Wildwood Imperium (Wildwood Chronicles 3)

It became clear that in the intervening months since Prue’s last time at the Mansion, the place had been stripped of its staff as it had been stripped of its influence and importance in day-to-day affairs. It was a sad shadow of the bustling place it had been prior to the revolution. Gone were the attendants and the secretaries, the butlers and the maids (Prue wondered what had happened to Penny in the time between; she hoped she was safe). Instead, a few grumpy bureaucrats tried to do what the veritable army of staff had worked to achieve, and the deficit was clear. Each room had the same look of the foyer: The day-after-an-apocalyptic-party decoration scheme was carried over throughout the building. The three of them, Prue, Charlie, and the badger (whose name was Neil), wandered the massive building, asking directions when they could from the harried staff. No one seemed to know where the archives were; they were continually being sent in the wrong direction, ending up in strange dead ends and janitor’s cupboards. They lost about half an hour in a larder they’d stumbled on because Charlie was hungry. Replenished, they continued their search, which finally led them up a steep, winding staircase in a far-flung wing of the building. They found themselves at a wide wooden door with the sign ARCHIVES hanging over it.

“I’m guessing this is it,” said Neil helpfully.

Prue pressed the door’s iron handle and watched it slowly, creakily open into a giant, circular room that appeared to occupy the entire top floor of one of the Mansion’s towers. The windows were set high on the curved walls, walls that seemed to be built entirely of bookcases.

Made of a dark, marbled wood, the bookcases towered over the room and were filled with a staggering number of binder spines, all colored the same bland off-white. Several ladders, attached at a high rail, provided access to the higher shelves, and it looked to Prue that someone would risk a very serious injury if they needed to consult any of those volumes. A few lecterns were scattered about the carpeted floor of the room, and a small desk presented itself directly in front of the open doorway. There was someone, or something, cowering underneath the desk, Prue could see. The round feathered cap that peeked above the desk’s leather-covered surface gave him away.

“Hello?” asked Prue.

No answer came.

“Hello?” she repeated. “I can see you, you know. I can see your hat.”

A shuffling sounded, echoing in the high, vaulted chamber. The hat disappeared below the desk.

“I have a form here,” said Prue, undeterred. “Signed by the Interim Governor-Regent-elect. I need to look something up.”

Finally, a voice replied, “No one here!”

Prue and Charlie exchanged a confused glance. “I can hear you,” said Prue. “You’re talking to me.”

A silence followed as the speaker apparently considered this oversight on his part. The hat appeared again, above the lip of the desk. “Well,” said the speaker, the whoever-it-was under the desk, “make it quick, then.”

“Why are you hiding?” asked Prue.

“Is that your question? Is that what you’ve come here for? Will you leave if I answer?”

Prue knitted her brow. “No,” she said. “That’s just me being curious. That’s what a normal person would ask.”

“So what’s your form for, then? What are you here to look up?”

“I need to find a record of someone who was exiled, five years ago. Think you’d have that somewhere?”

“No,” came the definitive answer.

“You didn’t even look,” said Prue.

“I did.”

“You didn’t move. I can still see your hat.”

The speaker behind the desk let out a loud, importuned sigh, as if cursing his telltale headwear. “I don’t have to look. The records aren’t there.”

Prue’s stomach dropped. “What do you mean, they’re not there?”

“They’re not there. That’s what I mean.”

“Can you look again? How can you be sure?”

“I just looked. You’re the second person today who’s had me look.”

“Second? Who was the first?”

“Listen, I know you’re angry about this and I can understand your frustrations, to a certain degree. You’ve come looking for something and it isn’t here. I apologize. As the keeper of the archives, it is as dismaying to me as it is to you, rest assured. Perhaps more. Dismaying. To me. However

, there’s little I can do, and it is likely only a matter of hours before the next riot comes through, and I’ve just finished this morning putting the place back to order.” During this recitation, the hat began to float upward, and soon the speaker’s brow was revealed. Prue was surprised to see it was a rather large tortoise who’d been speaking. “Now if you’d kindly let me be, I can better protect myself.”

“Just, please,” said Prue, now more uncertain about her next step than she’d been in the past many weeks. “I need to know. He could be anywhere. Maybe the record is misplaced somewhere. Did you look anywhere else?”