The Bookkeeper of Enneduin

Chapter 1

The massive skylight made of a mosaic of colored glass made this Daena's favorite wing of the library. With each step, the colors that shone down onto her changed and shifted. When she was very little, she would sit in the center of the circular space, and wiggle her fingers to make the colors dance. Blues and reds and greens had jumped from her hands to the floor and back again. If she wore a braid that day, she could hold it out in front of her and imagine she had turned her hair any color she could imagine.

She'd been eight, or perhaps nine years old when her father found her lying on the ground, studying the mosaic hundreds of feet above her. He laid beside her, and explained that the glass had been forged by the Stone elves thousands of years earlier, during the reign of King Halbor, to celebrate the joining of the elves into one nation. The jagged grey and brown and red pieces represented the Stone elves. For Water elves, flowing designs of blue and teal and pink. Lengths of green and yellow stood for the Woods elves.

"And the stars?" Daena had asked, reaching her little finger into the air and watching it turn white. She frowned. What a terribly boring color.

"The forgotten race," Peregrin responded, tucking a hand beneath his head. "The Light elves, who disappeared a decade following Halbor's death."

"Which is Mother?"

Peregrin sucked in a sharp breath at the mention of his wife, but swallowed his pride and pulled his daughter close into his side. She shifted to lay her head on his chest, and he smiled. "Your mother is a Stone elf."

"What are we?"

"Stone."

"We don't look like it." Daena turned to look at her father, and studied the features they shared. Pale skin, so void of color she could see the blue trails of veins in his neck. Opal eyes that shifted between shades of grey and blue. And hair that was the same silvery-white as moonlight. Nothing like the dark hair all Stone elves wore.

"No, I suppose we don't. Our family has been beneath this mountain since the time of King Halbor. Being hidden away from the sun for so long has changed our features. And I imagine the magic of the Library has something to do with it too. Making us different enough that anyone can recognize us should they need access to the books."

Daena scowled. "The Library is magic?"

"I think so." Peregrin pushed up off the ground and rose to his feet with a small grunt. He glanced up at the skylight, then down to his daughter, and winked. "Don't you?"

He didn't wait for her to answer before he turned and disappeared behind a wall of shelves.

The memory made the back of Daena's eyes sting. Years had passed since that quiet afternoon. She had grown, and her father was gone. And her confidence in the Library's magic was too.

"Daena!" Enel called from the midst of the labyrinth of shelves behind her. "I'm fairly certain this book does not belong here."

Daena tucked a scroll she'd been holding into its place between others of a similar age, and turned to find her friend. She was not in Halbor's wing, but in the halls that branch out behind it, much further than Daena had anticipated. But that was how sound traveled in the Library. Some days a voice which sounded miles away came from just a few shelves behind her, while others, a whisper from rooms away was as clear as though the speaker stood beside her.

"Can I see?" Daena asked, extending her hand and taking the small book from Enel. The bracelets her friend often wore tinkled softly as she sifted through more books in the stack she'd been organizing.

The little tome Daena examined was bound in leather, a style which wasn't common until a few hundred years following Halbor's reign. "No, this is likely in Gildir's wing. Or...perhaps Adanthir's. Or..."