Harmonic

Harmonic Read Free

Book: Harmonic Read Free
Author: Erica O’Rourke
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through stacks with the help of an archivist.
    Assuming the archivist on duty will speak to you.
    â€œThought you wanted to help,” Lockport says, folding his arms.
    â€œI do,” I say. “But isn’t there something a little more hands-on?”
    He shrugs. “The fifth years are starting their cleavings soon. You want to make sure the training looms are strung and tightened?”
    Handling the strings of the multiverse, the threads that make up the fabric of reality, is a delicate business. You can accidentally unravel a world, destabilize entire branches, trap yourself on the wrong side and never make it home. In the worst-case scenario, you could damage the Key World.
    To prepare, unlicensed Walkers like Del and Eliot work on looms, learning how to separate and manipulate the individual filaments. They start with yarn and gradually swap it out for finer, more delicate threads. Someone has to do the prep work and the swapping, but it wasn’t going to be me. My reputation might have taken a hit, but my pride was still intact.
    I pluck the paper from Lockport’s fingers and leave without another word.
    â€¢Â Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â Â â€¢
    The Archives smell like the very best kind of library—leather and old paper and pleasant dust. The stacks take up three floors, but like any library, there’s a central area—big wooden tables with paperweights and magnifying glasses, computers to access the more recent records, card catalogs and massive ledgers to find the older ones. And the archivists’ desks.
    Proportionately, there aren’t a lot of archivists. We have approximately one hundred and fifty Cleavers working at any one time, but there’s usually only three archivists, plus an apprentice on duty. It’s not a surprise that the room looks deserted when I arrive. My shoulders relax, my pulse slows, and I tell myself that the weird feeling in the pit of my stomach is relief, not disappointment.
    The list of frequencies Lockport gave me is absurdly long, and none of them is new enough to be computerized. For an instant I wonder if this is payback—if people hold me responsible for Monty, for my failure to see him or stop him until it was nearly too late.
    They wouldn’t be wrong, either.
    Regardless, I have to do this the old-fashioned way. I head to the card catalog and start flipping through the rectangles of paper, looking for the coordinates of each frequency and jotting them down.
    It’s nearly an hour before I’m done looking up call numbers. As I close the drawer, a gentle voice says, “Can I help you find something?”
    I spin around, heart in my throat, palms damp. But it’s only the Senior Archivist, a woman named Green, her Boston accent still pronounced. Her hair is carefully set and frosted, her face soft like rising bread dough.
    It takes a minute for my voice to come back. “Thanks, but I can find them,” I say. “Where is everyone?”
    She gestures to my paper. “We have lists of our own, I’m afraid. Addison, isn’t it?”
    I nod.
    â€œWe haven’t seen you in a while.”
    â€œNo, ma’am.” I flush. “We’ve been busy.”
    â€œIt seems so.” She peers at the list of call numbers. “Wouldn’t that go faster with some help? We can ask—”
    â€œNo, thank you,” I say quickly. “It’s no trouble.”
    â€œIf you’re sure,” she says, with a small frown. She looks grandmotherly, or what I assume grandmothers should look like. I barely remember mine, which is for the best. Rose Armstrong was a Free Walker, and if she hadn’t abandoned her family seventeen years ago, she’d be in an oubliette along with her husband right now.
    â€œAbsolutely sure.”
    Surety, I’ve discovered, is the only way to survive.
    I take my list and a map carrier back into the cramped stacks. Each aisle is flanked by

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