Chapter 5: Old Enemies, New Concerns

AMBROSE FOUND ME in the Fishery.

I was working on a heat-sink schema for Kilvin when his shadow fell across my workbench. I didn’t look up. The cologne announced him before he was ten feet away---a smell like a perfumery had exploded in a brothel. The particular quality of his silence---the silence of someone who expects to be noticed---confirmed the rest.

“So the prodigal returns.” His voice dripped false pleasantry. “I’d heard rumors, of course. But I wanted to see for myself.”

I continued adjusting the binding, keeping my hands steady. The Adem training helped. Anger was an emotion I could set aside when necessary, and Ambrose was hardly worth the effort of unsetting it.

“What do you want, Ambrose?”

“Just to welcome you back.” He moved around the workbench, positioning himself in my line of sight. His smile was the smile of a cat who has cornered something interesting. “It’s been a quiet eight months without you. Almost peaceful.”

“I’m sure you found ways to amuse yourself.”

“I did.” His eyes glittered. “I made some new friends. Learned some interesting things. Discovered that the world is much larger than the petty conflicts we’ve waged here.”

“How philosophical of you.”

“How practical of me.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Things are changing, Kvothe. Powers are shifting. And when the music stops, people are going to have to choose which side they’re on.”

I finally looked up. What I saw there stopped me.

This wasn’t the Ambrose I remembered—the spoiled noble playing at politics. This was someone who had learned things. Been taught by someone. The arrogance was still there, but it had edges now. Purpose.

“Is that a threat?” I gave him my best smile, the one that showed teeth. “Because I’ve been threatened by Adem mercenaries and Fae royalty this year, and I have to say, you’re not quite measuring up.”

A flicker of uncertainty crossed his face, quickly buried. “Eight months is a long time, Kvothe. Long enough for people to forget why they ever liked you.” His smile turned sharper. “Long enough to realize they never really did.”

He turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing through the Fishery.

I watched him go, my mind racing.

Ambrose had always been dangerous in the way that children with power are dangerous—carelessly cruel, thoughtlessly destructive. But this felt different. This felt like purpose. Like someone was pulling strings I couldn’t see.

I went to the Archives that afternoon.

Not to research—not yet—but to observe. To see if the watchers Auri had mentioned would reveal themselves.

The main hall was as I remembered it: vast and echoing, filled with the smell of old paper and older secrets. Students moved between the stacks like ghosts, their footsteps muffled by centuries of accumulated dust. The scriv stations hummed with quiet activity.

And there, in the shadows near the restricted sections, I saw Lorren watching me.

He didn’t try to hide it. When our eyes met, he simply nodded—a small acknowledgment that we both knew what was happening. Then he turned and walked deeper into the Archives, disappearing among the towering shelves.

An invitation. Or a challenge.

I followed.

The path led through sections I knew well and some I’d never explored. Past languages ancient and obscure. Past histories that had been old when the University was young. Past doors that had no handles and shelves that held no books—only spaces where books had once been.

The pruned Archives, I thought. The knowledge that someone decided shouldn’t exist.

Lorren was waiting in a small study chamber, far from the main halls. The room held a single table, two chairs, and walls lined with empty shelves.

“Close the door,” he said.

I did.

“You’ve returned from somewhere dangerous.” It wasn’t a question. “You’ve learned things that are dangerous to know. And you’re going to keep asking questions that are dangerous to ask.”

“Is that a problem?”

“It’s reality.” He gestured to the empty chair. “Sit.”

I sat.

“I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told a student before,” Lorren said. “Something that puts both our lives at risk. I’m doing this because you’re going to keep digging regardless, and I’d rather you dig in the right direction than stumble into something that kills you.”

“I appreciate that.” Actually, I more than appreciated it. In my experience, the people who tried to keep me alive were a rare and valuable breed.

“Don’t appreciate it. Just listen.” He leaned forward, his stone face showing the first emotion I’d ever seen on it. Something like… resignation. “The Archives aren’t just a repository. They’re a weapon. A locked weapon, held by people who understand what certain kinds of knowledge can do.”

“The Amyr.”

He went very still. “Where did you hear that name?”

“Does it matter?”

“It matters very much.” His voice was cold. “That name is not spoken lightly. Those who speak it tend to attract attention they don’t survive.”

“And yet you’re not denying they exist.”

“I’m not confirming it either.” He stood, walked to the empty shelves, ran his fingers across them. “What I’m telling you is this: there are people who have spent centuries protecting the world from its own curiosity. People who make hard choices about what knowledge survives and what knowledge dies. People who understand that some doors should never be opened.”

“Even if opening them might save someone I love?”

Lorren turned back to face me. “Especially then. The doors you’re searching for—the ones connected to your parents’ death, to the Chandrian, to everything you’ve been chasing since you were a child—they’re closed for reasons. Good reasons. Reasons that existed before you were born and will exist long after you’re gone.”

“What reasons?”

“Some doors have been closed a very long time.” His voice was quieter than usual, stripped of everything but stone. “The people responsible for keeping them closed don’t distinguish between those trying to open them and those simply… curious.”

The implication settled over me like cold water.

“My parents—”

“Were singers. Collectors of songs.” Lorren’s face was stone. “Some songs are not meant to be sung.”

“You’re saying they knew too much.”

“I’m saying nothing.” He walked to the door, paused with his hand on the handle. “I’m observing that certain kinds of knowledge attract certain kinds of attention. And that attention is rarely gentle.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a warning.” He opened the door. “Be careful what you seek, Kvothe. The answers you find might not be the ones you survive.”

He left.

I sat alone in the empty room, surrounded by shelves that had once held knowledge—knowledge that someone had decided was too dangerous to exist.

The Amyr killed my parents.

Or the Chandrian did.

Or both. Or neither. Or some combination of forces I couldn’t begin to untangle.

The Cthaeh had told me Cinder killed my parents. Lorren was implying something else entirely. And somewhere in the middle of all these contradictions, there was a truth that everyone seemed terrified of me discovering.

I was going to find it.

I stood and walked to the door. My hands were steady. My mind was not.

Devi. She knew things about the Archives that even Lorren didn’t know. And unlike everyone else, she owed no loyalty to any secret.

Just to money. And leverage. And the truth, when it suited her.

Time to see what suited her today.