The Accidental Keyhand by Jen Swann Downey

Author:Jen Swann Downey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2014-02-25T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

A SLIGHT CHANGE OF PLANS

That evening, Dorrie thought the apprentices would never go to bed. Marcus hadn’t helped by drawing different-colored circles on the floor with chalk and insisting that everyone had to learn how to play Twister. Only Millie had refused, saying she had some reading to do. After that, Mathilde had brought out a jar of popcorn kernels to roast over the fire in a wire basket with a long handle. Just when people finally began to pick up the pieces of their projects and games, and put down their books, the den door opened a crack and Izel slipped inside, home from the evening meteorology practicum.

She hung her emerald-green cloak on a peg. “Did you hear?” She didn’t wait for an answer before hurtling on. “The lybrarians have called all three keyhands back from Athens, 399 BCE.”

Dorrie spilled some of her popcorn at the mention of the archway she’d gone through.

“Why?” said Ebba.

Izel turned to face them, her eyes bright. “Socrates was found guilty.”

There was a general stir in the room, and little gasps and moans.

“Aspasia must feel awful,” said Mathilde. “She’s been working so hard to sway public opinion.”

“She couldn’t even get them to change the punishment,” said Izel. “The Athenian jury still sentenced him to drink the hemlock.”

Watching Izel, Dorrie couldn’t help but feel that the apprentice seemed more pleased with the excitement of bearing the news than bothered by its nature.

“But why call them back?” asked Marcus. “Why can’t the lybrarians just pour on a little ninja sauce and break him out of wherever they’re holding him?”

“Oh, what a brilliant idea,” Millie muttered, without looking up from where she sat scratching away with a quill. “We should try that.”

Mathilde pulled Sven’s fur and leather hat off his head and hurled it so that it caught Millie hard in the chest.

“Hey!” cried Millie.

“So sorry,” said Mathilde. “Meant to land it on a hook.” She turned to Marcus. “I think what Millie meant to say was that the Lybrariad would try to help him escape, only Socrates won’t allow it. He’d prefer to die and force his accusers to live with their decision, rather than to let them off the hook by escaping and living as a fugitive.”

Dorrie shivered. “So, it’s a pardon or nothing?” It was hard to imagine a person giving up his life just to make a point.

“I bet that’s why the Lybrariad called all the keyhands back in,” said Ebba. “To give themselves more time to come up with a last-ditch plan.”

“Because time will stop moving in Athens!” blurted out Dorrie, pleased to have remembered something about the Library’s rules.

Sven retrieved his hat from the floor. “I bet they’re going to try an aversion.”

“What’s an aversion?” asked Dorrie.

Mathilde laid aside her copy of The Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen. “It’s when the Lybrariad changes something in the past to try to save the life of a person farther along in history.”

Millie stopped writing. “You shouldn’t be talking to them about stuff like that.

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