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Book 2: Chapter 13 Library Heist (3)

Cressida let out a happy cry and turned to Arthur in triumph. "This one is still good." She glanced at it and then sagged slightly. "It's only an Uncommon, though."

"The rank shouldn't matter. This is... this is criminal!" Arthur hadn't fully understood the term 'spitting mad' before that day. If he were a dragon, he felt like he would be able to breathe fire.

Cressida gave him an arch look. "Well, yes. If this gets out, the scholars will have to explain it to the crown. Why are you so upset?"

"Why aren't you?" he demanded. "Do you know what these cards are worth?"

"They're only Commons," she sniffed.

"No, Cressida. I'm not talking about worth in coins. I mean safety, security, health..."

Cressida just looked at him like he had grown an extra head. Arthur had to struggle not to growl.

"You don't get it!" Turning, he shoved the glass case back on the shelf, the sad little pile of dust the only indication something magical had been locked within.

It occurred to him that if someone opened up the case and cleaned out the dust, there would be no evidence of what the scholars had done. If anything, that pissed him off even more. He had the urge to grab some of the books, start a fire, and burn this whole scourge-tainted place to the ground.

"Perhaps I don't understand because you are acting like a madman." Cressida cocked her hip, hand on her waist.

"No, you don't understand because you are a noble!"

"And you're not?"

"I might as well not have been." Arthur gestured vaguely. "I lived on the border. I smelled this smell, this rot, every single day of my life. Do you know what dust from the dead lands does to people? Do you have any uncarded people in your lands?"

"Of course," she said, though her expression was vaguely troubled. "Not everyone can afford a card. My father told me that some of his tenants out in the sticks outright refuse them for moral reasons."

"But you've seen them," he persisted. "They're shorter, less healthy. The women die in childbirth more often. They get sick--" His voice broke, and he looked away for a moment, swallowing before he continued. "That's when they don't live next to the dead lands. It's worse when they breathe this crap every day."

A final glass-enhanced card sat on the end of the shelf. Arthur snatched it up. It disintegrated before he even had a chance to read it.

Frustrated, he shook it in Cressida's direction. "These may only be Commons to you, but having just one card can change someone's life. I've seen it."

Her expression remained unreadable, and he would have given a lot to be able to read emotions as Kenzie did.

Cressida took two steps to cross the distance between them and carefully tugged the case out of his hand. Then she replaced it on the shelf.

"Is that why you go by a different name?" she asked. "I've watched you. You don't see yourself as a noble at all, do you?"

"I don't," Arthur said, with a frown. That was true for more reasons than one. "But I don't see how that matters right now."

She shrugged. "It matters." Though she didn't explain why. Her gaze returned to him, searching his face as if looking for her own answers. Then she shrugged again. "And you're right. I haven't seen... what you've described. I've been rather sheltered. But I'm also not responsible for this... neglect."

"Yeah." His shoulders slumped, some of the anger draining out of him in a rush. "I know that, Cressida."

"Good," she said. "Now, please get over your indignation and help me find the Rares. We might have some blackmail on the scholars if we're discovered... or they may just decide it would be easier to kill us and keep it quiet."

He blinked, a little surprised at her matter-of-fact tone. Then again, she was probably right.

He had practically been yelling out his impassioned speech there. They were lucky the scholars were feasting.

And that no one bothered to come down to the library as they ought.

"The Rares, right." He nodded and quickly walked down the next set of shelves.

Those held no joy, either. Some of the Uncommon cards also crumbled to dust upon being touched.

From what he understood, Commons took several months of inactivity to rot away like this. Uncommons were several times as long. That meant it might have been years since someone interacted with these cards.

How hard would it have been to stuff a card into a card anchor, use it once, and take it out again? The scholars could have paid someone to do it.

Lack of trust might have made finding a worker complicated, but not impossible.

Arthur suspected this was just laziness.

He seethed, though mindful of keeping quiet, he seethed silently.

Cressida, too, seemed more disturbed as they walked down one row after another. It was more than just the smell of the rotting cards. A feeling of wrongness saturated the air.

It felt like a desecration. As if he were walking over someone's grave. It grated at his nerves, and he wondered if this feeling was also responsible for his foul mood.

He soothed himself by sticking the unrotted cards into his Personal Storage space.

If Cressida noticed, she didn't say anything.

Truth to tell... none of them were great cards. He suspected anything of real value had been taken by the scholars long ago. What was left was incredibly niche: The ability to analyze existing wind patterns for types of pollen, fluency in a language Arthur had never heard of the ability to instantly measure time, distance, and weight of objects. One of the few Common cards that hadn't crumbled away at a touch granted the ability to accurately add up the value of a pile of coins at a glance.

Not a stretch to guess that this had seen some use. He was tempted to take it himself, but automated counting and estimating powers easily tripped up anti-gambling powers.

"Arthur."

He turned at Cressida's hushed call, and then winced internally at automatically reacting to his real name. He should lean into 'Arthur' being his peasant name.

Although he liked the way she spoke his name.

She wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to him anyway. She had walked on ahead to the final row set against the far wall.

Beyond it stood a thick steel door.

He had seen similarly heavy doors in card shops when the keepers wanted to guard their best cards.

He didn't think cards for identifying pollen on the wind were kept back there.

Cressida stared at the door, her hand raised as if half of her wanted to touch it and half wanted to cover her mouth over a scream.

Runes surrounded the frame of the door in an intricate lock. Normally brightly lit with a card's power, these were now dark and dead.

A creeping rot, looking a little like bread mold and a little like a rotten black mushroom, extended outward from the frame. The scourge -- because that was all it could be -- stretched to the edges of the runes. No doubt that was why they were dark and dead.

"How could they?" Cressida whispered. "Oh, this is... this is wrong. Don't you see?" she turned to Arthur. "They must have let a Rare go rotten."

A rotten Common was unpleasant. A fart in the wind. The rotten Uncommons had probably been responsible for the scourge-smell that had permeated this floor and the ones right above it.

A Rare that had gone bad was several orders above that.

"I think we found the source of the pink's sickness," he heard himself say. He couldn't be a hundred percent sure, but he would rather any suspicious eyes fall on the scholars than the kids he'd brought in from the border. Unethical? Sure. But staring at the scourge-infection sitting in the middle of the hive made him feel ruthless. "We have to tell the Hive leaders."

"Of course," Cressida agreed, voice distant. Then she seemed to shake herself. She continued, stronger. "But not until I get the cards still in there."

Arthur eyed the door speculatively. As card wielders, they were protected from the usual ravages of scourge sicknesses. Whatever lay in the room beyond was not normal.

He wasn't worried for his own safety. This scourge infection had been started by Rare strength magic. He had two Legendary cards in his heart. If he wasn't safe, he doubted anyone would be.

"I'll go," he said.

"I'll be right back," she said at the same time.

They looked at one another.

Cressida smirked and the air shimmered around her in a bubble. "You didn't think my flame bear was my only Rare card, did you?"

"You have a shield card?"

She nodded. "It will keep me safe, but it's mana hungry."

"I... have something similar," Arthur said.

She just looked at him, doubt on her face.

"I'll be fine," he insisted. "You're not going alone."

And to prove his point he strode forward, grabbed the door handle, and yanked. The runes surrounding the frame should have stopped him cold. But they were magically dead, and apparently, no one had bothered with a mechanical backup.

With the sound of something peeling off a sticky surface, the door opened.

Dozens of blank scourgeling eyes blinked back at him.