Biting Cold (Chicagoland Vampires #6)(40)
Author: Chloe Neill

I nodded. "Okay."

"Maybe he could learn to control it? He does seem to have a lot of wilpower."

"That is an understatement," I agreed. "Tal, blond, and stubborn."

Paige laughed. "Tal, blond, and stubborn is usualy right in my wheelhouse. I’m actualy kind of surprised I’m interested in the librarian." Her cheeks went a little pink. "Put two guys side by side – a fair one and a dark one – and I am usualy tuned in to the tal, blond, and handsome type."

Something she said rang familiar in a deep part of my brain.

"What did you say?"

"What? Oh, I was just saying I normaly prefer blonds."

But it wasn’t her taste in men that interested me – it was the phrase she’d used. "Dark one," I repeated, my gaze shifting back and forth as I searched my memory. "Why does that sound familiar?"

"Like, as a phrase?" Paige frowned. "I don’t know it. When did you hear it?"

"When we were in Nebraska," I realized, and the memories clicked into place. "Todd, the gnome, caled Tate a ‘dark one.’ I thought he was referring to the color of Tate’s hair – because it’s dark brown. But maybe that’s not what he meant. Maybe it’s not a description. Maybe it’s a name, or a species."

"I’m not familiar with the term, but I can look it up." She puled a giant book closer to her. "I’l check the sorcerer’s omnibus."

"Sorcerer’s omnibus?"

"It’s like a giant magical dictionary," she absently said, and she was already thumbing through the entries. "If it’s not in here, it doesn’t exist."

She flipped the book open to a page, then skimmed a finger down the page she’d found. But when her shoulders slumped, I knew she hadn’t found it.

"Nothing?"

"It doesn’t exist." She looked up at me. "If that was realy a term of magical art – and not just a description – it would be in here. This thing is super-thorough."

Maybe, but I wasn’t wiling to give up so easily.

"Dark one" was an odd phrase. It wasn’t the kind of thing someone would just randomly say. On the other hand, Todd was an unusual guy.

" ‘Sorcerers just don’t get us,’ " I remembered him saying, and I began to smile. Maybe we weren’t coming at this from the right direction. Maybe "dark one" was a magical term of art… but not for sorcerers.

I jumped up, ignored Paige’s question about where I was going, and ran down the aisles until I found the librarian.

"Are you running in my library?"

"Only because I need you. Do we have any books written by gnomes?"

He frowned but nodded. "Yes. Why? I thought you were looking for conjuration spels."

"Been there, done that." I smiled and thought of Todd. "I need gnome books. You know, because sorcerers just don’t get them."

He didn’t get the joke. "They’re in cultural studies. About four rows to the left. Your other left!" he corrected, when I dodged right.

A few minutes later, Paige found me on the floor puling books into my lap. "Bright idea?"

"I think it’s a gnome’s phrase."

"Damn," she said. "I wish I’d thought of that." She sat down on the floor beside me, and I handed over A Gnome’s Guide to Names.

"Come on in," I said. "The water’s fine."

It wasn’t in A Gnome’s Guide to Names. It wasn’t in Life from the Ground Up. It wasn’t in Better Underground Gardening , Home Sweet Hillock, or Homes for Gnomes. (I couldn’t make this stuff up.)

We did learn that gnomes are especialy careful about the layout of their underground dwelings. We learned they preferred plaid to gingham in their decor and often used a dozen or more false entrances and baffles to thwart unwelcome visitors.

When we could map out their favorite color palettes, we caled the librarian back into it.

Well, Paige caled the librarian into it. After flouncing up her hair.

Maybe she had been lonely in Nebraska.

"What exactly are you looking for?" he asked.

"Todd, one of the gnomes who fought with us in Nebraska, caled Tate a ‘dark one.’ We’re wondering if there’s anything to that."

The librarian roled his eyes and walked down the row.

"Sometimes I wonder why you don’t just ask me the questions in the first place. Folow me."

We shoved our books back on the shelves and traced his path to a bureau of long, flat drawers. He opened a long drawer and rifled through it, then puled out a dark blue paperboard box with brass corners, which he carefuly carried to the closest table. He walked slowly, as if the materials in the box were delicate enough to disintegrate if he rattled them too much.

He placed the box on the table and lifted the lid. Scents of old paper and herbs – rosemary and thyme – filed the air, along with the damp scent of earth.

"Gnomes," I said.

The librarian nodded and puled a pair of thin cotton gloves from the pocket of his jeans. He slipped them on and carefuly removed a sheet from the box.

The sheet was thick and yelowed, the warp and weave of fibers from some ancient plant visible like a watermark through the page.

Across the surface were tidy rows of neat Latin words, and the lines were iluminated with drawings and fanciful letters in red, blue, and gold paint. It wasn’t unlike medieval manuscripts I’d seen while in graduate school.

"It’s beautiful," I said. "What’s it from?"

"It’s a hand-copied page from a document caled the Kantor Scroll. Kantor was a gnome, a scrivener who put together an impressive library of texts."

Paige walked around the table to give the document a closer look. "About what?"

"The usual. Love. Religion. Politics. War was a particular specialty. Gnomes are close to the ground, so people tend to forget they’re there. They do a great job of war reporting because they can get in and around so easily."

The librarian set the first sheet aside and puled another from the box. This one had a drawing. The images weren’t very sophisticated, but their subject was clear – a mud and stone city under attack by a storm of blue sparks as big as a cloud. The cloud had already consumed some of the buildings, leaving them in shambles.

"I’ve seen that before," I said, thinking of the wal of magic Tate had sent after us in Iowa. "Where was this?"

"Carthage," the librarian said. "The city was completely decimated by the Roman army, and they salted the earth afterward so nothing could grow."

"They destroyed the city with magic?" Paige asked.

"That wasn’t the human version of the story," I said, but looked at the librarian.