Read Online The Poisons of Caux: The Hollow Bettle (Book I) by Susannah Appelbaum - Free Book Online

yellowed stack of old correspondence scattershot through the air. Ivy had hardly recovered when several books came flying by, at shoulder level, the pincers straining with their weight. She managed to dodge the first two—identical, ancient-looking texts easily as big as a trestleman—but the third nearly crashed into her at top speed. With an unfortunate grinding noise and an odd burning smell, the complex pulley system rerouted the book right over her head in the nick of time and off to the oblivious trestleman. At his desk beside the window, Axle received the deliveries distractedly and opened the top one from the stack. He looked over his shoulder impatiently.
    “Ivy? Rowan? Do hurry!”
    They arrived finally, and Axle began at once to flip through the enormous pages of the open volume. This would be hard going for anyone, but for a small trestleman it was a feat of athleticism. He muttered under his breath, and Ivy had the impression that he did this often. Finally, after resorting to the aid of one of his pincers, he found the page he was looking for.
    “You asked me before about my favorite of Verdigris’s creations.”
    He unhooked his wire-rimmed glasses from his nose and gestured with them at the open book.
    “This one is it.”
    Ivy and Rowan peered in wide-eyed. Although the sizeof the page was immense, the writing it contained was a tiny, ancient script. It was arranged in columns around a central image: a drawing, in the same hand as the lettering, in pen and ink.
    “A door?” Ivy couldn’t help herself. After the tales she’d heard from Axle over the years, it seemed a great disappointment that this might be the Good King Verdigris’s crowning achievement.
    Rowan, too, peered in closer.
    The drawing of the door was quite well done, very realistic. The ink was a faded brown, and the door appeared to be one of quality, but plain, with very normal doorlike attributes. Wood. A set of insets, a pleasing polish. Hinges. There was a round knocker in the middle, made of metal—painted in what appeared to be real gold leaf. Perhaps the only thing missing was a doorknob, but that hardly made it something to marvel at.
    Ivy couldn’t disguise her disappointment. She was hoping for a moment that she might riffle through the rest of this enormous book—perhaps there were better things than doors to see. All the stories she’d heard over the years from Axle, as well as the tall tales from the motley set of tavern regulars she’d grown up with, made Ivy a girl with high expectations. A door, no matter how well drawn, would just not do.
    As if reading her mind, Axle directed the pincer nearest to him to turn the page. Ivy’s expectations rose—and then weredashed. Sure enough, another door. Or was it the same door from a different angle? Ivy scoffed.

    “The other side of the door?” Rowan asked. He was more patient, basking in the presence of the great writer.
    “Exactly!” Axle couldn’t contain his excitement. He seemed quite satisfied with himself.
    “But, Axle.” Ivy couldn’t hold back. “You said that the Good King Verdigris created great things, things to marvel at.
This is just a door!
Show me this Rocamadour place! Got any drawings of that?”
    Rowan bristled at the mention of the dark city of the Guild and thought how he’d be quite happy staring at either side of a plain old door instead. He looked in closer.
    “Ah, Ivy. You are right—it is just a door. But there is an important question you need to ask yourself.” Axle sighed.
    “May I?” Rowan was hoping to turn back the page to get a better look at the first image. Axle nodded and continued.
    “What do you think of when you see a door?”
    Rowan gave a tug on the cable attached to the pincer, and obediently, the enormous page turned.
    “I don’t know. Something that’s locked?”
    “That’s odd. There’s no knob. And look—here. The pages after these two are missing! Look at the binding—someone’s torn them from the