"All are dead. The Abhorsen has taken their map."

"It was expected. Those novices really had no hope against her. You should have listened when I first told you that. She is my mother after all."

"Of course. I'll remember that in the future. But what of the map?"

"She will help me make another. And this time, you will make copies of it before handing it over to an untrained necromancer." A finger was thrust first at Sabriel's spirit, trapped in a net woven of magic, then at a scribe cowering in the room's corner. "If you have nothing more important to trouble me with, leave." The door at the far end of the chamber flew open and slammed into the wall. showing a clear end to conversation on any topic.

Renga scuttled out of the room.

Katrel used his only recently discovered link to Orannis's mind to contact him. 'Don't you think a proficient retainer is a low enough price for eternal freedom?'

'Of course. But then, you can create them yourself. Renga is your strategist, not a common servant.'

'She's even worse at that.'

'You haven't come up with any brilliant ideas yourself.'

'We'll see about that.' He tried to shut off the link, but before he could, a disgruntled sound made its way to his mind.

He turned to Sabriel. "First off, what do you know of the fountain?"

"I know nothing other than it was made for Alliel, fourteenth Abhorsen. It is a fine work of art." The moment after entrapping her, Katrel had used a complex succession of bells to befuddle her mind and make her tell him any truth he wanted. She could still tell what wasn't right for her to say, though, and attempted to hide any important facts.

He, on the other hand, was having none of that. "What form does that statue take?"

"It was a perfect copy of Alliel."

"And was there anything different about Alliel?"

"I…she was a remembrancer."

"That will do for now. Describe the house in full detail, down to the last garden shrub and hidden room." There was no getting around this one. She would have to tell the traitor everything she knew about the house and its surroundings.

†††

It seemed the Book of the Dead was content to be amicable for a time. As before, Lirael opened to a blank page, and ink flowed to the surface to form words.

The books went in today. I must say, it gave me a touch of vertigo, watching them disappear like that. Wasn't much better when I went through either. It was a stroke of genius for him to disguise the door as the hole in the A, but it's horribly mean to do that since I can't swim. He says the water can't drown people, just like it can't ruin books, but it still worries me. In any case, the books are there if they are needed, and I'll never have to go down there again.

Alliel

'So, the only thing below the fountain is books. And yet, if it's just books, why couldn't they just be left in the study? If, it was because they were too important to risk falling into the wrong hands…' "I'll just have to go and see for myself, then," she said aloud.

Sure enough, fifteen minutes she was at the fountain, staring at the name engraved at the bottom. As a test, she stuck her hand into the water and pulled it back out. It was dry, but it glimmered with Charter marks. "But it's water! It can't be glamour!" She repeated the action to the same results before looking at the fountain from the corner of her eye. Lirael moved around, taking in every detail. The only thing missing was the water, and the center of the A in ALLIEL. Hesitantly, she swung one leg over the lip and into the fountain.

It was solid enough, and she brought the rest of her body to join that leg. It felt wet, but then she already knew she would come out dry. Lirael inched around the A and stuck in a toe. It instantly disappeared. She dropped to a knee, grasped both sides of the A, and lowered herself in. Just before her head would have dipped below the surface, Lirael's feet met what felt like a chair. She relaxed her arms and ducked so she could see inside.

The chair she had been standing on broke. The shock overwhelmed her arms, and Lirael plummeted to the floor with the bits of broken chair. As the dust cleared, Lirael was able to make out a table, much like the one in the study, and a bookcase behind it. All in all, the room was less than ten feet across. She rose, and walked to the shelf. It contained only four titles, and two she had seen before. The Book of the Dead was here, though in a plain brown binding and clearly not imbued with Chapter magic. There was the book she had first learned about the dark mirror from, and beside it was a very thin volume simply called This Place. Lirael took it and the other she had not read from the bookcase and went to the table. She fully expected to sit there and read before she realized she had broken the only chair in the room. Instead, she lay belly-down on the lush carpet and cracked open the first book.

It was written in the same flowing hand she had seen in the Book of the Dead, and looked as if it had been written hastily.

I am, or more likely was, Alliel. As you now know, the entrance to this place is concealed as the A in the fountain. This place was designed to hold secret books, like the one that is untitled, as well as to be a refuge in a siege, as is happening now. If you are under siege, take this tome with you, as well as the others. In enemies' hands, they would be deadly. If our attackers do not destroy it, the bookcase should be a three by three grid. The center bottom shelf, like the water and entrance, is only a spell, and so you may pass through it.

Lirael paused and did as the book instructed, finding a room with two beds and several shelves and bottles. She laid on one of the beds and went back to her reading. The next line was scratched out, and there was fresher text neatly printed above it.

We have consumed all the stores. They will need to be replaced. That is all there is to be known about this place. If you haven't already, you should turn to the other books now.

Below that, there was more written, though faintly. Lirael brightened the Charter light she had conjured, and leaned closer to the book.

I fear death. The pain in my stomach has long since passed, but now I am weak. We need to gather food from the gardens, but there's not an hour when we can't hear them above our heads. We still don't know how they got in, only that now we cannot escape what we had thought to be safety. Much longer and we will all succumb to starvation. If only I could see, I'd shoot them all down with spells, but I cannot. I can only sit, and wait.