Overdue (The Library Trilogy, #1.5)

by Mark Lawrence

“When you sell someone a book you give them ownership of something without it being taken away from anyone else. You give them a ticket for a voyage. A door to other worlds. People walk out of here not truly knowing what they’re carrying with them. They used to put locks on books. Did you know that? Individual locks. I don’t approve of that, but I like the symbolism. You still need a key to open a book. I’m not talking about turning the cover here – to open the story, you need a key, and you are the key. Perhaps you won’t fit. Perhaps you will and the story will open for you.”

“But people don’t value what has no price,” Yute said. “People receiving stories for nothing do nothing with them. Where books are so cheap that the price isn’t noticeable they drift in unloved heaps. The freely given is stepped over in the rush to spend on something we’re told we can’t have unless we pay.”

“Follow me!” He aimed for a mysterious tone and hoped he hadn’t landed in creepy territory as he led the way out among the aisles of his reduced kingdom.

“Any.” The girl shook her head. “It’s stupid really. I should just change my name to Amy. It was a joke between my parents. A dad joke, I guess. My mother said, ‘what shall we call her?’ and he said ‘Anything’. So, being idiots, they did. Any for short.

“I think Cole Worth put everything he had onto those pages,” Marie answered, after a pause. “Whether that’s good or bad, subpar or sublime, depends on the reader. I think maybe you’ll like it.” She thought more than ‘maybe’ but she didn’t want to overegg the thing – nothing kills off a book like too much hype – though ironically hype’s exactly what’s needed for them to flourish. Similar deal with oxygen: too little, you die; too much, you die.

“I wanted to have said something that was heard. To have been seen and to have had that make a difference to someone.”

I think … I think that everyone who ever lived is still alive in every moment of their lives, strung out through the prism of time like beads on a thread.”

She put the book in her bag then looked up with a slight frown. “Have you sold me this book?” “Given,” Nicholas said. “And that’s even better.”