She continued talking, but she also pushed open a set of doors. Juliana lost all track of Nel’s voice as she stared, open-mouthed, straight up.
Walls of books stretched so high into the sky that they faded off into the clouds. There were no ladders and no staircases, just endless walls of books. The room itself wasn’t that large, perhaps half the size of the school’s cafeteria.
The sheer height made Juliana dizzy. She had to force herself to look back down.
Dark wood made up most of the floor. A dark red rug had been laid out in the center. Three human sized chairs and one Ylva sized chair were arranged around a small coffee table.
“Extraordinary, isn’t it?” Nel also stared up at the sky. Her hood had fallen off of her head to reveal short black hair. “There are tons of places like this here. Some rooms are more plain, but then you come across things like this and it is just like, ‘wow.'”
Juliana approached the nearest section of the bookshelves. Her hand ran over the spines of the books. Not a single one had a readable title. She walked around the entire room to find none of the ones she could reach had English titles.
Turning back to the center of the room, Juliana found Nel seated in one of the chairs. Once again, her hood was pulled down to cast most of her face into shadow.
“Tea?” Nel asked with a tilt of her head. She was already pouring a glass from a very ornate, silver teapot that Juliana must have missed when she first walked in. A small plate of cookies sat out as well.
“Sure.” Juliana walked over and took the seat nearest to the attendant. “You weren’t here back in November.”
“Nope. I have only been here two… three… has it been a month already? What day is it?”
“Last weekend of March. Saturday the twenty-sixth.”
“Almost a month then. It’s hard to tell without any clocks or sun. I sleep when I’m tired which I think is different from my usual sleep schedule. Whatever that means. I can’t say I had any kind of regular sleep schedule since before November. It is much nicer this way, I’d say.”
Juliana took a sip of her tea as the girl continued to talk. It had a slight tangy taste to it, not one she could place. Not surprising; Juliana didn’t consider herself any kind of tea sommelier.
The girl herself twittered on about her living conditions at such a rapid pace, Juliana could barely understand half of it.
“So,” Juliana said as Nel’s ramblings died down, “am I to ask you questions?”
“No. I mean, not unless you want to. Like I said, I’m new to all this stuff. I’m sure Lady Ylva will answer any questions about herself far better than I could.”
“Ah,” Juliana said as she took another sip, “I’d have expected someone who constantly lives here to know about the owner.”
“I inadvertently bound myself to her service for an indefinite period of time. It isn’t bad,” she said quickly. “I have yet to catch her trying to murder me.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“You could say that I’m well versed in knowing when the person I currently serve is trying to get rid of me.”
Juliana didn’t know what to make of that. She took another sip of her tea instead of commenting.
Without a conversation going, Juliana sank into the surprisingly comfortable armchair. She leaned back and stared at the sky. It wasn’t blue, but white. It looked a lot like a wide version of the column of light over Ylva’s throne.
“Um, you’re Eva’s friend, right?”
“I suppose so.”
“I don’t–I mean, she doesn’t seem to like me very much.”
Juliana took a long drink of her tea while she waited for the attendant to continue.
It took a lot longer than Juliana expected. The girl fidgeted and sighed several times before she finally continued.
“I’d have asked your professor since she seems closer to my age, but I don’t think she likes me much either. She definitely doesn’t like Lady Ylva.”
“So I noticed.”
“Lady Ylva is very kind to me, far kinder than I expected in any case, but she isn’t much for talking. It’s been a long time since I’ve had regular conversation, you know?”
Juliana didn’t, but she nodded along anyway.
“Even before I got here, I was practically isolated from everyone. I was just wondering if maybe you would stop by once in a while.”
“I don’t have a way of getting here on my own. I can’t teleport or anything.”
“Oh,” Nel’s shoulders slumped down and her face hid further beneath her hood, “I understand if you don’t want to.”
After a long, mostly mental sigh at the depressed girl, Juliana said, “maybe I could ask Eva or Zoe to bring me here once in a while. It would be less ask and more convince in Zoe’s case, I think.”
“Oh,” Nel repeated though with a very different tone in her voice. She stuck out a gloved hand. “I’m Nel, though I hope you don’t tell anyone. There are people trying to kill me.”
“Juliana,” she said as she shook the attendant’s hand. “I won’t tell anyone other than Eva and Zoe. I assume they already know?”
Nel nodded and opened her mouth to say something.
The door to the library boomed open before she could speak.
Ylva stood in the doorway, wearing her deep-cut, white dress. She stared at the two, calmly observing them. All her flesh vanished the moment she stepped into the light of the room. She slouched down in the large chair and rested her skull on her bony knuckles.
“You have questions.”
Juliana swallowed to try to wet her dry throat. With the barest hint of a nod in the affirmative, Juliana began her questions.
—
Floaty feelings tickled the back of Juliana’s neck as Agiel wolfed down an apple. Either she had gained some resistance to the feeling or the little demon was getting tired of eating apples. Either way didn’t matter much to Juliana.
It would be the last time she summoned him.
“So,” Juliana said after she waited for the last splatters of apple pulp to stop flying around, “I had a long talk with a… a friend of mine. I’d just like to confirm a few things.”
The little demon waved a tiny, clawed hand from one side to the other.
“If you did make a contract with me, would you destroy my mind and puppet my body?”
A faint, almost hesitant tickle of joy tingled at the base of Juliana’s skull.
As expected. Juliana merely gave a light nod. Ylva mentioned that this particular demon could not lie when asked one of its three questions. The hel did not give the answer to the question Juliana asked, but Ylva even giving the question was basically an answer in her mind.
“Two more questions.” Juliana leaned back against the wall of the small bedroom and shut her eyes. All her drive to ask more questions went down the drain with that one question. Power was worthless if she wasn’t around to use it.
“How about this,” she said without opening her eyes, “is it possible to grant me power while leaving me intact?”
Again came the light floating feeling.
“Would you grant me power without destroying my mind or body?”
Needles pierced the back of her neck as the demon shook its head.
“So I expected.” Juliana opened her eyes. She blinked a few times at the sight before her.
Agiel stood near the edge of the shackles, one hand offered out before the creature.
Was it seriously asking what she thought he was asking.
“Nope.” Juliana ticked a finger back and forth. “Should have offered weeks ago and I would have been none the wiser.”
Agiel merely shrugged and withdrew his hand.
Before he could vanish in the summoning circle, Juliana tossed him the last apple from her bag. He deftly caught the giant apple, sinking his claws into it. Confusion spread across his face as he crooked his head at Juliana. At least, it seemed like confusion; hard to tell when he has no face.
“For the road,” she said, “or whatever passes for a road beneath that circle.”