Chapter 3
Of all the things they could’ve assigned to me… Focus, I urge myself as I step into the Library, the plush red carpet muffling my footsteps.
I stop, glancing up at the gallery to my left, where I can already see the plain wooden door leading into the Restricted Section.
Another wave of anxiousness floods me from head to toe. I can’t seem to make up my mind about which scenario would be worse for me — successfully signing my name or failing to do it.
From what I could gather back when I had the fascination with it, the Book of Librarians can gauge your intentions about the Academy. The mechanics of its magic, however, are not known, which means I can’t come up with a plan to stop it from digging too deep.
While my sincerest intention is to be the best Archivist that has ever worked at the Academy, there are some things I’d prefer to keep to myself.
Just keep moving, I tell myself. Luckily, the Library is still empty so it’s in silence that I walk up the stairs and stop in front of the two guards posted around the Restricted Sections entrance. It’s Derek and Layla this time. I open my mouth to tell them I have clearance from the Pied Piper for the day.
But Derek is already opening the door for me, his lips curling into a smile as he says, “Congrats on finally getting a peek.”
It makes me let out a low laugh. I shake my head, say, “Thanks, you know me so well,” and I step through the door.
It startles me, when I hear them close the door behind me, and I find myself in a room with no windows, in silence even more total than the one on the Main Floor. Compared to it, this room — because the Restricted Sections area is more like a beehive of separate rooms connected with often hidden doors — is cramped, dimly lit and, well… It’s less organized, to say the least, I think as my eyes sweep over the books stacked into veritable towers between the overflowing bookshelves.
It makes a thrill rush down my spine, just thinking how organized I could make it.
I first need to get the fucking job, don’t I?
Treading carefully, I keep walking until I find a small desk with a single book on it.
That’s it. It’s just lying there, open and waiting for me to do my thing. Back to being excited, I walk up to it, I take the pen off the weathered wooden surface and I decide to just give it a try.
As soon as I lay the tip of the pen onto the rough paper surface below the last signed name, a painful jolt of electricity rushes through me.
I double back, dropping the pen to the floor.
What the…
I thought the magic would just start digging around my intentions about this job. This felt more like it was trying to open doors that I keep locked, things that have nothing to do with what I’m trying to achieve here.
I swallow around a lump in my throat, but despite the implied danger, I decide not to give up.
Frowning, I get the pen and try again, but all I get is another jolt of electricity. A more painful one this time.
I try again.
And again.
The fifth time I try, the magic leaves a burn on the fingers of my right hand, the one holding the pen.
I inhale deeply, fighting not to lose my cool.
Gritting my teeth, I remain standing there with the pen in my hand, my mind buzzing in search of potential solutions.
As a human, there’s nothing I can really do here but keep trying.
Hesitant to feel another one of those jolts, I keep holding the pen in my hand, but instead of trying to write my name again, I start skimming the ones already signed.
The last one is Orpheus, the second to last Zahur, then Fionnuala.
It makes me more hopeful, when I see it’s just first names.
As I skim, something starts happening with my vision. There’s this soft burst of light that blinds me for a second, making me grip onto the table.
Confused, I keep standing there even once it passes, staring at the book in front of me. I don’t know how else to describe it, what I feel next. Like something giving in deep inside me.
I don’t have time to linger on it.
The pen still in my hand and my eyebrows pulled down, I notice this soft movement somewhere ahead.
My heart racing and my ears pricked up, I let go of the desk and fix my eyes on the room in front of me, catching something black disappear behind that bookshelf over there.
For a second, I just keep looking at it, this powerful restlessness filling my limbs with the need to get going.
Don’t, I warn myself. They didn’t send you here to snoop around.
Still, the curiosity that’s drawing me…
It’s simply irresistible.
Slowly and on shaky knees, I start making my way between the bookshelves, until I see it again.
My eyebrows shoot up. It”s a black cat that”s just disappeared behind yet another bookshelf.
Without a moment of hesitation, I follow it, until I reach the last bookshelf to the right.
I peer behind and see a plain wooden door. No cat to be seen anywhere, but now the door is drawing me to it, irresistibly.
There’s a part of me that screams stop, but I don’t. I’m already holding out my hand and grabbing the doorknob.
The door opens with a soft creak. I peer inside, the sight before me immediately taking my breath away. I start walking — very slowly — down the polished stone tiles. It’s a relatively small, brightly but softly lit circular room with shelves carved into the ornate stone all around me. At the center, there’s a solitary stone pillar, looking as if it’s been placed there for perusing the books.
The cat doesn”t seem to be here. But the energy emanating from the books — leather bound tomes, delicate rolls of parchment, even some modern-looking paperbacks… It”s outstanding.
Holy shit, I curse when I finally realize where I am.
The Lexarcanum. The place where books choose people instead of the other way around.
Fuck. I definitely am not supposed to be here. As soon as I start turning back to the door, I feel the energy draw my eyes in the opposite direction.
I freeze, my jaw dropping when I look up a little.
There’s a book — a very old-looking tome — struggling to wriggle itself out of one of the top shelves.
My mouth still open, I watch it glide through the air and land on the stone pillar.
For a second, I just look at it. Then, looking around as if to share my shock with someone although there’s no one here with me, I walk up to the book.
I stare at it, frowning.
There’s no title, just a symbol on the bottom center of the cover — a cross with a stylized wheel on top that for some reason looks so familiar.
Before I even realize what I’m doing, I lift my hand and I touch the book.
The moment I do, the world around me falls silent. A shock of pain sets my very nerve endings on fire and I see everything around me explode in light, before it turns pitch black.
Then there it is, hitting me like a wave.
The knock.
***
There’s a sea of grass around me, and I’m making my way through it as if through water, pushing but never getting anywhere. There’s the tower shooting up into the sky somewhere on the gloomy, sticky horizon, and I’m so close, but every time I think I’m about to reach it, it retreats into the distance.
There’s this dread nestled in my throat, seeping into my bones. I’m running from something, and I can’t look behind. Whatever I do, I can’t look behind.
I keep running, or trying to, and all of a sudden, I find myself inside the tower, its stone walls at the same time seeming to shoot up into the air and crumble all around me.
Not crumble. Get swallowed by vines.
Fear floods my body with ice-cold fire. I look down to see my feet getting swallowed. I try to force my legs to obey, to start running again, but now my eyelids are getting so heavy, I can barely keep my eyes open.
It’s only getting closer, I can feel it breathing from the darkness that’s spreading from everywhere around me, before everything turns black.
***
I’m kneeling on the cold stone floor of the Lexarcanum, gasping for air and trying to blink the images and shove the feelings away.
What the hell just happened to me? I push myself up, my knees shaking as I do.
The book is still lying on the pillar before me, looking innocent as hell, while I’m here still fighting for air, feeling raw and disoriented like I haven’t felt in ages.
I run my hands down my face, trying to force myself to calm down.
Then this creepy clock sounds from somewhere behind me, making my heart stop.
I lower my hands — slowly because I’m dreading what I’ll see, I glance at my watch and just like that, all hope deserts me.
It’s eight o’clock, the Opening Ceremony is starting and I haven’t signed my name in the Book of Librarians.
Desolate, I force my legs to obey and start leading me out of the Lexarcanum. You have until tomorrow, I remind myself.
It doesn’t make it any better. I stop by the Book of Librarians, knowing I wouldn’t be able to make it work for me even if I had a whole week.
Out of sheer desperation, I pick the pen up again and I press the tip onto the paper.
There’s no jolt of electricity this time. Just the gliding of the ink-soaked tip across the yellowed paper.
My eyebrows raised, I finish signing my first name, put the pen down and take a step back.
How did I just manage to do that?
For a second, I just keep standing there, my mind buzzing as I try to figure out what the fuck is going on with me.
Even if it weren’t for feeling raw and disoriented… There’s something wrong.
I decide I shouldn’t be pushing my luck any further and I force myself to snap out of it. It’ll pass. Something weird happened here and it’ll take me a couple of minutes to go back to feeling normal.
So I take a deep breath, put the pen back and rush out of the Restricted Section, heading straight for the Opening Ceremony.