The library smelled of leather, dust, sea air and a wood fire that must have gone out long before they arrived.

Justin was the first to wake up, or so he thought. ‘Waking up’ wasn’t quite the right word. It was more as if he’d been thrust to the surface by a dark image, without knowing whether air or just another kind of blackness awaited him above. His head ached behind his eyes, a deep, dull ache – not like a hangover, not like a lack of sleep, but like a dream that someone from outside had forced into him.
He was no longer in the stairwell. He was lying on a carpet.

Above him, bookshelves ran along all four walls, reaching almost to the ceiling. Dark wood, a ladder, leather-bound volumes in yellow, brown, red, green, blue and black. Between the shelves stood marble busts, a globe, a map table and a large window, before which the night still refused to lift. In one corner hung an icon; in another, an engraved portrait of a pope, next to it a framed nautical chart of the eastern Mediterranean. The library was not a room, but an archived claim: Rome, Athens, Brussels, Vienna, Alexandria, Moscow, Manila, Sydney, Antioch and Istanbul – all bound in leather and arranged as if knowledge could protect a person from justice.

Justin raised his head and immediately regretted it. The room spun slowly, not dramatically, but with that naivety induced by a drunken stupor.

Next to the map table lay Justine, half on her side, one hand pressed against her temple. Her hair was dishevelled, her dress creased, but even unconscious she had evidently adopted a posture that looked less helpless than theatrically exhausted. Vittorio sat in a wing chair, his head lolling backwards, his hands resting on the armrests, as though he’d fallen asleep in the middle of an audience. Mary Carson was not lying on the floor. She was stretched out on a chaise longue, her eyes closed, her hands folded over her stomach like a princess laid out for her final rest.

On the carpet in front of the fireplace, the naked Brian stirred.

“I’d like to point out straight away that, over the last few years, I’ve woken up in many places that weren’t exactly ideal. This library isn’t the worst of them, but it scores points for its absolutely impeccable order. If anyone can explain to me why I’m not in the yellow room and why my head sounds as though an Orthodox blacksmith has been hammering out an advertising campaign inside it, I’ll listen for once.”
Emmett groaned from behind a low reading table. He had one hand on his chest and the other on a pile of books, as if he’d been trying to save himself through literature whilst asleep. He, too, was naked, as Justin quickly realised.

“I’d like to explain,” he sighed, his head throbbing, “that I didn’t enter this room of my own accord and that I don’t recall any socially acceptable invitation to a library. I remember yellow, Bak’s guilt, some very acrobatic conversations, and a desperate desire to have a different personality tomorrow. If we’ve all been kidnapped, I’d at least like to say that the kidnapper had good taste in furniture and little tact when it came to nudity.”

Brian slowly turned his head towards him. His gaze was sluggish, but alert enough to take in Emmett’s skin. Justin looked first at Brian, then at Emmett, and a realisation crossed his face that he did not voice. Justine noticed it despite her headache. She closed her eyes again, as if by doing so she could push the memory of Brian’s voice in the yellow corridor back into the wall.

At the other end of the room, Sun sat up.
She did so with more composure than anyone else. That didn’t make it any easier. Her hand went first to the back of her neck, then to the floor, then to her surroundings. She saw the exits, the windows, the bodies. Wolfgang was lying on his back less than two steps away from her, one arm over his eyes, his shirt – his only item of clothing – buttoned up to the top button, but not quite; he wasn’t fully awake yet, but his fingers had already been feeling the carpet, as if searching for a weapon or a lost knife.
Mary opened her eyes.

At first she said nothing. The silence of a woman like Mary Carson could fill more space than the screams of other people. Then she sat up, slowly, with the caution of an elderly lady and the fury of a queen.

‘I have no intention of spending the rest of the night in a library I have never set foot in. My head aches, my mouth tastes of bitter mastic and sugar, and I remember speaking to Miss Bak in a red room. After that, I remember…’ Mary hesitated. ‘That’s strange: I don’t remember how I got here. Mr Honeycutt, Mr Kinney: I may seem old and a bit prudish, but I do enjoy the sight of your well-toned flesh.” Mary smiled suggestively.

Emmett blushed and pulled the rug over himself. Brian, on the other hand, merely sat up and drew his knees up. He leaned against the bookshelf and rubbed his temples.
Sun stood up. She swayed almost imperceptibly, but Wolfgang noticed it and immediately sat up halfway.
“You’re not alone in this gap, Mrs Carson. I remember the red room, our conversation, and sitting down on the chair because, for the first time that night, I didn’t have to fight. After that comes darkness, and this darkness doesn’t feel like sleep.”

Wolfgang sat down and grimaced. He looked around, saw Fiona, and immediately grew more serious.
Fiona was lying on a chestnut-coloured cushion that matched the library. It had been carefully coordinated with the curtains. Her eyes were closed, but when Wolfgang was about to say her name, she raised a hand without opening her eyelids.
“I’m awake, Mr Bogdanow, and you needn’t sound as though I’ve already been laid out for a funeral. My head is heavy, my tongue is dry, and I remember very clearly that I gave you permission to sleep on the other side of the bed. I do not recall having allowed you to accompany me to a library, and so I assume that we are both innocent in this matter.”

Wolfgang laughed once, softly and painfully, because his head was giving him trouble.
“I didn’t carry you, Mrs Cleary, nor do I believe I would have had the courage to do so whilst fully conscious. I remember the blue room, your command to put on a shirt, more family history than one night can hold, and then nothing more. If someone moved us, they were either very strong, very patient, or very certain that neither of us would wake up in time.”
Meghan groaned on a leather sofa. Lito was kneeling beside her, equally pale, but alert enough to spot a carafe of water on the table. He picked it up, sniffed it, hesitated, and set it down again without drinking.

“I’d love to be the polite sort who offers everyone water, but tonight every drink suddenly has the chemical fumes of a sedative. I remember the green room, Mrs Cleary-O’Neil, and then a sleep that came too quickly. I won’t drink until someone other than myself explains why water in a library is supposed to be less soporific than coffee in a dining room.”
Meghan opened her eyes. For a moment, she seemed not to know where she was. Then she saw Lito, then the books, then Vittorio. Her hand flitted to her chest, as if searching for a cross she wore as a necklace.
“I was in the green room, and I hadn’t finished what I was saying. I remember being tired, but not the journey here, not a door, not any stairs, and not these bookshelves. If someone brought me here, they moved more of me than just my body, because I’m waking up feeling as though I’m lying in a room full of witnesses.”
Vittorio raised his head.

He looked older than he had in the stairwell. His gaze fell on Justin and Justine, then on Mary, Sun, Meghan, Lito, Brian, Emmett, Fiona and Wolfgang. He wasn’t visibly counting them, but they all realised he was.
Then he stood up.
“We’re all here. At first glance, that’s a comfort, even though I don’t know who brought us here. No one moves out of this room on their own, no one drinks, no one eats, and no one touches the door handles until we’ve figured out whether we’ve been locked in here, brought here, or simply gathered up like ripe fruit.”
Brian rubbed his face.

“‘Gathered’ is a very Catholic word for something that in Pittsburgh would be called kidnapping. I respect the library, I can put up with the headache, and I’m even trying to come to terms with the fact that three naked men are sitting on the same library floor. But I’d like to know very clearly right now whether it was Sun or the dead woman who carried us here.”
“At least I’ve got a shirt on,” muttered Wolfgang.
Sun pulled out a handkerchief, walked over to the library door and pressed the handle without touching the metal. The door was open. That was even stranger.
Justine slowly sat up. Her headache came in waves. Each wave carried a different fragment: Phaedra, Hippolytus, Valeria, Ralph, Brian in the yellow room, Mary’s love, Dane as a brother, Dane as a half-brother, Dane as a dead man.

“Sun is right here amongst us. I’m not saying she’s innocent because of that; we’ve already seen enough tonight to know what happens when you jump to conclusions. But she woke up just like the rest of us at the very moment someone apparently placed us, like figures, into another room, and that is the first time her presence bears witness to her innocence – unless she had drugged herself after dragging us up the stairs here.”
Mary stood up. She did so without help. Her composure returned more quickly than her colour.
“Miss Bak has only known this house since this evening. She couldn’t have dragged us down the stairs without leaving any grazes. We must have found another way back down from the first floor to the ground floor. Sun is innocent.”

Sun looked at Mary. The sentence was both a defence and a threat.

“There’s another possibility. Someone wanted to have us all in one place so that no one would be alone, or so that no one would see what was happening elsewhere. In either case, the library isn’t just a coincidence, but a deliberate choice.”
Justin now stood up as well, staggered and braced himself against the map table. On the map, the Aegean lay beneath his fingers. Hydra, Crete, Cyprus, Alexandria, the coasts of Asia Minor. Routes, islands, straits. He thought of Jilib, of the black reef, of salt and heat. Then of the bombé, of mocha, of sugar.

“This headache doesn’t feel like tiredness. I know that’s no proof, and I’m not saying this as someone who’s suddenly discovered medical expertise. But I’ve had enough bad nights in my life to know what wine, anxiety and too little sleep feel like, and this is different.”
Fiona now opened her eyes fully. She sat up, took the chestnut-coloured cushion onto her lap and examined it as if it were a key.

“This cushion comes from the library. If I didn’t place it under my head myself, then someone has not only moved people, but also things assigned to them. This isn’t mere haste, but a certain degree of care, and care in such a situation doesn’t point to the work of the dead.”
Wolfgang knelt down beside the edge of the carpet and examined the traces. A thief didn’t read rooms like the police did, but as possibilities: where someone might have gone, where furniture had been moved, which door was quieter than the others.

“The carpet is thick, but it’s not magical. If ten people had been brought here, you’d expect to hear noises, see traces, or have a very good reason why nobody woke up. I don’t like to say I’m impressed, but whoever did this has more planning than an ordinary burglar and more composure than a panicked murderer.”

Emmett sat up carefully and pulled the rug tighter around his shoulders.
“I’d hate to be the one to bring up the dessert, because despite everything that’s happened, I still owe the Bombé a debt of respect. But we all ate some, and we all drank coffee, and afterwards we were sorted by colour and taken to rooms where we apparently lost consciousness at roughly the same time. One of the two must have been laced with opioids. The masticha might have masked the poppy flavour.”

At the mention of “opioids”, there was a silence.
Not for long, but it was noticeable.
Vittorio closed his eyes. When he opened them, he no longer looked merely tired. He looked like a host who realises that, under his authority, something has happened in his house that he was unable to prevent.
“The cook served everything. Who, apart from Valeria and Sun, had the time and opportunity to tamper with the coffee or the ‘Bombé surprisè’ without being seen?”
Mary’s face hardened.

“Be careful, Your Eminence. Any one of us who went to the loo during the aperitif could have coated the cups with phenobarbital or soaked the candied fruit in laudanum.”
Sun rose to her full height. She now stood in the middle of the library, barefoot or almost barefoot, calm, with a headache and yet dangerously composed.

“I’ve been used before to make others look innocent. I won’t let tonight become a repeat of that, only with Greek walls and Australian names. If there are too many convenient culprits, I’ll get in touch with Kala Dandekar briefly. She’s a pharmacist and can help us.”

Vittorio shook his head. “Unless she lives on Hydra, you won’t be able to reach her by radio.”

“We don’t need a radio,” replied Lito. “But the story’s more complicated than that.”

Justine looked at Sun. According to Emmett’s theory, according to Mary’s suspicion, Sun hadn’t become any simpler. She wasn’t the stranger who needed saving, nor the fighter to be feared; now she was the medium who, with the help of a pharmacist without a radio, could identify the substance with which they’d all been drugged. Or who was simply devising something, with Lito’s and Wolfgang’s help, to conceal her poisoning plot even more effectively. She was a woman who had woken up in a strange house just like everyone else, only with more experience of facing suspicion.

“We’re no longer in the dining room, and Mary’s seating plan no longer applies. Nor are we in the coloured rooms, where everyone was locked away with their own pain. If someone brought us here, they’ve turned us into a gathering, and perhaps that’s that person’s first mistake, because now we have to look at one another.”

Brian looked at Justin. Justin returned his gaze, but not for long. Between them lay something yellow, something unspoken, something Brian could neither explain nor brush aside. Emmett looked down at his hands. Justine saw it and said nothing. Not every truth needed to be laid bare immediately.
Lito helped Meghan sit up. Meghan didn’t take his hand gratefully, but she took it nonetheless. That was already a small step forward for that night.

“I want to know if Dane is still in this house,” said Meghan, and her voice was so quiet that they all heard her anyway. “Not his body, not his ashes, not something you can carry, but what we do with his name. I woke up and, for a moment, had forgotten that he’s dead, and then it all came flooding back, worse than before, because now I know that even his memory wasn’t safe.”

Fiona looked at her daughter. She said nothing. Perhaps that was both her mistake and her love. Had Meghan now completely lost her mind?
Vittorio walked over to the library door. He didn’t touch the handle with his bare hand, but, like Sun before him, took a handkerchief from his pocket. The gesture was small, but it changed the atmosphere. Now the tragedy was once again on the verge of slipping into mere routine. He realised this himself and paused.

“I’m going to open this door, but I won’t be going out alone. We need to know whether the corridor is empty, whether Valeria or Dane are lying somewhere, whether the bodies are still in the courtyard, and whether the house remains surrounded by corpses on the outside. I’d like two of you to come with me, and the rest of you to stay here together, even if every instinct tells you to continue grieving in a room of your own.”
Wolfgang stood up immediately. So did Sun. Brian raised his hand, but let it drop again when Justin looked at him. Mary remained very still. Justine took a step forward, but Vittorio shook his head almost imperceptibly.
“Miss Bak and Mr Bogdanov will come with me. Not because I suspect them, and not because I consider them stronger than everyone else—although some here might claim both. They are coming with me because they can read rooms: one with her body, and one with the eyes of a man who has never fully trusted locks.”

Sun nodded slowly.

“I’ll come along, but I won’t lead the way like a weapon for others to use. I’ll walk beside you, Your Eminence, and Mr Bogdanow will walk so that I can see him. After this night, I don’t want anyone behind my back claiming they’re only trying to protect me.”
Wolfgang nodded too, looking unusually serious.

“I’ll walk beside her or in front of her, if she says so. I won’t touch anything that doesn’t need touching, and I won’t pretend this house is normal. If someone has been moving us around, that person knows routes I’d like to know about before they’re used again.”

Mary watched them as Vittorio finally turned the door handle.
The door was still unlocked.

That was worse than if it had been locked.
It opened onto the dark corridor. Outside, only every other lamp was lit. A sickly sweet smell wafted from the dining room: melted bombé and cold coffee.
Vittorio stepped out, with Sun beside him and Wolfgang, in his shirt, ahead of him.

The others remained behind in the library: Mary standing upright, Fiona with the chestnut-coloured cushion, Meghan at Lito’s side, Brian and Emmett in various states of undress, Justin at the card table, Justine beneath the bookshelves. Above them stood the volumes, silent and orderly.
Justine looked at Justin.

“We fell asleep like characters in separate chapters, and we woke up in the same library.”
Justin looked at the map beneath his hand. The sea was drawn there in light colours, harmless, almost beautiful.
In the corridor, behind the open door, they suddenly heard Vittorio’s voice sounding so different that everyone in the library looked up at once.