CHAPTER THREE #2
Somehow, even though there was not a free surface to rest an elbow or write on, there was still an organization to things. A system, as Cato would say.
He unlocked the top drawer of his desk with a click.
The neon yellow folder he pulled out was one that I was very familiar with.
It was where he kept notes on pending basement-level projects, before they were finished and ready to be filed away.
He leafed through a few packets held together by paper clips.
Finally, he made an approving sound in the back of his throat as he landed on one that he liked.
“Here,” he said, hand outstretched. “Take this one.”
I opened the packet and skimmed over the first page.
Enforcers who had ventured Outside on reconnaissance had encountered what they described as a “wind” or “breeze.” They had thought nothing of it at first. But, in what they estimated was about thirty seconds after the encounter, one of the men had gone mad.
Screaming, clawing at his face, lunging at the others…
I felt increasingly sick to my stomach as my eyes traveled down the page.
“Not too much for you, I hope?”
When I looked up, Cato was studying me carefully. “Not at all,” I assured him. “Gruesome, but…hey, I asked for something more intriguing, right?”
In the silence that followed, Cato crossed his arms and regarded me with a furrowed brow. “Maila,” he said after a moment. In my ten years working in the Library, I had rarely heard such a serious tone from him. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, of course,” I said quickly. “Why do you ask?”
“You just seem off today. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see you enthusiastic about your work.
” When I gave him a puzzled look, he clarified, “You always do a great job. You know this Library like the back of your hand. But you tend to keep your head down and do what you’re asked.
You’ve handled plenty of projects that had meat to them, but only when I assigned them to you.
You’ve never taken the initiative to ask for one. ”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. What was up with me lately? And not in the sense that Cato was referring to, but in the fact that everyone kept questioning me about my feelings. Was I suddenly wearing every emotion on my face?
“I’m not sure,” I finally replied. When the crease in his brow deepened, I added, “I’d like to keep learning as much as I can and make myself as valuable to The Council as possible. Maybe hold a position like yours one day.”
Once again, I wove some truth into the lie. There wasn’t much left that I hoped for in life, but I figured if I still had many years ahead of me and time to fill, becoming the Mentor of the Knowledge Center after Cato was an admirable goal.
He shut the drawer and relocked it, then moved around the desk to make for the door. I turned to follow and almost ran into him as he spun to face me.
“If you ever need someone to talk to, about anything, I’m here. You know that, don’t you?”
The sincerity in his voice made my chest tighten. “I do. Thank you, Cato.”
He grinned. His teeth were perfectly straight and so white that they almost glowed. He pulled his keyring out of his pocket, slid the key to the basement off of it, and tossed it to me. I almost dropped the packet I was holding to catch it.
“Good! Now get to work.”
You would think that the section of the Library that contained our most crucial—and often most frightening—findings on magic would have an air of importance about it.
Something that signified its potential to cause mass hysteria in Cyllene if the specifics of what existed just outside the walls was ever released to everyday citizens.
The books on marsh wolves on the sixth floor? Those struck fear in citizens, which reinforced that they should never disobey the law regarding leaving the walls. But they also satisfied some of their curiosity about what lies Outside.
Books on an evil wind that makes you go insane before you even know what’s happened? According to The Council, that was the terrifying shit that everyday people didn’t need to know.
But considering the gravity of its contents, the basement level was nothing special to look at. Through an unassuming beige door, down a flight of concrete stairs, at the end of an equally bland concrete hallway, was the entrance.
Which, unsurprisingly, was another unassuming beige door.
When I stepped inside, the familiar musty smell filled my nostrils. It was the scent of an obscene amount of paper crammed into a room with limited air flow. And mixed in with that, the damp, earthy scent of mold.
Even without the lantern in my hand, I could have followed the path to the other lanterns, placed strategically around the room, by memory. I clicked on each one and watched as the room began to fill with light.
Much like Cato’s office, the basement was encased in wall-to-wall books, except with no window to break it up.
The door had the appearance of being crammed in the middle of it all.
In the center of the room were four sets of wooden tables and chairs, arranged in a square.
On top of each table was a lantern and scrap paper for scribbling notes.
Despite the smell, it was an effective room for perfectly quiet, focused research.
Nothing contained in it was archival quality, but we made do with what we had.
Those with the expertise to design something on that level for us, with conditions perfect for long-term preservation, had likely all perished since The Awakening.
A perfect example, as Cato would say, of why our task to preserve any and all Pre-Awakening knowledge was so crucial.
On the table to the left, in the row closest to the door, sat a massive black binder.
So heavy that in a crisis, you could probably use it as a weapon.
Inside was an ever-growing index that Cato had created.
It acted as a guide to the many shelves, which contained notes, compilations, guides, and drawings.
Most of which were compiled in notebooks or stapled together by hand.
A couple books of actual published content could be found in the mix, but they were few and far between.
Those had been released by a few fast-acting universities and research groups when The Awakening first hit.
Studies that contained initial observations about the strange creatures and phenomena—everyone had resorted to simply calling them “magic” at that point, having no other rational way to explain them—that suddenly appeared in the world seventy years ago.
Magic-wielding beings, seemingly magical occurrences, and magic-ripe locations…
despite how drastically the world had changed since The Awakening began, and the countless limitations that cities like Cyllene had to navigate, we had managed to expand on many of those initial observations over the years.
Mainly thanks to the Enforcers, since they were the only citizens whose work assignments required them to venture beyond the walls.
And thus—the collection of spiral-bound notebooks and hand-assembled guides.
I sat down and began flipping through Cato’s giant index, looking for terms that seemed relevant to the project in my hand. Terms like “wind.” When I couldn’t find “madness” in the index, I ran through a mental list of synonyms.
I checked again, and was pleased to find an entry for “psychosis.”
Once I had a list of ten or so items that referenced those terms, I began scanning the shelves and gathering the corresponding books. Then I plopped back down in the chair, flipped my braid over my shoulder, and got to work.
After two hours and a few more trips to the shelves, I had three full pages of other possible occurrences, similar phenomena, and anything else that seemed relevant.
Was that enough to ward off any suspicion if Cato came down to check on me?
I scanned my notes again.
It was.
With a deep breath and a jolt of anticipation, I returned to the index.
I had been turning the memory of Kieran’s silver eyes over and over in my head all day, and my brain had finally offered up a mental image that nearly had my hands trembling. It was a colored drawing of eyes very similar to Kieran’s looking out from beneath a dark hood.
My search began with the terms “hoods” (this word was not in the index) and “darkness” (over thirty books referencing this one), as well as “eyes,” which I figured would make reference to any creatures or beings with exceptional eyes.
I spent over an hour looking through the corresponding books.
No luck.
Some books were instantly familiar when I glanced at their covers. But once my memory was refreshed of the contents inside, I already knew they didn’t contain the drawing.
I rested my elbows on the table in front of me, face in my hands.
I had seen those eyes before. Or at least the closest you could get to recreating them with a set of colored pencils.
Savoring the knowledge that I was truly alone in the basement with no one around to hear me, I threw my head back and let out a growl of frustration.
It was here. I knew it was here.
I returned to the index yet again, this time reading every term, one line at a time. It was completely inefficient, I knew. Reading the entire index like this would take hours. But I couldn’t think of another option, and I was not giving up.
I made it all the way to the letter M. I was powering through a sickening twist of my stomach at the word “mutilation,” remembering a few unfortunate books on that topic, when it hit me.
I flipped furiously until I reached the page with the letter U. And there it was.
“Unexplained.”
Technically, everything to do with magic was unexplained in one way or another.
But the situations referenced under this label were ones in which we were truly clueless.
There were several titles jotted in Cato’s handwriting, but I already knew which one I was looking for.
I made a mental note of the name and description, then practically ran to the shelf on the far wall.
When I pulled down the small leather journal, my pulse was thundering so loudly that I could feel it in my ears.
Only eighteen pages contained actual content. The rest was blank. The title scribbled onto the front cover in Cato’s handwriting read “Matthew’s Travel Diary.”
According to Cato’s notes pasted carefully onto the inside cover, Matthew was a man in his thirties who was alive at the start of The Awakening.
He was an avid hiker and nature enthusiast, and in those initial months of Post-Awakening chaos before the walls went up, he decided that he wanted to do something useful.
He and his team of ten other men and women bravely set out from the city on foot with the goal of traveling around the continent and documenting their findings on magic.
But only a few short days after Matthew’s departure, one of his team members reappeared at the old police station—now Enforcer headquarters—in Cyllene. The man was mute. Eyes glazed. Practically catatonic. He could not speak of what happened to Matthew and the other members of their team.
He was still wearing his backpack, and although it looked as weathered as he did, it provided a few clues. One was on the eighteenth page of Matthew’s travel diary.
The last page with content.
I flipped to page eighteen, and my earlier appreciation of being all alone in the basement dissipated. A chill ran down my spine.
No one knew how this man, who lived for only a few weeks more before dying of unknown causes, came to be in possession of Matthew’s diary.
But on that last page, there was a sketch of a figure in what appeared to be a black cloak.
The rough sketch didn’t include any details of the body, limbs, or anything that would give a better understanding of the size and shape of this being.
With the exception of the eyes.
The person who made the sketch—assumed to be Matthew—was not a skilled artist. But he had managed to capture the being’s piercing stare. Its irises were colored in a blend of gray and metallic silver.
The sketch was captioned:
Saw something like this in the forest tonight. Was standing in clearing, but disappeared under shadow of tree when I approached. Just vanished. Felt like I was being watched after? Can’t say for sure.
That was the last entry Matthew made.
I tried to swallow away the growing tightness in my throat.
Nya was human. I felt relatively confident in that. But was Kieran? And if not, what exactly was he? If he wasn’t human, wouldn’t the wards on the walls have prevented him from entering the city?
I closed the book, hiding those eyes between its covers.
Would I see him again? And if so, how afraid should I be?