12. Alexander #3
Dark wood shelves cover almost every inch of wall he can see, filled to the brim with books so old you can smell the antiquity of the paper. They’re lit gently by small, blue lamps on the tables scattered around the room.
Alexander’s eyes drift toward the ceiling and he inhales sharply. It’s vaulted and fully frescoed to look like the night sky. There are so many constellations that he could lie on his back for hours and not count them all.
Deep blue curtains with tiny silver stars frame translucent, pearly windows. A secret cove lies beyond them, hidden away from the rest of the Academy. The waves beyond the window are barely audible, lapping softly on the shore in the Republic’s perpetually low tide.
The scratching sound of a chair being pulled out echoes through the room and jerks Alexander back into reality. Kallias sits across the library at a circular table framed by curved shelves.
Only the back of his head is visible, already bent over a book. Alexander meanders quietly through the stacks and up to the table. There’s no noise but the water and his and Kallias’ breathing.
In the silence, Alexander can hear it. A mere moment when their breaths sync, and everything in him settles. Then he unsettles again when he looks down at the book Kallias has picked out for him.
The Republic by Plato.
“Oh.”
“Hm?”
“I’ve heard of this. I can’t believe I didn’t connect the dots. We don’t have much old literature still around since most ancient books were destroyed in the Fall of Nations, but I learned about him—Plato—in school.”
“Makes sense.”
Alexander traces the book’s cover with the tips of his fingers and drops into the plush velvet seat across from Kallias.
This is new territory: the first time he’s actually made progress in figuring out where he is and how he can get home. But now that a solution is in front of him, it’s hard to remember what he’s eager to get back to.
A brother who hates him. A father who’s dead. A country that’s moved on without him.
He could just… keep the book closed. Stay ignorant and become the clueless boy from the countryside he’s pretending to be.
But then he thinks about the beach by the castle and his father’s soft laugh cutting through the light haze of sea mist. He thinks about his people, the hundreds he can greet by name on the streets of Nuevo Vatican.
He thinks about the fact that home is home, no matter whether he truly belongs there or not.
Kallias puts his own book down, pushes his glasses up to his head, and leans his hand against his chin once minutes have passed and Alexander’s done nothing but stare.
“You should read this before anything else. It’s basically…
the rules. For everything here.” His eyes flick down and he taps the title of the book.
“It’s just a thought experiment, really.
It was never meant to be more; Plato said that himself.
I mean, the whole book is this kind of absurd discussion between Plato’s brothers and his mentor, Socrates.
It’s framed in a boring, cyclical conversation that never gets anywhere.
But, for some reason, whoever created this place based it on this—”
Kallias taps the book cover again, this time more passionately. Has Alexander finally found something he feels more than indifference for?
“—The Doctrine of the Forms, the book that outlines our religious system, is a bastardized version of the philosophical principles in here and The Ideal State is a streamlined version of Plato’s bureaucratic system.
And from that, the Republic.” He gestures around them.
“And no one here knows that everything they believe in is nothing more than a hypothetical.”
“Kallias, this is…” Alexander starts, motioning wildly to the whole library. “I mean, this is insane. How did you find out about this place? How did you find this?” Alexander yanks the book up from the table and shoves it in his face.
And, okay, maybe he’s putting off opening the book, but he is also genuinely curious. In his hand is a key to toppling the whole governmental and religious apparatus of the Republic, and, for some reason, Kallias has access to it.
“Just read it, idiot,” Kallias shoots back, already looking away. “And someone showed me this place as a gift.”
“A gift?”
“It was my fifteenth birthday.” He does not add anything more, and Alexander doesn’t dare ask.
Instead, he opens the book.
They stay for an hour and a half without talking, then Kallias makes sure Alexander puts the book back—“People would burn you as a witch if they found you with that thing”—before leaving.
Alexander almost wants to remind him about his half of the deal—it feels unfair, how much more he’s getting out of this than Kallias—but he knows Kallias is too smart to have forgotten. He’ll ask soon enough.
Kallias nods a quick goodbye at Alexander’s room, then he continues down the hall to his own a few doors down.
“Night,” Alexander responds.
“Same place tomorrow,” Kallias says, not a question. Then, at his door, “Goodnight, idiot.”
Alexander grins to himself as he tiptoes into his room.