Zeno
“Whoa,” Ophelia gasps when Alexander somehow makes an extra flight of stairs appear, lit by dim torches.
It’s not like that’s the craziest thing to happen today.
But there’s no point in thinking like that now, he decides as they descend the secret stairs. They’re going to get out of here together, and that’s all that matters.
“You guys have got to keep this place a secret, okay? Kallias will kill us if he hears that you told anyone.” Alexander crouches in front of the door to fiddle with the lock.
“Are you sure he’s not going to kill us anyways?
” Eudoxia asks. She’s been getting antsier about Kallias’ involvement all day, and at this point Zeno can feel her vibrating.
He’s inclined to agree with her. Alexander is so blinded by his obvious feelings for Kallias that Zeno suspects he wouldn’t catch it if Kallias was working against them.
Involving extra people also makes things more precarious.
That’s why they’ve decided to keep Arete a secret from Alexander and Kallias. It was Eudoxia’s decision—they can find a way to get her out without them knowing. Better that than telling Kallias when he’s given them no reason to trust him.
“He’s not what everyone thinks he is,” Alexander snaps when he finishes picking the lock. Eudoxia crosses her arms and squints, but even her skepticism fades once Alexander opens the door.
This is the most beautiful place in the universe. He’s convinced of it, hands down. A library. With books and books. And soft lighting. And velvet curtains tied open.
Zeno has never seen so many books in one place. Auxiliaries and Guardians aren’t supposed to engage in something so trivial as reading for pleasure, and, though his dad hoards loads of them, this library has more than he could ever dream of.
Here, there might be children’s books for Arete. There might be musical anthologies with hundreds of songs. The gentle moonlight whispers to him that there might be anything in here, the possibilities endless.
Before Zeno can run into the stacks to look, he catches sight of golden hair.
He should definitely deal with that first.
Kallias is sitting at a circular table with four plush navy chairs and a fifth wooden one squished between them. He must have pulled it up from a different part of the Library, because there’s no way this table is meant to accommodate so many people.
And all of a sudden Zeno trusts him.
Look, he knows he’s quick to see the best in people—probably to a fault—but it’s hard not to find this endearing, small as it is. He didn’t need to alter his space and invite new people into it. He didn’t need to let them into his plan either.
Maybe Alexander is right. Maybe there’s more to him than Zeno thought.
“Hi, Kallias,” he says, stepping up to the slightly raised, semi-circular platform that the table is on.
Kallias looks up at him from his book, and Zeno braces himself for venom to be thrown his way.
All Kallias says is, “Hi,” before nodding to the table in a sit-down gesture. So Zeno does.
Eudoxia and Ophelia approach hesitantly, but Alexander skips up to Kallias and beams at him. “Hey, gorgeous,” he says enthusiastically, going to plant a joking kiss into Kallias’ hair.
Kallias scowls and tsks at Alexander, raising a hand to bat him away. “Get away from me, jackass.”
The physical affection isn’t unusual for Alexander—he does stuff like that to Zeno and Eudoxia all the time—but when Alexander’s smile becomes something sweeter, Zeno has to stop himself from laughing. He turns to Eudoxia and Ophelia and sees that they’re doing the same.
Alexander is down bad.
But Zeno sees the fondness Kallias is trying to hide in the tilt of his lips.
It seems Alexander is not the only one.
Zeno can practically see Ophelia’s wheels turning. Forms know she loves to matchmake.
“So, let’s get started then, shall we?” Alexander says from the seat next to Kallias.
Zeno almost wants to ask if they can explore a little, but when he looks over at Eudoxia, she’s so focused already that he forces himself to settle down. Zeno loves this about her.
She doesn’t mess around. Most of the time she’s playful, albeit a bit severe, but with a mere sharpening of her eyes she becomes a different creature entirely, efficient and smarter than anything.
Even with all of the insanity of the past twenty-four hours, the spar from three nights ago has somehow stayed at the forefront of his mind. He dreams about it and regrets it at the same time.
Because he loves her so much he’s sick with it. He wants to get on his knees and beg her to acknowledge that he pulled out his heart that night and attached it to his sleeve for her to have or ruin, whichever she prefers.
And he loves her so much it calms him. She needs stability now, and it wouldn’t be right to break what little of it she has left. He would do anything to protect her, and now he has to protect her from himself and his stupid feelings.
He tries to shove it all to the back of his mind when Kallias nods at Alexander before speaking. “Alright, this is what we have so far…” he says in that calm tone of his.
Once the clock strikes one thirty and Alexander is falling asleep on Kallias’ shoulder, they decide to call it a night. Ophelia left at one, claiming that she would ‘die of tiredness on the way back if she doesn’t leave right at this moment.’
“Alexander,” Kallias whispers, shaking his arm just enough to wake him but not jostle him. Zeno tries not to react to this version of Kallias, so unlike the person he thought he knew. Alexander’s eyes open slowly, and he smiles sheepishly at Kallias.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine, dummy,” Kallias says. “Just get up so we can sleep in our real beds.” He holds Alexander’s collar and shepherds him out of the Library, and Alexander waves a hasty goodbye to Zeno and Eudoxia.
Zeno idly watches them meander to the exit, and maybe it’s because he’s so zoned out that he doesn’t notice Eudoxia’s hand in his until she tugs at him.
“Come on,” she says, pulling him deeper into the Library and rounding a sharp corner at the children’s book section. Zeno sees Kallias give them a curious glance as he walks out the door, but he can’t even bring himself to care. Because Eudoxia just grabbed his hand.
Their hands seem to know something they don’t, matched up like perfect puzzle pieces.
But maybe he’s reading into things.
She lets go of him without ceremony once they’ve reached the far end of the shelf and squats to search for books.
Okay, he’s probably reading into things.
“What do you think of this one?” she asks, handing Zeno a hefty book with a blue and orange cover.
“Cool,” he says. She’s stacking more in his hands before he can say anything more. They spend a few minutes in comfortable silence, Zeno holding the books she’s picking out, before he says, “It’s good of you to do this.”
He knows Eudoxia. Knows that she is struggling to balance her anger and tremendous love for Arete. Knows that she cares infinitely for Arete, even when she can’t bring herself to speak to her.
Eudoxia sighs. “I don’t know what to do with her,” she finally says. “I can’t be what she needs me to be. That’s why this happened in the first place. I didn’t listen to her. I left her fuming and sad and I’ve always known she’s too smart and…” Eudoxia trails off, covering her mouth with her hand.
“Not everything is your fault, you know,” Zeno says. It comes out a little too fast, from somewhere under his ribs. He can’t bear to hear her putting herself down when all she’s ever done is try and try and try her very best.
“I know…” she starts, but once her eyes meet his, she stops talking. She’s looking at him so intently, and he can’t tell if he wants to shy away or jump in headfirst. He leans his head against the shelf and watches her too.
He opens his mouth to say… well, anything. Maybe I love you, maybe I want you, maybe I wish you saw yourself the way I see you, maybe all of those things.
But in that split second before he has the chance to say a word, she startles out of their staring match and points at a book further down the shelf.
“That one looks good.”
His hand twitches with the urge to gently tip her chin and pull her back so this doesn’t have to end, but the last thing he’d want is to overstep.
“Yeah,” he responds, sounding dejected despite his best efforts not to. It’s just, he feels like something was stolen from him.
But Eudoxia’s been stealing things from him—his reason, his heart, his mind—since they first met, and he’ll let her have it all until there’s nothing left.