The Dark Archive

“Very well. Then our conversation is over.”

“Aren’t you going to threaten me?” Irene asked.

“Miss Winters, if you don’t already feel threatened, I’m not doing my job properly.”

My dear Miss Winters,

You will have realized by now that I intend to bring down irretrievable ruin on you, your loved ones, your friends and associates, your workplace, and anything else that comes to mind. Please don’t feel obliged to thank me. It is my pleasure entirely.

“May I be frank?” Sherrington asked.

Irene sighed. This was always the sign of a fast-approaching insult.

I don’t care about politics or the greater good or universal peace or whatever. I just want to be left in peace with books.

Catherine looked as if she was about to boil over. “We have been poisoned,” she said again. “We’re about to die! I’ll never get at those books!”

“Now, that’s the right attitude,” Kai agreed, glad to see her demonstrating a proper sense of priorities.

“Nothing lasts,” he said, his voice guttural with age and remembered pain. “Neither knowledge, nor skill, nor family, nor the bond between master and student. In another thousand years I will be gone. And in time you both will pass as well, and this place will be dust. For all that we pride ourselves on our power and our length of years, Prince Kai, ultimately dragons too are as fleeting as fireflies. There was a time when we never existed; there will also come a time when nobody will remember us. War changes to peace. But, ultimately, peace collapses into war and the cycle continues.”

“I’ve told you before, sir, you will be remembered as long as my fathers kingdom lasts.” Shan Yuan spoke with affection, clearly repeating an old reassurance.

“That’s not as reassuring as you might think.”