Paper and Fire

Books spoke mind to mind, soul to soul across the abyss of time and distance.

With the right books, we can change everything.

But hope was a malicious, jagged thing, all spikes and razors that churned and cut deep in his guts. Hope was a great deal like fear.

Anything is possible. The impossible just takes longer.’” “Stupid

One thing you learn early growing up a girl--people always talk, whatever you do,' Glain said. 'What bliss it must be to be male.

Jess." Khalila drew his gaze back to her. "What is it Scholar Wolfe used to tell us? 'Anything is possible. The impossible just takes longer.

Books had become a symbol of trust and libraries places of peace and stability. In all the chaos of the world that counted people as different levels of worthy, the Library served all equally. All genders, races, levels of ability. It was the one place they could all be safe

Dario, What you do or do not want applies to you, not me. I didn't ask your permission, and I don't seek your approval!' Khalia's voice had taken on a hard edge, and Dario was the first to look away. 'Congratulations,' Glain said 'You're both wildly independent, and now the Archivist has to be wondering why both of you would want to get close to him at the same time. Clearly, neither of you are cut out to be spies.

Santi and Wolfe exchanged a look. Wolfe inclined his head a little to the side, with a strange, crooked smile. "You see? They're as bad as we are." "Worse," Santi sighed.

we're just paper on a shelf, in the end

To the scholars. To the students. To the librarians. To those who fight for all of those every day. Shine the light.

Because revolution rarely comes from those in charge.

Goliath fell to a slingshot and a stone. and the Library is a lumbering giant, dying of its own arrogance; it has to change or fall. We have the tools. The will. The knowledge.

Alchemy is a science, but a science that acknowledges certain principles of magic. This. . . this is a mathematical expression of quintessence, Archimedes' fifth element, which binds all things together.

the chaos of the world that counted people as different levels of worthy, the Library served all equally. All genders, races, levels of ability. It was the one place they could all be safe.

One thing you learn early growing up a girl—people always talk, whatever you do,” Glain said.

Khalila said quietly. “A book outlives us all.” “That’s a legacy,” Brendan said. “I’d rather have a life, if you don’t mind.” “Philosophy later,” Wolfe said. “Run now.

All right. But if you get me killed, I’ll never let any of you rest. My ghost will be very persistent.

This is the graveyard where they buried our future.

I’ve never been through what you have, but I’ve been in the dark a few times. Sometimes the light’s just too bright.

Nothing like Rome, boy. Gets us all the first time.” “And every time after.

Hope was a great deal like fear.

He’d grown so addicted to the feel of those books—the individual differences in the bindings, the leather or fabric covers, the weight of papers, the smell. They were a very different experience than these Blanks, which all felt so . . . sterile, somehow. Words that could be readily dismissed and replaced didn’t have the same moral heft to them, to him,

Archimedes said mathematics reveal its secrets only to those who approach it with pure love for its own beauty. But the Archivist has no love for knowledge. He wants only power. You are the club he swings to get it.

Archimedes taught that of all the five elements, quintessence is the most rare, the most valuable, the one that transmutes the ordinary into the extraordinary. We are quintessence. It's a divine gift, and like all gifts, we must use it for the Library's greater glory.

Think of it this way: alchemists of old relied on the energy provided by tides, the moon, sun, planets in alignment. Every experiment was delicate and had to be balanced just so, or there couldn't be a proper result. Obscurists have an inborn talent to provide that energy from within and not from the world around us; we are born with quintessence.

Are you going to the dining hall?" Glain smiled very briefly. It was a rare enough event, and it made her almost human. Almost pretty. "Are you asking to escort me, like some girl you're romancing? Jess. Don't waste your time. I'm extremely unavailable."... "Remind me never to be polite to you again," he said, and she laughed this time, came around, and draped a comrade's arm around his shoulders. "Of course I will.

He leaned down and stared into the lion's savage eyes and said, "Come on, then, if you're coming. Take a bite. But if you do, everybody will know it wasn't an accident.

He stood there for a long moment, the note in his hand, and just looked at her. At the undeniable heartbreak in her, and the dignity and the vulnerability. Then he pressed the note into Neksa's hand and said, "Lesson learned. You shouldn't trust either of us." He was gone before she spoke again.