Reached

made her do this? Surely she knew she’d get caught. “If anyone should get to punish me, it’s the person I stole from.”
    “No,” the head Archivist says. “You undermine
us
when you steal.”
    Three of the Archivists drop their lights and move forward.
    My heart pounds and I step back a little farther into the shadows. Though I come down here often, I’m not an Archivist. At any time my privileges—which are more than those afforded to most traders—could be revoked.
    I hear the click of scissors and the head Archivist steps back, holding Samara’s red bracelet up in the air. Samara looks ashen but unharmed, and in the lights still directed on her, I can see her sleeve pulled up and her bare wrist where the bracelet used to be.
    “People should know,” the Archivist says to the room at large, “that they can trust when they trade with us. What has happened here undermines everything. Now
we
will have to pay the price of the trade.” The others have dropped their lights down now and so her voice is the most recognizable part of her; her face is in shadows. “Paying the price for another is not something we like to do.” Then her tone changes and the incident is over, finished. “You may all go back to your trades.”
    I don’t move. Who’s to say I wouldn’t do what Samara did, if something passed through my hands that I needed for someone else? Because I think that’s what happened. I don’t think Samara risked this for herself.
    I feel a hand on my elbow and I turn to see who it is.
    It’s the head Archivist herself. “Come with me,” she says. “There’s something I need to show you.”

    She brings me through rows of shelves and through a long dark hall, her grip firm on my arm. And now we’re in another vast room ribbed with metal shelves, but these are all filled. They’re lined with everything anyone could ever want, every lost piece of a past, every fragment of a future.
    Other Archivists move among the shelves while some stand guard. This room has other lights, strung along the ceiling and glowing faintly. I catch a glimpse of cases and boxes and containers of uneven sizes. You would need a map to find your way through a place like this.
    I know where we are before she tells me, even though I’ve never been here before. The Archives. It’s a little like seeing the Pilot for the first time; I’ve always known of the existence of this place, but to confront it face to face makes me want to sing or weep or run away; I’m not certain which.
    “The Archives are filled with treasures,” the Archivist says, “and I know every one.”
    Her hair shines golden in this light, as if she is one of the treasures she guards. Then she turns to look at me.
    “Not many people have been here,” she says.
    Then why me?
I wonder.
    “There are many stories that have passed through my hands,” the Archivist says. “I always liked the one about a girl who was tasked with turning straw into gold. An impossible piece of work, but she managed it more than once. That’s what this job is like.”
    The Archivist walks partway down an aisle and lifts a case from the shelf. She opens it and inside I see rows and rows of paper-wrapped bars. She takes one of them out and holds it up. “If I could,” she says,“I would stay in here all day. This is where I began my work as an Archivist. I sorted the items and cataloged them.” She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, and I find myself doing the same.
    The scent coming from the case is familiar, a memory, but I can’t place it at first. My heart beats a bit more quickly and I have a sudden rush of remembered anger; unexpected, out of place. And then I know.
    “It’s chocolate,” I say.
    “Yes,” she says. “When was the last time you had any?”
    “My Match Banquet,” I say.
    “Of course,” she says. She closes the case and reaches for another and opens it. I see glints of silver that at first I think are boxes from Banquets but instead are forks, knives, spoons. Then another case, this one handled even more gently than the others, and inside I see pieces of china, bone white and fragile as ice. Then we move to another aisle and she shows me rings with red and green and blue and white stones, and over again to another row, where she takes out books with pictures so rich and beautiful I have to hold my hands together so that I won’t touch the pages.
    There is so much wealth in here.
Even if I wouldn’t trade for silver or