A Letter to the Luminous Deep (The Sunken Archive, #1)

by Sylvie Cathrall

My brother’s mind worked like a waterwheel – when something catches the wheel, it will persist in rolling, even if its progress is ultimately impeded by the obstacle.

You know, dear E., I must confess something altogether embarrassing and out of character. That book on Darbeni that I recommended to you – I have not read it entirely. I needed to cite one of the author’s translations of a particular primary source for my thesis, but as always, time was short, so I used the index, flipped to the relevant page, obtained my citation, and continued my research. It was shoddy work, really – the kind of thing that suggests I am not reading for my own enrichment but rather so I might choose the right facts to help me make a point to please the Chancellors.

What a fascinating thing an archive is! To think that a person’s entire life could be summed up in the jumbled, incomplete assortment of ephemera they leave behind.