Chapter 18 – — Librarian’s Note, Unsigned
Chapter Eighteen
“Be careful what you search for in the dark. Some things search back.”
— Librarian’s Note, Unsigned
The dining hall is loud and warm, and I can barely focus on any of it.
I push a piece of roasted meat around my plate, watching the gravy pool in the dip I’ve made in my mashed potatoes. My herbal tea has gone lukewarm, but I drink it anyway. I’m going to need it if I plan to stay awake in the library tonight.
“And then she had the audacity to tell me I wrapped the bandage wrong!” Lux throws her hands up, nearly knocking over Jace’s drink. “I’ve been wrapping bandages since I was twelve. My father is literally known as the combat professor. I think I know how to wrap a godsdamn bandage.”
“Maybe you were wrapping it wrong,” Ellavee says, smirking while staring down at her plate.
“I wasn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I wasn’t.” Lux stabs a roasted carrot with her fork. “And then Senna made me rewrap the same patient six times while she stood there watching with her arms crossed like I was some first year who’d never seen a wound before.”
“You are a first year,” Jace points out.
“That’s not the point.” Lux waves her fork at him. “The point is she singled me out. The whole time, Killian was over there wrapping bandages like a drunk toddler, and she didn’t say a word to him. But me? Daughter of Professor Bale? Suddenly I need to prove myself twice as much.”
There it is. The thing Lux doesn’t talk about directly but always circles back to.
Her father’s name opens doors, but it also puts a target on her back.
Everyone expects her to be perfect because of his name, and she’s exhausted from trying to live up to it while pretending she doesn’t care.
I know the feeling. I remember the way I used to feel treating patients in the clinic back home before…
“Senna’s tough on everyone,” Jace says gently. “It’s not personal.”
“It felt personal.” Lux slumps back in her chair. “Whatever, I’ll show her. By the end of the year, she’ll be begging me to wrap her bandages.”
“That’s the spirit,” Ellavee says dryly. “Petty revenge through superior wound care.”
“Damn right.”
I take another sip of tea. Across the hall, I can see Draven sitting with Malric and a few other vampires.
He hasn’t looked my way once, but his giant black wolf lies at his feet and hasn’t taken his eyes off me.
Those greenish-yellow wolf eyes track my every movement, unblinking. That wasn’t part of the deal.
What deal?
“Mae.” Jace’s hand finds my knee under the table. “You okay?”
“Hmm?” I blink, pulling myself back. “Yeah, just tired.”
“You’ve barely touched your food.”
“Not that hungry.”
He doesn’t look convinced but doesn’t push either.
His thumb traces a small circle on my knee, and I lean into him slightly, letting his warmth ground me.
This is what I need, this boy who has known me since we were children, who doesn’t need me to explain myself, who accepts that sometimes I disappear inside my own head.
“Did you guys hear about the breath year?” Ellavee asks, reaching for the bread basket.
“What breath year?” Lux is still fuming about the bandage incident.
“Cassia Venn was doing onsite work at a fissure in the Shorelands.” Ellavee tears off a piece of bread, casual as anything. “Didn’t make it back.”
The table goes quiet.
“What happened?” Jace asks.
“I don’t know the details.” Ellavee shrugs, but there’s something tight around her eyes. “Crawler attack maybe, or the fissure shifted. Does it matter?”
“How do you always know these things before everyone else?” Lux narrows her eyes at Ellavee. “Seriously, a student dies, and you hear about it before the professors even make an announcement.”
Ellavee smiles, brushing her blonde hair off her shoulder, that knowing smile she gets when she’s keeping secrets. “I pay attention. You should try it sometime.”
“To what? You lurk around corners listening to people?”
“I prefer the term ‘observing.’” Ellavee takes a bite of bread. “You’d be amazed what people say when they think no one important is listening.”
There’s something I’ve noticed before but never pressed on. Ellavee knows too many things. I’ve never asked how or why, and she’s never offered to explain. Maybe it’s from all of her late-night hookups she never gives us details about.
It shouldn’t surprise me that people die here. That’s what everyone keeps saying. But hearing it spoken so plainly about someone who was walking these halls days ago makes me sick.
“I didn’t know her,” Lux says quietly, “but still.”
“Yeah.” Ellavee nods. “Still.”
The noise of the dining hall feels louder now, all those voices and lives continuing on like nothing happened. Because for them, nothing did. Another name, another empty bed.
Across the room, I see a group of older students laughing about something. A couple in the corner feeding each other bites of dessert. Two demons arm wrestling while their friends cheer them on. Life goes on, even when someone’s daughter or sister or friend isn’t coming home.
Jace clears his throat, trying to shift the mood. “A patient came in today with something living inside him. It was a parasite from a fissure site, and you could see it moving under his skin.”
“Stop.” Lux holds up a hand. “If you tell me you got to watch them cut it out, I’m going to scream.”
“Theron was the Veilguard on duty. He opened him up and pulled this thing out.” Jace’s eyes brighten, animated in a way that makes my chest ache.
This is what he loves, and it’s exactly why he’s here.
This is the kind of thing I used to love too.
“Size of my fist, all legs and teeth, still squirming when it came out.”
Ellavee leans in, bread forgotten. “Was the patient awake?”
“They needed him conscious to avoid the nerves. He was screaming, but Theron kept working. Steady hands, no hesitation, it was great.” Jace shakes his head.
I recognize that expression. It’s the same one he gets when he talks about why he came here.
“That’s what I want, that kind of calm under pressure. ”
“That’s disgusting.” Lux stabs her meat aggressively. “And I’m insanely jealous. I got bandages and bedpan duty, and you got a live parasite extraction. The universe is deeply unfair.”
“Did the patient make it?” I ask quietly.
Everyone looks at me.
Jace squeezes my knee. “Yeah, he’s going to be fine. Theron got it all out. But another day and it would have reached his heart.”
I nod, trying to feel relieved, but all I can think about is Nella. The corruption spreading toward her shoulder. The clock ticking down.
“What about you, Mae?” Lux leans forward, oblivious to where my thoughts have gone. “How was your first day in the wards? Any drama? Any near-death experiences?”
“It was fine. Long.”
“That’s it? Fine and long?”
“I have a demon patient who throws things and a vampire teenager with a fissure wound from a twisted creature that won’t heal.” I shrug.
“You got a demon?” Ellavee raises an eyebrow.
“He’s three hundred years old and wants to die.” I reach over and give Poppy another slice of bread. She’s sitting on the bench next to me like a little human, watching everyone talk with those round black eyes. “But Poppy cheered him up. She has that effect on people.”
Poppy chirps and shoves the entire piece of bread in her mouth at once. Lux snorts.
“Your eidolon is a menace, and I love her,” Lux says.
I say, “She’s a perfect angel who can do no wrong.”
Poppy chooses that moment to reach across the table and steal a roasted carrot off Ellavee’s plate. Sighing, Ellavee slides her entire plate closer to Poppy.
“What about the vampire?” Jace asks. “The teenager?”
Nella’s face flashes in my mind. The wings pinned open, the corruption spreading. The fear she’s trying so hard to hide beneath sarcasm and walls she’s built up so high.
“She’s fourteen.” I stare at my plate. “Her name is Nella. She got slashed by a riftling three weeks ago, and no one can figure out how to stop the corruption. If they can’t fix it, they’re going to have to take her wing, but so far she’s refused to let them amputate.”
I see their grim faces.
“She’s just a kid,” I continue, not sure why I can’t stop talking. “She should be worried about school and boys and whatever vampire teenagers worry about, not whether she’s ever going to fly again or if the corruption is going to reach her heart before anyone figures out how to stop it.”
Jace’s hand tightens on my knee.
“Mae,” he says softly, “you can’t save everyone.”
“I know.” I push my plate away. “But I want to save her.”
The table is quiet. Even Lux doesn’t have a joke to fill the silence.
“I should go.” I push back from the table. “I need to check something in the library.”
“The library?” Lux stares at me. “We finished a long shift in the patient wards, and you want to go to the library?”
“I need to look something up.”
“You’re insane.”
“Probably.”
Jace catches my wrist as I stand. “I can come with you.”
I look down at his warm blue eyes and the worry creasing his forehead. The way he looks at me should be illegal, like I’m precious, like I’m his, when I know deep in my bones that I am neither.
“No, it’s okay.” I lean down and kiss his cheek, letting my lips linger. “I need some quiet time. I’ll see you later.”
He searches my face for a moment. “Don’t stay too late.”
“I won’t.”
It’s a lie, and we both know it.
I grab my bag and head for the door, feeling their eyes on my back. Lux says something, and Ellavee laughs, and the conversation picks up again behind me, filling the space I left.
Poppy hurries beside me, her little paws pattering against the stone floor. I reach down and scoop her up, pulling her against my chest. She’s so plump and furry and warm. I want to go back to my room and curl up with her and not think about anything, but I can’t.
As I pass through the doorway, I feel that prickle on the back of my neck. I glance over my shoulder without meaning to.
Draven is looking at me.