heed. She shivers, wishing for her coat once more.
Simply earlier than Leicester Sq., the place the group surges and flows in direction of the brilliant lights of Piccadilly, she turns down a sequence of alleyways, slipping beneath darkish home windows and throughout empty roads like a wraith amongst the residing. Then, ultimately, she stops in entrance of the doorway to a slim avenue: Cecil Courtroom.
Right here, time appears to stumble, with delicate gates pulled over doorways and Victorian gasoline lamps throwing dim yellow mild over painted indicators. Old school window shows exhibit vintage prints and litho- graphs, neatly trimmed from their literary counterparts; historic marble collectible figurines and aged struggle mementos; monumental tea-coloured maps encased safely behind glass frames. However largely, it’s books. For the final century, bookshops have gravitated to this specific avenue, as if drawn by a singular pull, although each homeowners and patrons would strug- gle to pinpoint the explanation. A black gap, luring the literary-inclined.
Cassandra stands on the entrance of the road for therefore lengthy her arms go numb inside her pockets. It won’t be right here, she thinks. She might nonetheless flip round. Return to her flat, the glow of her laptop computer. The coed papers, the bar. Brokering offers for stolen books as a result of that’s all her expertise are price now. If she hasn’t already wrecked that a part of her life alongside all of the others.
Is that this all there may be?
She closes her eyes, recollects her dream underpinned by reminiscence, and opens them once more.
And there it’s, as if it had at all times been there to start with.
Chiron’s bookshop.
The door is closed, in fact, and the sunshine is off, the shutters pinned again indifferently from the home windows. The air behind the shows remains to be. However even in daylight it might be inconceivable to see the remainder of the store from the gloom that so pervades these scant few entrance inches. A wrought-iron lantern hangs above the sheltered nook of its doorway. It’s had a dozen names in Cassandra’s lifetime, by no means thoughts earlier than, however the present signal batting forwards and backwards within the wind reads: The Bookshop. As if no different signifier must precede it.
What number of occasions has she dreamed of the lantern, the doorway, the paved stairs with a clean dip within the centre, worn away by centuries of footsteps?
However they’re probably not right here, in the identical manner that the bookshop isn’t actually right here to anybody passing by. Nobody merely comes throughout Chiron’s bookshop. Maps overlook its identify; complete streets fail to acknowledge its existence; passersby stumble over a crack within the pavement and catch— properly, possibly a shimmer of glass, or the scent of ink, or the leafy rustle of pages. However not more than that. And by the point they proper themselves, it’s vanished as soon as once more, simply the ghost of a half-remembered factor.
The bookshop chooses its clients very fastidiously. However Cassandra’s not a buyer. Not one in every of its booksellers, nor Chiron’s protégé. By all rights, she shouldn’t be right here in any respect.
She climbs the steps slowly, ready for some well-deserved punishment to strike her. However she reaches the door unhurt. Extra worrying is the absence of indignant footfall, of Chiron throwing open the door, livid at her audacity for returning.
She locations her palm in opposition to the door, and a heavy clank echoes someplace within the bookshop, deeper than one would anticipate. As if the constructing is mustering its strongest defences in opposition to her, each bolt sliding shut, arrows cocked from the slim home windows above.
However the deal with yields to her cautious contact, and the door eases open with a drained groan. She’s by no means wanted a key to enter earlier than, and the bookshop, a minimum of, has held to this. A breath of air whispers previous her into the cool night time, and he or she inhales. Cedar, mud, the soft-sweet scent of previous books—and beneath, the sharp tang of ink.
She touches the letter in her pocket and photos Woman Destiny along with her cleaving smile, the skein of thread working via her arms in a spider’s internet of previous and future. A decent, unpickable knot, pinning Cassandra to the centre.
Positive, she concedes. You win.
Slowly, she steps inside.
Chapter Three
Chiron’s Bookshop is empty. Cassandra friends across the nook, ready for somebody to materialise. The within is black, suffused with a thick, uneasy quiet. When she takes one other step ahead, it’s extra of a leap to keep away from the large stack of put up gathered on the foot of the door. The again of her neck prickles with the sense that somebody is watching her.
“Whats up?” she says.
A sound like distant thunder judders the floorboards.
She flinches, able to run—however it’s solely the bookshop flexing its muscle tissue because it rouses from slumber. One after the other, the lamps flicker on, sputtering dim orange mild. The shadows dissolve into softer crea- tures because the room coalesces in entrance of her.
For years, she’s puzzled what grew to become of the bookshop. What new shores it had landed on, captained by its proprietor. Whether or not Chiron ever considered her in any respect.
And now she’s right here, she will be able to barely drink all of it in.
Many of the bookshop is simply the way in which she remembers it, a minimum of when it comes to format. An unlimited cedar desk sits like a throne within the centre of the store, armed with an expectant brass bell and bracketed by cabinets that used to brim with books. Above, a chandelier twinkles with the stays of its crystal teardrops, cobwebs dancing within the gaps. Behind it, an elaborately carved stairwell twines upwards and under, with a moth-eaten carpet runner held in place by rusting decorative rods.
And there’s the sound of the river, its present dashing beneath the store. The black gap that so attracts the bookshops to this specific avenue, enigmatic in its machinations. The exact high quality that makes this bookshop…different.
All the time, the river.
The remainder of the bookshop is lit in a heat orangey glow, illuminating rows upon rows of books gray with mud, lifeless plant pots and different detritus. It wasn’t so way back that it was Cassandra’s job to water the crops and clear the cabinets, and if she squints, she will be able to nearly see the ghost of her youthful self ducking between a handful of irritated booksellers.
So far as entryways go, it’s fairly magnificent, and Cassandra would suppose she’s nonetheless dreaming, have been it not for the state of the store. She takes a deep breath, and inhales a musty, lonesome scent. Then she swipes her finger throughout the cedar desk and grimaces. The store was at all times shabby, however Chiron would absolutely by no means have let it get this dangerous. Except—
She sits down on the desk, the leather-based chair creaking beneath her weight. Runs her arms alongside its polished edge, gathering mud beneath her fingertips, till she finds an engraving: O to you, who holds our destiny most tight, we’re however story made manifest.
Chiron had instructed her {that a} magician-turned-bookseller had written that on the desk, that he was imparting a hidden phrase. And when Cassandra was nonetheless younger sufficient to imagine him, she’d handed different bookshops and puzzled in the event that they, too, knew this secret, whispered from bookseller to bookseller like sacred textual content.
Now, in fact, she is aware of it’s only a line from an obscure poem.
Not magic, or sacrosanct.
She will get up and brushes herself down. “Chiron?”
The bookshop is silent, save for the sound of mud buzzing in opposition to electrical lamps. Reflexively, she glances to the oddly unadorned wall subsequent to the staircase—odd as a result of in a bookshop, no area can ever afford to be wasted.
But it surely isn’t wasted area. Not likely. As a result of—
Upstairs, one thing thunks in opposition to the floor, and her coronary heart pistons in her chest.
“Chiron? It’s me. Cassandra.”
He should have the ability to hear her—he’s at all times had an uncanny knack for sensing clients—however there’s nonetheless nothing. No weary footsteps, not even the primary indignant stirrings that his exile has returned with out permission.
Cassandra glances on the winding staircase, then on the closed entrance door. Shortly, earlier than she will be able to change her thoughts, she heads upstairs.
She navigates via a sequence of slim corridors, made narrower by the stacks of books, empty packing containers and different detritus that line the floor. Remnants of moonlight filter via scum-frosted skylights, placing her in thoughts of an aquarium, shadows oscillating on the partitions. She flicks the sunshine swap, however electrical energy has at all times been erratic within the deeper corners of the store, and the lamps stay stubbornly unlit. But even with out good mild to see by, it’s not difficult to identify the marks on the peeling wallpaper, water injury creeping from some- the place inside the wall, together with the unmistakable whiff of mildew. A e book’s worst enemy, after hearth.
One thing has occurred, a horrible voice whispers behind her thoughts.
Ignoring it, she presses upwards, to the second floor. However her arms discover themselves pulling out the letter, clutching it in her fist. She doesn’t open it, although. It might say something.
Bear in mind me? Anyway, fuck you once more and I’m occurring vacation for a bit so don’t attempt to go to ha ha, and did I point out fuck you?
She steps beneath a crooked archway into the studying room, and as soon as once more, she’s struck by that dizzying sense of travelling via time. As if she’s walked straight via {a photograph} into her childhood.
The studying room is big, with a excessive vaulted ceiling and enormous arched home windows that look out onto the courtyard within the centre of the bookshop. Stunning iron lanterns in fantastical curlicue designs hold from the ceiling at different heights; when lit, they provide the impression of stars twinkling above, although now only some flicker glumly at her. Then there’s the fireside, empty ashes within the grate, and a mosaic-tiled kitchen countertop, chipped and dirty. It’s bursting with objects: books, vibrant tins of various sizes, unidenti- fiable foodstuffs, reams of paper with semi-illegible notes, an inexpli- cable stack of horseshoes.
“Chiron?” she says uncertainly. The room is tombstone silent.
There are dozens of different rooms, presumably in related states of disrepair, however Chiron would have heard her from them, and are available to research. He ought to have heard her by now.
With nothing else for it, Cassandra climbs the winding spiral staircase to the tower, with empty brackets the place candles used to take a seat. If Chiron’s not right here, then she will be able to wash her arms of the thriller, she decides. She doesn’t owe him this. However she owes, properly, one thing to the bookshop. And if curiosity is what bought her thrown out within the first place, then the identical curiosity has introduced her again.
On the prime of the staircase, Cassandra pauses to catch her breath. The tower is greater than she remembers, though she would have absolutely struggled as a toddler to climb all the way in which up right here. Then once more, that’s the character of the bookshop: pliable as a dream, with that very same stomach-lurching feeling at any time when a brand new hall opened up, or a room vanished after months, and even years of normal use. There may be nonetheless a barely cursed first version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, v.ii C–L {that a} earlier proprietor had gone to nice lengths to acquire, just for it to fade together with the decrease studying room, periodically reappearing each seventy or so years.
On the prime of the steps, there’s only one door, fabricated from thick oak held in place by a tough body, and a small brass plaque subsequent to it, as if the proprietor’s rooms want introduction. The air remains to be, a held breath. Chiron received’t be right here, she thinks. After which this shall be simply one other painful tour into the life she not has. One other probability to brush her fingers in opposition to all which may have been.
She doesn’t let herself take into consideration what may occur if Chiron is right here.
She considers knocking on the door, then thinks higher of it, and pushes it open. It’s heavier than she remembers, and he or she’s handled to a full view of the entryway to Chiron’s flats.
Ordinarily, Cassandra can be struck by the glass-paned ceiling, with moonlight pouring via it, or the teetering piles of books that threaten to engulf the room. A room she’d as soon as handled with reverent awe as a result of to step in right here was to be within the presence of a god, and all of the gods that got here earlier than. It had definitely felt that manner when she was younger, earlier than she understood that they have been simply as human as she, and due to this fact simply as flawed.
Her gaze immediately goes to the area the place Chiron’s favorite armchair sits. Or, reasonably, the place it was.
As a substitute, a development of delicate white flowers has sprung up, swallowing upholstery, although every one is not any greater than a fingernail. Their tendrils forged a viridian tint on the partitions, and the scent is nice but inexplicably unhappy. Inexperienced shoots unfurl upwards, prising aside the floorboards beneath it, as vines wind across the claw-foot legs.
From this angle, on this mild, the form is of a person asleep in his armchair. And there, nestled within the grass at his ft, is the important thing to the bookshop.
Cassandra grasps the sting of the doorway for assist. Her legs are all of the sudden weightless, insubstantial issues. Her imaginative and prescient swims.
Chiron is the proprietor. Has at all times been the proprietor.
Was.
For this reason Cassandra was in a position to stroll via unimpeded. This explains the neglect, the rot, the aura of unhappiness pervading each nook.
The bookshop has no proprietor. It should at all times have an proprietor.
And though Cassandra was deemed unfit years in the past, though she swore she would by no means step foot in right here once more. Though she has set the bookshop apart in each manner conceivable—
It’s discovered her once more.
A smudged, water-stained letter, the sides furred with damp. The envelope is addressed to Cassandra F—; the remaining is nearly completely illegible.
Cassandra,
It has taken a while for me to compose this missive, however ultimately I’ve managed it. I received’t hassle you with the explanations behind this choice; solely a reminder that you’re nonetheless a protégé of this home, and so no matter occurs subsequent is of your individual making.
The bookshop is yours. I give it to you freely. Please take care of it, and it’ll take care of you.
I want you properly, Cassandra, as at all times.
Yours,
Chiron
Beneath the streets of London, a secret community of magical bookshops has existed for millennia. However they’re slowly disappearing, and nobody is aware of why. Just one dishonored bookseller can uncover the reality and rewrite her story—on this spellbinding standalone fantasy novel from the writer of The Metropolis of Stardust.
If you need a narrative that can change your life, Chiron’s bookshop is the place you go. For these fortunate sufficient to grace its doorways, it’s a glimpse right into a world of highly effective bargains and lethal ink magic.
For Cassandra Fairfax, it’s a reminder of all the things she misplaced, when Chiron kicked her out and all however shuttered the store. Since then, she’s used her expertise in much less moral methods, buying and selling stolen books and magical readings to rich playboys and unscrupulous collectors.
Then Chiron dies beneath mysterious circumstances. And if Cassandra is aware of something, it’s this: the bookshop should at all times have an proprietor.
However she’s not the one one . There’s Lowell Sharpe, a dark-eyed, regrettably good-looking bookseller she can not seem to cease bumping into; rival homeowners who threaten Cassandra from the shadows; and, in fact, Chiron’s assassin, who remains to be on the unfastened.
As Cassandra tries to uncover the secrets and techniques her mentor left behind, a sinister power threatens to unravel the world of the magical bookshops completely…
★ “Georgia Summers’s magical bookshop is my new favourite place. The Bookshop Beneath is a scrumptious learn, I liked each second of it.” —Laini Taylor, New York Occasions bestselling writer
★ “Steeped in bookish magic and infused with the consolation and terror of a favourite tragic fairytale, The Bookshop Beneath is darkly whimsical and totally heart-wrenching.” —Tori Bovalino, writer of My Throat is An Open Grave
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