“By the way, you’re living under someone else’s roof now, aren’t you?”
Olivia leaned against the counter, arms crossed over her chest.
There was no mockery in her tone—it sounded more like she was stating a fact she could relate to herself.
“That’s right.”
Masiweiluo pushed the ledger aside.
The lamplight reflected off her dark gray turtleneck, the stitching at the collar fine and neat.
She turned and walked to the bookshelf, her fingertips gliding across the spines until she pulled one out and handed it to Olivia.
The book had a dark brown hardcover, its corners worn white from use.
The gold-stamped Urske letters on the front had faded, barely visible under the light except for a few faint characters.
The page edges had yellowed with age.
“Kids should read more. It’s good for you.”
“This book is in Urske, though.”
Olivia took the book reluctantly.
The cover felt rough and dry under her fingers, like a stale loaf of dark bread.
She opened the first page, and a dense sea of Urske text rose up from the paper.
She closed it immediately.
“If you don’t want to sleep, you can go to the reading room. That old gentleman should still be there.”
Masiweiluo gestured down the hallway.
Her fingers were slender, with calluses on the knuckles from years of gripping a lance.
“Old gentleman?”
“Go see for yourself.”
Olivia carried the incomprehensible book and walked down the hallway.
A bit of snow water from the garden had dried on the hem of her skirt, leaving a faint gray stain.
She had no idea what old gentleman would be sitting in a small-town library at this hour, and she didn’t know why Masiweiluo had said “go see for yourself” in that tone.
The hallway wasn’t long.
A few pencil sketches of the Holy Mountain hung on the walls, the lines light and loose, like quick studies done on a whim.
At the end was a door left ajar, warm yellow light spilling through the crack.
She pushed the door open.
The reading room was small, with a lower ceiling than the main reading area.
Bookshelves lined all four walls, but the books here were older than the ones outside—most of the gold-stamped lettering on the spines had worn away to nothing.
By the window sat an old wooden desk with several open books spread across it.
An oil lamp rested at the corner, its flame burning quietly behind the glass shade.
Someone sat at the desk.
Broad shoulders, a heavy frame.
He wore a faded gray shirt with the sleeves rolled to mid-forearm.
The bear ears atop his head twitched slightly in the lamplight.
A chipped enamel mug sat on the desk.
Gaoerji.
Olivia stood frozen in the doorway, the book nearly slipping from her hands.
Her silver pupils contracted sharply in the lamplight.
Gaoerji looked up, his murky brown eyes pausing on her face for a moment, then narrowing slightly.
“Oh? What’s the matter, little miss.”
His tone was exactly the same as that day in the Red Sun Tavern.
As if running into her in a small-town library in the dead of night on the Urske border was the most normal thing in the world.
Olivia opened her mouth, then closed it.
She had so many questions she wanted to ask.
Aren’t you supposed to be at the stronghold? What are you doing here?
Do you know you’re still wanted?
Is this man out of his mind—a fugitive with a price on his head from the Tsar, running all the way from Eldron to Urske, just to read books in a little library like this?
But if she asked, he’d probably answer in that same calm voice, and she wasn’t sure she could handle it.
“Nothing, nothing. I’m just here to read.”
She looked away, walked to the chair across from Gaoerji, and sat down, placing the Urske book Masiweiluo had shoved at her on the table.
Then she reached over and pulled a random book from the shelf, flipping it open.
Her fingers were still trembling slightly from the rush of emotions.
The cover was dark brown hardcover, its corners even more worn than the one Masiweiluo had given her.
The title was stamped in gold Urske lettering, which she still couldn’t read.
But the signature on the title page was in the common tongue—Gaoerji.
She blinked, closed the title page, and opened it again.
The name was still there.
The author was the old gentleman sitting across from her.
Her gaze shifted from the title page to Gaoerji’s face.
Gaoerji was taking a sip from his enamel mug, then raised his eyes.
His gaze landed on the cover of the book in her hands.
Then she saw Gaoerji’s expression shift in a subtle way.
Not panic.
Not tension.
Those murky old eyes lit up under the lamplight—not with wariness, but with the brightness of someone who’d been shut in too long and suddenly heard a knock at the door.
His bear ears rose half an inch from his hair, the tips twitching slightly.
“You… you’re reading this book?”
Gaoerji’s lips moved.
The hand holding the enamel mug hung suspended in midair, his knuckles tightening slightly.
Olivia glanced down at the book in her hands, casually flipping a few pages as if she were just browsing.
Then she turned back to the title page, her finger pausing over the author’s signature.
She noticed a line of small text beneath the signature, written in the common tongue, but the lamp was too dim.
She squinted to make it out.
The line read:
“All truths in this world are just one way of looking at it.”
“You wrote this book.”
Gaoerji set the mug down, the bottom clinking softly against the wooden table.
The corner of his mouth twitched—not the silent, bitter smile from the restaurant, but something that had been pressed down for so long it had finally squeezed out a bit of light.
“I told you at the stronghold what kind of work I did.”
“Clerical work.”
Olivia repeated the words.
Now she understood.
He really was a clerical worker—except what he wrote wasn’t ledgers.
She looked down and flipped through the pages.
The paper was thin, and the ink was uneven in places—clearly not from a proper printing press.
More like something printed sheet by sheet on a secondhand machine in some underground workshop, then bound by hand.
Scattered between the pages were handwritten annotations in different hands—some in Urske, some in the common tongue, some even in Wuling’s square characters.
This book had clearly passed through many readers.
“This is a banned book.”
Gaoerji’s voice was soft, like he was stating a fact that had little to do with him.
Gaoerji’s bear ears swiveled half a turn on top of his head.
He leaned forward slightly, his thick elbows resting on the edge of the table, fingers interlaced.
The lamplight struck him from the side, casting half his face in bright relief and leaving the other half in shadow.
The expression in the light looked excited; in the dark, it looked cautious.
“This book is banned. In Urske, possessing it is punishable by exile. Writing it—is punishable by death.”