APRIL SYLKRANA, the only daughter of the High Queen, has to make things right. When a series of assassinations breaks out in the Imperial City, April takes matters into her hands and investigates, distracting her from a plot against her and the crow...
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The Archive, as it turned out, was large enough to rival a temple in one of the sprite territories. April craned her neck at the tall and pointed spires flanking the building's facade. An intricate geometric pattern of diamonds and circles decorated what's supposed to be a blank wall, indicating some form of wealth poured into it. For all its grandeur, though, it remained to be one-story high.
April's footsteps crunched against the tiles featuring more geometric patterns as she ducked past the wide doors thrown open. Inside, she had to shield her eyes against the glare of the bright light shining from the golden chandeliers just to get to see how high the ceiling was. And of course, the planks making up the ceiling feature some kind of geometric pattern too. It was both dizzying and enticing.
A sharp clearing of one's throat caught April's attention. Her gaze landed on the nearest counter from the door. Behind it sat a woman with spectacles propped atop her beige hair flattened against her scalp. "What's your business in the archives?" she asked, apparently talking to April despite her gaze on the set of bound tomes spread open on her desk. "Please leave your name and your city of origin in the log before you enter."
April looked behind her to see if the woman was talking to someone else but apart from the people lounging on cushioned chairs scattered around the spacious lobby and the soldiers frolicking in groups in and out of the building, there was no one with her. Having no choice, she approached the counter and took hold of the graphite stick lying on the crevice of the thick, lined tome.
"Hey, where can I find the Scholar?" April asked as she scrawled her name as ugly as she could. Lying about her name on a silly record such as this still felt so wrong. "Is he here?"
The woman would have rolled her eyes at April but she pointed into the line where the shelves stopped their array and the spacious lobby had narrowed into a corridor. "Third door to the right," she said. "Simple enough. Knock before you enter."
April turned back to the woman after studying the direction she pointed out. The woman was already writing on her tome, not caring what April did after their brief interaction.
So, onward, April marched.
She reached the designated door in no time, her eyes drinking in the sheer amount of tomes and records the archive had in its numerous shelves. In the middle of those shelves would always be a chair-and-table combination or two so people wouldn't have to carry stacks upon stacks of tomes in their research. They could just reach out, plop down, read, and stand up to bring the materials back into the shelves. That's an ingenious design, really.
Facing the Scholar's door, she took a deep breath and rapped her knuckles against the wooden surface. A garbled "Yeah?" rang in muffled waves from the other side of the door.
April gripped the knob holding the door closed and twisted. It popped with ease. Then, with care, she swung it inside to come face to face with yet another office. This time, the windows showed the busy street outside—they were, after all, in the middle of the merchant's avenue—and the shelves and floor contained a lot more clutter. Detached sheets of parchment, empty bottles of ink, quills with frayed vanes, and opened tomes. The list of random items April saw went on.
