Chapter 11
Paige
Vanya hovers at the periphery of my sight, his razor-edge smile daring me to break.
He thinks he can crush me with a glance?
I huff. Amateur. Let him try.
Living with a secret that gnaws the marrow from your bones teaches you how to transmute shame into a weapon. A model of composure, I stare at the desk, my cracks invisible unless you know exactly where to look.
Vanya does, but today, I have my own plan.
At ten past one, after I’ve forced Vanya to vacate the property for lunch, I stack a pile of returns on a cart.
Then I call over Rebecca and Lacey to shelve them.
With that bit taken care of, I disappear through the staff-only door.
If Vanya wants to play king of the court when he returns, he’ll have to do so without me.
The library shelves, while impressive, only represent a small section of the building. Even Dr. Abernathy wouldn’t allow Vanya into these hallowed halls.
This is my domain.
As soon as I’m hidden from sight, the tension Vanya’s condescending presence brings fades.
In the narrow passages of the staff-only portion of the library, the hum of climate control and the slap of my own feet on the linoleum floor serve as the only interruptions to the quiet. After days of tightrope-walking while dodging grabby hands, the solitude overwhelms me.
I glide down the corridor, past the scorched-popcorn stench of the break room and the half-collapsed towers of recycled boxes and bins bulging with packing foam and tape.
Everyone’s so busy fawning over Vanya, they’re forgetting their basic duties. That’s going to change.
Pulling out my phone, I send a message to the staff, informing them that if the mess remains when I return, I’ll redo next week’s schedule so that only those who completed their work will receive hours.
Texting while walking comes easy here. I’ve memorized every step of this route over the past three years, the course ingrained from hundreds—no, thousands—of journeys. I could trek this path in the dark relying on just muscle memory.
I head to the acquisitions storage room.
Not a dusty warehouse bay, but a hermetically sealed, humidity-controlled clean room with constant air flow and special lights.
The room requires both a passcode and biometrics.
Only two people can get in here—Dr. Abernathy and me. Not even the janitor has access.
The chilly air wafts over me as I stride inside.
We keep the temperature in the mid-sixties all year long.
Low temperatures and low moisture levels preserve paper and prevent mold.
So does quarantine, which is another reason for this room.
Here, we unbox, clean, sort, and start the accession paperwork for each book in the collection.
Anything we can’t accomplish ourselves, we farm out to specialists or larger libraries.
After all, not every book we receive is suitable for us.
Shelves line every wall and every possible square foot of floor space, each one labeled in shorthand and cross-referenced to spreadsheets.
Chaos, if you don’t know the map, but I understand the process like the back of my hand and beeline straight to my target.
The Petrov Collection. Old Russian storybooks, translated into English for the British after World War I.
These books waited for months while I worked on the red tape to properly catalogue them. Acquisitions from outside the country—and over a century old—always take time and patience. Bureaucracy is a hell of a stumbling block.
The collection sits in three plain boxes on the bottom shelf of a rack about halfway through the room. I reach for the first and lug it to a worktable. Eighteen books, and this one holds six. A smaller archivist container with sharp metal edges sits at the very bottom.
The extra precaution came as a surprise, since the book inside wasn’t old or damaged enough to require additional protection. Clearly, someone deemed this book important, hence my desire to double-check everything. I also plan to ask an expert to inspect the markings on the binding.
If Vanya wants this tome for some secretive, nefarious purpose, then I need to figure out why.
After donning a pair of white cotton gloves, I open the box.
Faded blue calfskin stretches across the surface, tooled so finely that every flake of gold glints even under this ugly light. The cover features a white-haired girl in a field of darkness with foxes, crows, and a swarm of snowflake filigree circling her.
Solid binding. Thick pages. Well-preserved.
The Snow Maiden and Other Lost Tales is etched across the top in elegant script.
Out of habit, I open to the first page. Snegurochka the Snow Maiden, painted in blue and silver, starts the book off. I flip to the last page of the last story, where I locate the relevant line.
“The greedy tsar found only ice in his hands.”
I trace that sentence Vanya mentioned with a gloved fingertip. Then I return to the beginning of the story.
The tale is about a greedy tsar who doesn’t care about his family, only treasure.
This is what Vanya wants. What he’s spent the last week tormenting me for. With steady hands, I close the book.
Now it’s here in my possession, and he’s locked out.
Power surges through my limbs, leaving them heavy.
This could all be over. Today.
No one else knows this book even exists. No inventory card came with the shipment. Only the one crate was listed, with nothing about the number of boxes inside or the book titles.
The only proof is my own documentation, and I can erase that.
All evidence of The Snow Maiden sits in my hands, so I could just transfer my request for a specialist to a different book.
Keeping this hidden would be so easy.
I wipe the cover clean and archive the tome in a new polyethylene bag. Snegurochka stares up at me through the clear plastic, her cold eyes and expressionless face taunting me.
The stories of the Snow Maiden are sterile, traditional fairy tales. In them, she lives a happy life, until she veers from her normal existence and ends up as a puff of steam. Dead because she chose to abandon her safe routines, to set aside that which made her truly happy, what she was born to do.
Closing the book’s protective encasement with The Snow Maiden inside, I set it inside the carboard box and put everything back in its place.
Vanya believing I need time to search allows me to plan and consider my options before making a decision.
I leave the storage area. Maybe adrenaline’s fueling my actions, or maybe I’ve just lost my mind. Perhaps, it’s just wishful thinking. But for now, I’m blazing my own path rather than dancing on strings.
Back at the doors to the main library, I pause. The building appears peaceful and quiet, as it should be. Footsteps scurry behind me, everyone trying to do their jobs without getting caught by the boss.
I cross over to circulation, waiting for the weight of Vanya’s stare to smother me once more. When he returns from lunch, he’ll surely be bored, not that his sycophants have remembered they’re getting paid to work.
The weight never lands.
I raise my eyes and find the table he used all morning empty. Scanning the space, I check his normal hiding spots.
He’s not here.
As relief crashes over me, my entire body sags with exhaustion.
I fiddle with various paperwork, my eyes fixed on the glass doors as I await that smile, that suit, that predator role-playing a visiting professor and researcher.
Nothing.
He either left, or he’s in some far corner of the library.
At least he’s not pestering me.
For the first time in a week, a sense of freedom courses through me, leaving me as loose and calm as I allow myself to be at my job.
Even so, a little wiggle of anxiety still prickles at the base of my skull.
What if he really left? Good riddance, right? I’m happy if he’s gone.
But I can’t stop glancing at the table, at the doors, anticipating the way his intriguing accent will wash over me and tingle my spine.
Finally, I manage to pull myself together and concentrate on my tasks.
Until I hear the outside door open, which prompts my heart to drop into my stomach.
I take a deep breath, ready to snap a snarky greeting at Vanya.
However, Vanya’s not the one who walks in.
A frumpy man with brown hair glides across the threshold, a worn black trench coat hanging down to his ankles.
He’s unfamiliar, and while that’s not entirely unusual at a research library like ours, it’s odd to have more than a single new face over the course of a week. Vanya already claimed that slot, so who’s this guy?
The stoop-shouldered stranger with thinning hair pressed flat on his head approaches the desk with purposeful strides. He pins me with his laser-like gaze, his brown eyes alive and intense.
If asked days later, I bet he could describe me down to the color of my skirt.
My gut insists he’s a cop.
“Good morning, Ms. Kisner.” He flips open a badge. “Detective Colvin, Chicago PD. I’m looking for Dr. Abernathy. Just a quick follow-up on some open cases.”
I knew it.
Wait. Chicago?
That’s where Vanya’s from. I glimpsed his home address on his license when he paid the bill at Coquette.
The detective slides his card to me without saying a word.
I glance at the plain black print, then back to his face. A cold blade slices through my chest, locking me into place.
Police presence means exposure, which would strip away everything I’ve worked for.
“Of course, sir.” I use my best customer service voice, pairing the practiced blandness that ensures my invisibility with the expected bright but empty smile. “Dr. Abernathy’s upstairs. I can have someone take you right up.”
Rebecca’s still floating from her last Vanya sighting and already heading to the desk, her search for the Russian abandoned. I wave her over and hand Detective Colvin off, watching as they disappear toward the elevator.