Apparently, the passageways that Harper and I found at the bazaar weren't the only shortcuts in the city. I did my best to keep up with Grayson’s long stride as he practically charged from street to street, through doors that stood in places where they shouldn't be, and out into different corridors that were instantly recognizable as being far away from where we started. It didn't take long at all to reach our destination, and when I found myself staring wide-eyed up at the giant white building I'd seen all day, I knew I made the right decision.
"This is where you work?" I asked.
Grayson was standing on the steps, watching me as I took in the sight in front of me. Before, I'd only seen the building from the back and one of the sides, but the front was even more impressive. Large glass doors, easily three stories tall, stood in the center, and flags of a hundred different nations flapped above the entryway. The white stones seemed to glimmer in the moonlight, reminding me I was in a place shaped from fairytales.
"Come on, I've already been gone longer than I should've. If something has happened, then I need to get up to speed fast. But first, we'll get you somewhere to sleep and go from there."
I was surprised to find the front doors unlocked as we slipped into a massive lobby. Thick red carpeting met my shoes, and in front of me were at least four different fireplaces, each lit but with no chimneys overhead. I wasn't sure how they were avoiding getting smoke in the air, but I chalked it up to being along the same lines as Grayson turning into a bird, or magical doorways leading everywhere.
I only took a few steps inside the building before it became all too clear what this place was. From the lobby, I could make out glass railings on various floors circling up around a massive staircase. And through each of the railings I could see endless rows of books. Bookcases stretched out in every direction, no wall separating the lobby from where the shelving began. There was plenty of seating, and an unmanned help desk close to the entryway, but most of the space was taken up by an impossible number of books. My university library had been impressive, one of the best in the country, but it had nothing on this—and I'd barely even gotten inside yet.
To my surprise, I looked over and found Grayson smiling at me. A flash of color melted over his cheeks when our eyes met. "Come on. You'll have more than enough time to look around later. The others are already waiting for us."
I quirked an eyebrow, curious how anyone could be waiting for us when Grayson had only spoken with me since we'd run into one another an hour or so ago, but he was already gone. It seemed he was less concerned with making sure I kept up now that we were in the safety of the building. It took me a second to spot him as he disappeared down an aisle of bookcases. Once I caught up, he turned again down a long hallway, lit by torches on the walls.
As we walked I yawned against my will, my body having had enough but my mind still on high alert. It was hard not to think that if I went to sleep again, yet another bad thing would happen to me.
I was getting sick of things just happening to me.
Finally, we stopped in a large open room at a desk manned by a female receptionist, who looked even younger than I was. Behind her sat five heavy wooden doors, equally spaced out in a semicircle.
"Wait here," Grayson said. He nodded toward an armchair.
I sat down without argument and tried to smile at the receptionist, but she was frantically typing away at the keyboard on her desk.
Instead, I watched as Grayson slipped into the center doorway. "We've got another one," was the last thing I heard before the door clicked shut behind him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sitting in the sleek, leather-backed chair, I felt like I should've quite literally been twiddling my thumbs, trying to entertain myself to pass the time. Instead I did my best to sit still and look like a perfectly respectable adult human.
The receptionist seemed to be making a point of looking anywhere other than directly at me, giving me far too much time to study her from a distance. She had warm-toned brown skin and unnaturally white hair, cropped to almost exactly chin length. A few stray freckles dotted her complexion. Besides the color of her hair she didn't look anything like Harper, but my mind couldn't help but draw a comparison.
Harper should've been there with me. She was gone, and I was still waiting for answers. None of it was fair. None of it was right.
The white-haired receptionist looked up at me as I was still studying her, and I reminded myself for the dozenth time that I shouldn't be staring at people as often as I was. Yet another thing Harper had had to remind me of; I was starting to doubt whether I’d even survive in the After without her. But unlike all the other people whose attention I'd unwittingly drawn that day, the receptionist smiled, broad and genuine. "Hey," she said from the other side of her desk. "I'm Eliza."
"Kadie. But at this point I’m mostly just lost."
Her grin only spread further across her face. "It may have been suggested to me that I leave you alone, but I have to ask... Are you one of those people they've been talking about all day? One of the marked?"
At once my eyes flicked down to my wrist, too late I reminded myself to play it cool. This wasn't the kind of thing I should be advertising, but Eliza caught my reaction.
"You are! Everyone has been on high alert all day, talking about new arrivals, and you’re the third person they’ve shuffled in here, trying to stay under the radar. But I wasn't sure how much of what I was hearing was true, at least until now."
"There are more of us? Like me?"
"Two guys. At least, there were two guys brought in today that I didn't recognize. But no one tells me much of anything, so I’m doing the best I can with what I've got."
"Girl, do I feel you on that one. That's basically been my entire day."
Eliza opened her mouth as though to ask something else, but it snapped shut again a second later. I wasn't ready to go back to sitting alone with my thoughts, so I asked her, "What is it you do here?" Too late I realized I should've started with asking where here was.
"Apprentice librarian. I've only been dedicated to the Archive for three years, and I kind of lucked into this gig for the week." She gestured to her desk. "Usually, no one really trusts me with anything interesting... but I'll get there."
I nodded like that made perfect sense. "Wait, you’ve worked here for three years already? You don't look like you could be much older than eighteen. Shouldn’t you be in school or something?" I knew exactly how stupid it sounded as soon as the words tumbled from my mouth. I didn't know anything about this girl or where she'd come from. But I couldn't help myself. I wanted answers.
"All right, so I’m starting to get the impression that what they've said about the marked having just arrived in the After today might be more truth than rumor. I'm guessing you have a lot of questions."
"Yes, and I would love you forever if you could answer even one of them. Like seriously… how old are you?" I winced a little, realizing right away that my question was both rude and potentially the waste of a chance to get real information.
Eliza grimaced. Clearly that was just as rude a question here as it was where I was from, but if I was dealing with some sort of child labor situation, I wanted to know about it. "Older than I look. Time passes differently here, but you'll adapt to it. Or you'll get used to just ignoring it, because honestly, I couldn't even explain to you how it works. I’m sure some of the archivists have a better handle on it, but aging is definitely not an exact science around these parts."
I must've blanched a little because Eliza chuckled. "Really, it's a good thing. You'll live a longer life than you ever would have before. And you get to do so much more cool stuff."
Of course, what she didn't say is that I only get to live longer if I managed to survive the next few weeks, or however long it took to get all of this figured out. "What else can you tell me?"
Eliza glanced over her shoulder at the door behind her. "I'm really not sure. I mean, you’re in a tough spot, and I'm kind of bad when it co
mes to inserting myself into situations I shouldn't be involved in. But at this point, I really don't want to lose my job."
I slumped back into my seat. Another dead end. "Tell you what," Eliza continued. "Once things are a little more sorted, and I get something of a go-ahead from the bosses, then you and I will take this on together. If they tell you anything, or if I learn anything, we’ll swap secrets. At least that way we'll both be a little less in the dark."
"I'll take what I can get." I smiled at her, grateful that someone else was being friendly—a feeling that was still more bitter than sweet after losing Harper.
Losing everyone. I hadn't even considered until then that since I'd arrived in Sanctum by mistake, my friends and family, really everyone I'd ever known, had gone somewhere else. Okay, yes that meant that Darren and Kelsey were snuggling in some quiet café far away from me, which was both nice and gross at the same time, but I had no way to know where everyone else had gone—or if there was any way to find them. Could be I’d made the wrong call by not getting on the train and at least giving myself a chance at finding them.
Something electronic buzzed in front of Eliza, and she looked down at her desk. "They want to see you." I didn't know what to make of the look in her eyes as she watched me stand up before waving me past her desk to the doors beyond.
The center door opened before I was even three feet in front of it.
Well, that wasn’t ominous at all.
I moved into a large, dimly lit office. Across from me was a long desk with four people behind it, all wearing expressions that were both serious and tired. I sat in one of the two empty seats on the other side without an invitation, not looking at the panel who seemed to have assembled to meet with me. At least Grayson was there; his was a face I recognized, if not one I was all that comfortable with.
Two men, including Grayson, and two women sat across from me, each wearing simple white robes, smudged with lines of gray. Grayson was on the end beside a woman who was at least seventy, with dark skin and wiry grey hair pulled up into a topknot. Beside her was another woman, younger, say forty years old. She had pale skin and sleek black hair that hung in layers around her shoulders. Her brown eyes studied me more suspiciously than the others.
On the opposite end of the table from Grayson sat a boy who couldn't have been older than seventeen. He had the perfect skin of an unusually blessed teenager, and wavy blonde hair that was almost picturesque, like he should have been modeling for shampoo or at least be the default photo in a picture frame. But something about him suggested that he was far older than he looked as he leaned into the table to study me—or maybe what Eliza had said about time passing differently had just gotten in my head. "So, I believe introductions are in order," he said, looking at me and smiling.
No one else spoke, so I assumed they meant that I was supposed to introduce myself first. I went through the motions of saying who I was for the third or fourth time that day. It was getting a little exhausting. Normally, I would have been all for meeting new people, but nothing was normal anymore.
Thankfully, Grayson jumped in after I finished. "This," he said, indicating the woman at his right, "is Marissa Dorset. Beside her is Joanna Nyce. And on the left, is Jonathan Credence."
I didn’t do much more than stare, my brain moving in slow motion. "Nice to meet you." My greeting came out as more of a question, but it was the best I could do.
It was the older woman who spoke next, and she sounded kind, which I wasn’t expecting. "We are the heads of this branch of the Archive of Ink and Soul—here you are now. The Archive is the true heart of the After. Between the walls of its four branches you can find every single book from which the people who populate this world first came."
I just managed to stop myself from swearing in disbelief. So, this building housed, what, every book ever written?
"I'm sure you have a million questions," Jonathan said. "But first, we have a few for you. We found ourselves in quite a dilemma today, and would like to know why. At this point, anything we could learn might be helpful. So, if you don't mind sharing with us a few things about yourself, it would be very much appreciated."
I looked over at Grayson and he nodded slightly. It's not like I had any choice. And I’d missed my shot to get on that train and avoid all this. "What do you want to know?"
"Anything you can tell us, really." Jonathan's hand moved from the table into his lap as he watched me. "Information about yourself: where you came from and then your experiences today. I promise you, no detail is insignificant, especially any special talents you might have. We want to know all of it."
I wasn't sure how I felt about sharing everything, but if there was any chance he might help, I was willing to take that risk. I started talking, rambling was more like it. I didn't go into that much detail about my life because I just couldn’t find a natural place to start. But I did tell them the last thing I remembered, and a little bit about me. My job, going to school, my parents. I didn't see it coming, but unsurprisingly they did ask a few questions about where I’d lived, treating it more like a setting than a real city that I'd lived in my whole life.
"No magic," I said again, after the fourth roundabout question about my abilities, and the realm of possibility from where I'd come.
They all nodded and let the subject drop, but more than one expression looked at least a little wary, like they didn't quite believe me. Hell, I would've signed up to be from a place with magic in a heartbeat, but I couldn’t change where I’d grown up.
I continued with everything from my arrival in that alleyway, to almost getting run over by a guy in a kilt, to meeting Harper right through to losing her. For that part, no one interrupted with anything to add or ask. They just let me talk. And I impressed myself by how I managed not to cry. It could have been that my body was starting to remember just how tired it was as the adrenaline of yet another new situation wore off. The longer I sat the harder it got not to just lie down and take a nap on the floor.
I finally finished my story, getting caught up in it until I reached the end. I took in a long breath, relieved, when Jonathan circled back to the same question he asked before. "So, you're absolutely certain you don't have any preternatural abilities? Nothing out of the ordinary? No spells, no wishes, no elemental control, or the ability to talk to animals?"
I shook my head emphatically. "No, two days ago, magic wasn't real. Not for me. It was the kind of thing you read about in books, sure. Or that you wished you had. But no one I know can do anything all that spectacular, and I've never seen any signs of it in my life."
"What about since you arrived in the After? Have you done anything out of the ordinary?" The young man's eyes lit up as he waited for my answer. I was sorry to disappoint him.
"Well, it's probably safe to say that I've done quite a bit out of the ordinary today. Absolutely everything about my day has been nothing like what I would call ordinary. But the closest I've come to doing anything magical is seeing this guy shift from a bird into a man." I cocked my thumb over at Grayson, who barely managed to push back a smirk.
I was starting to feel like something of a disappointment.
"I find it hard to believe that if the Archive somehow intended to show us something by bringing new arrivals here, that it would have bothered with prosaics," the younger woman, Joanna, said.
"Alas, that is not really your area of expertise," the older woman responded. But the slightest tick of a frown at the corner of her mouth suggested she agreed with Joanna.
Joanna nodded her head. "And so, the question is what do we do with her now, and the others?"
Marissa started frowning a little. I tried to convince myself it wasn’t worry I was seeing on her features. "They're here now, so we might as well keep an eye on them until we can get some answers. If we send them back out there in the morning, they'll be tracked down just as quickly as they were today. And I have to wonder how many more are out there that weren't found by those Literati mercenaries, that just
managed to slip through the cracks. We’re not even sure how many people we’re looking for, and until we know more, I’m hesitant to do anything we can’t take back."
Grayson answered. "The good news is that if we don't know about them, then maybe the Literati don't either. We still have time to put all of the pieces together."
I wanted to raise my hand and ask exactly what it was they were trying to figure out, and who these Literati people were, but I kept my mouth shut. I was so tired that everything around me started to feel like a dream all over again. I stopped myself from pinching my arm to be sure; I didn't need another bruise—or more disappointment.
CHAPTER NINE
What was left of my night passed in a blur. Grayson stayed with the others in the small office, where they talked in hushed voices and cast me furtive glances until Eliza ushered me back through the office door. She escorted me upstairs to what she called the dormitories, explaining that the block of bedrooms included in the building weren’t used as permanent housing for the librarians, but were mostly used for when someone got lost in a project, or needed to be in early.
And now, there were three of us living in one row of bedrooms. Eliza pointed out that the two beside me were already occupied before bringing me into my own room.
It looked like every hotel room I'd ever seen. A queen size bed was in the middle of the room with an end table on either side and two identical lamps. There was a dresser against the opposite wall, but no television on the top of it. In the far corner of the room sat a beige armchair with another side table, and an empty desk. It felt a little cramped, but at least I had a bathroom all to myself.
I was even more grateful for the bathroom when my door shut with a click as it shut behind Eliza. A second later, another click grabbed my attention.
I tried to turn the doorknob a few times, hoping the sound was only a figment of my imagination, but it wouldn’t budge. By that point I had no fight left in me. I was locked in, but it wasn’t like I had anywhere else to go.
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