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المكتبة الملعونة

Ch. 1 · The Cursed Library

The mansion at night. Rain begins. Every window in the long stone facade is lit gold except one small ground-floor window, which stays black.
  1. Narration: House D. Hart keeps every window lit. Every window but one.
  2. Narration: Kal D. Hart is three years old. He has never been outside.
Inside the corridor. A boy small enough to sit between the two doors waits on the flagstones, chalk dust on his fingers.
  1. Narration: The corridor is the only place in this house where Kal is allowed to exist.
A knight walks past. Kal has crawled toward the warm door; a boot sends him back across the stone.
  1. Narration: He stopped crying months ago. Crying made it last longer.
Servants pass through the corridor on their way from the kitchens. One of them lets a scrap of bread fall without breaking stride.
  1. Narration: The house feeds him the way it feeds the dogs. Whatever falls.
Bran stands his watch at the iron door. Kal sits against the wall beside him, and the spear stays pointed at nothing.
  1. Narration: The door guard is called Bran. In three years he has never once pointed that spear at the boy.
Steward Halden comes through the warm door with a lantern and a ledger to check that the boy is still alive.
  1. Narration: Steward Halden keeps the house's accounts. He is the only one who writes the boy's name down.
  2. Steward Halden: Eat what you're given. If you die down here, I have to explain it.
Halden sets down the day's bowl and writes the boy down as an expense.
  1. Steward Halden: A dead child brings questions. A thin one doesn't.
The Lady of the house comes down to the warm doorway and looks at the boy without speaking.
  1. Narration: Once a month the Lady of the house comes down to look at him. Serine D. Hart. She has never said a word to him.
A new maid comes down the corridor with a covered tray and kneels to the boy's level.
  1. Mira: I'm Mira. I work in the kitchens.
  2. Mira: I brought you something warm.
  3. Narration: Nobody has said hello to him in a year.
Mira holds out bread. At the other end of the corridor Bran turns his back and studies the iron door.
  1. Mira: Go on. I won't tell.
  2. Narration: The guard turns around and studies the iron door as if he has never seen it before.
Kal eats. Mira wipes his cheek with the corner of her apron. Bran keeps his eyes on the door.
  1. Mira: There. Now you look less like a ghost.
Late night in the corridor. Kal sleeps curled against the iron door; Bran keeps his watch.
  1. Narration: For one night, the corridor is almost warm.
Three nights later. Knights push through the warm door and take hold of Mira in the corridor.
  1. Narration: Three nights later, they come for her.
The knights disarm Bran. Neither prisoner resists; Bran looks at the boy instead.
  1. Narration: Bran does not fight. He looks at the boy instead, and lets them take the spear.
Lady Serine stands in the warm doorway and passes the sentence without raising her voice.
  1. Lady Serine D. Hart: She fed a marked thing. That is treason. So is standing aside while she does it.
The courtyard in the rain. Mira and Bran kneel on the raised step; the house watches from the windows above.
  1. Narration: The courtyard. Rain. The house does its quiet work where the windows can watch.
Voss takes his time. Mira kneels in the rain with her chin up.
  1. Narration: Captain Voss has done this before. He does not hurry.
The dead end of the passage. Kal drags a loose stone block under the barred vent and climbs up to it.
  1. Narration: There is one window in the passage. It is high, and barred, and it looks down into the yard.
Through the vent, high above the courtyard: Mira and Bran kneel on the step and Voss raises his sword.
Kal presses his eye to the gap between the bars, then shouts down into the yard.
  1. Kal D. Hart: Mira—!
  2. Narration: The rain takes it. Nobody looks up.
The yard afterwards. The step is empty, the torches still burning, and the shutters come down over the lit windows.
  1. Narration: The house closes its shutters. By morning the step is clean.
Morning. The corridor is grey and the lantern is out. A bowl slides across the flagstones toward the boy.
  1. Narration: Morning. The lantern is out.
The kitchen girl walks back to the warm door without looking around. Kal kneels by the bowl and takes it.
  1. Narration: The new girl does not look at him. Not once.
Kal alone in the corridor with the bowl in his hands, working out what the house has just taught him.
  1. Narration: Kindness is a crime in this house. He has just learned what it costs.
  2. Narration: He is three years old. He will remember this for thirteen more.

End of Chapter 1

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Chapter 2 · written, not drawn yet

The Second Door

Kal is five, and his brother has just opened the iron door to see what the library does to him.

about 24 pages · drawn in about 10 minutes · free for everyone after

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