Which meant I was going to have to do the same.
Not quite ready to stand up, I took a few slow breaths as my new reality sank in. The train was already inside the station, but just outside the concrete walls I could see from my window was the city of Sanctum, capital city of the Western Realms of the After. It was a place I’d heard about for years both because of the wonders it held and the disorganized chaos that seemed to hold the city together. And, now, I was about to be a part of that same system as an apprentice librarian, something that wasn’t even supposed to be possible.
The train doors opened, and all at once, the people around me rushed for the doors. I made myself as small as possible so my seatmates could slip out of our area and promised myself that, as soon as they were out of the way, I’d stop procrastinating and get out of my chair. I couldn’t let my nerves overwhelm my excitement.
This is what I wanted, I reminded myself. Sanctum, becoming a librarian, all of it. I gave up everything I’d built for myself since first arriving in the After so I could move here and pledge myself to the Archive of Ink and Soul.
Now, all that was left was to get up, get my bag, and face my new life head on. I was ready, and every second I sat around in the quickly emptying train was one I didn’t get to spend at my dream job.
I stood up, grinning at myself and probably looking like a moron, but there was no one around left to see.
Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I exited onto the platform, the last person in my car, and right away, I was surrounded by people getting organized or oriented. It was a little after eight at night, but apparently, time of day didn’t matter so much when it came to the central station for the world’s largest city.
I joined the flow of people heading away from my platform and followed them down the steps that led to the central lobby. I’d read everything about Hemingway Station, including every neighborhood, major landmark, and hidden gem in the city, before I’d arrived.
As soon as my shoes hit the marble floor of the lobby, I started scanning for the grouping of floating sign-posts that was supposed to be easy to find in the middle of the four-story room, where I was supposed to be meeting the other apprentice librarians who had arrived in the last two-hours as well as our escort to the Archive.
I found it more easily than I’d hoped. Two dozen street signs hovered in the air, ten feet over the tallest person in the room, each one listing off a few different places, with arrows pointing in various directions. There were nearly a hundred people milling about in the space between where I was and where I needed to be, but a few quiet “excuse me”s and well-placed elbows parted the crowd quickly enough. After dodging around a garbage bin, I almost tripped over the carry-on luggage of a seven-foot-tall man with pointed ears and skin that seemed to be made of tree bark. Thankfully, he didn’t even notice me, and once I regained my balance, I was back on my way.
As I approached the space underneath the street signs, I quickly made out three others already standing beneath it, huddled in a group, seemingly chatting, but each person was looking uncomfortably around the room, deliberately not making eye contact with the others for too long.
Even though there was no sign of anyone in the telltale white librarian robes, I felt pretty comfortable in my assumption that this was the group I was looking for.
“Hey,” I said, trying to sound confident as I approached. “Are you guys—”
“Librarians,” the twenty-something guy on my left said before I could finish my sentence, puffing his chest up a little. He stood a little taller than six feet, with brown skin and black hair. His body seemed to be radiating with both pride and excitement, something I wasn’t sure I could fault him for.
“Great. Me too,” I said before putting my bag down at my feet.
“I’m Gennie,” the only other girl of the group said, extending her hand toward me.
I smiled gratefully as I shook it, taking in everything about her without trying to look too intense.
With warm-toned brown hair and a pale complexion that was nearly opposite my own dark skin, Gennie was undeniably gorgeous. She was what my old next-door neighbor would have described as “a girl who enjoys her chocolates,” but despite being several sizes bigger than your typical supermodel, she still could have passed for one.
Gennie looked several years younger than my twenty-seven, though in the After, looks didn’t count for much. She could have been three hundred for all I could tell. And, while some librarians apparently pledged themselves to the Archive right after graduating college, already sure of their dedication, it was just as likely to see other apprentices my age or older, who had already lived full lives before deciding to dedicate their remaining years to serving the Archive.
Before any other introductions could be made, a clock above us chimed the hour. Nine p.m.—the exact time we were supposed to meet with the representative the Archive sent to collect us.
The others, who were all facing me, still making small talk one second, seemed to turn away from me as one in the next. I realized I was holding my breath as I moved to see what they were looking at, and an anxious huff of breath escaped my lips.
Sure enough, striding toward us, right on time, was a dark-haired man with broad shoulders and dark eyes. He was decked out in the robes I’d been watching for—white with lines of tiny black text covering the fabric, which left the design looking more like gray smudges.
“Good evening,” the man said as soon as he was within earshot of our group. He looked to be a bit younger than I was, but he spoke with the confidence of someone far wiser. “I’m going to go ahead and assume that the four of you are Vincent Goldin, Tari Maiz, Gennie Flynn, and Fredrick Young.”
I nodded and stood up a little straighter, my heart already beating wildly in my chest, as the younger guy beside me shoved his hand forward.
“I’m Vincent, or Vince.”
The librarian shook Vince’s hand without any real enthusiasm before turning back to the rest of us. “I am Protectorate Avos. I am a member of the protectorate at the Archive, and it looks like I’ll be your escort this evening. You’re our last group to get into the city, so we should probably get going.”
Right away, the Protectorate turned his back to lead us out, which forced me to speak up.
“Wait!” I squeaked out, heat rising to my cheeks as everyone spun to look at me. “I checked my bag. I still need to go get it before we leave.”
Vince was already looking at me like I was an idiot as I realized that no one else had any luggage bigger than a carry-on.
But the Archive’s representative offered me a kind smile. “Don’t worry. Your bags will have all been marked when you got on the train, so they’ll be waiting for you in your rooms by the time we’re done with the welcome festivities tonight.”
“Oh. Okay. Thanks,” I mumbled, not sure what else to say and mostly hoping to get everyone’s eyes off me.
Protectorate Avos had already hinted that we were in a hurry, and I had turned myself into the person holding everyone up.
Thankfully, Protectorate Avos didn’t wait any longer to get back on track, and I had to force myself to keep up as he expertly wove his way back through the crowds of the train station. Catching my eye, Gennie gave me a quick grin right as the five of us stepped out into the chilly evening air, which forced a nervous giggle past my lips. This was really happening!
A few short buildings in varying styles were across from the main entrance to the station, and in the light of the streetlamps above us, it was easy to make out the cityscape beyond.
All at once, the nerves I'd been feeling seemed to disappear. I was in Sanctum, arguably the greatest city in the After. I'd studied it, read about it, even tried to memorize its streets, but being there myself was an entirely new experience. And one I could get used to.
Protectorate Avos didn't wait for the five of us to gain our bearings and soon turned down a busy street that ran along the north side of the train station. I'd been ha
lf expecting a car to be waiting to take us to the Archive, but it looked like we were walking.
From what I could remember, the Archive itself was fairly close by to Hemingway Station, but it would still be at least a twenty-minute walk, and I found myself wishing I'd thought to wear my coat rather than having shoved it into the bigger of my two suitcases.
A man bumped my shoulder, not bothering to even mutter an apology before pushing past me on the sidewalk to go in the opposite direction. But I didn't mind in the slightest. Before I’d moved to Summerset, my life in the After had mostly involved living in the Soaring City—which, while not as big as Sanctum, sometimes felt like it held nearly as many people. And I had never minded being in a crowd.
The Soaring City had been created as a result of hundreds or thousands of science fiction books, and it held all of the most incredible technology in the After. At least according to the people who lived there, though there were certainly places elsewhere on the mainland that would argue something similar. But, for people like me, people who had come from books set in the future or whose technology was barely even possible, it felt like the closest thing to home.
But I could see Sanctum becoming my new home pretty quickly. I certainly felt more at ease in the hectic city streets than I ever had in quiet, suburban Summerset. At least, here, people knew to leave their neighbors alone and not to dig too deep into other people's business. In Summerset, I'd always been looking over my shoulder, worrying about who was asking too many questions or getting too curious about what my life had been before.
I didn't imagine that my paranoia was going to get any more manageable now that I would be working in the Archive, studying among librarians for the next four years, and then working there hopefully for the rest of my life, but that was a price I had volunteered to pay.
It was only once I realized that the Protectorate was holding a door open for the four of us that I slowed down. It was heavy, the color of oak, with a stained-glass window in its top center panel. The door was also pressed up against a brick wall that seemed to belong to somebody's home, though the building's front door was plain to see and not the one I was walking into. As I went through, all I could see was black, but my research had prepared me for what was coming. This was one of Sanctum's many passageways, hidden doorways—or sometimes not so hidden—that could quickly take pedestrians from one section of the city to another. Like magic, because it was magic.
Even after living in the After for nearly twenty years, I still sometimes let myself get caught up in the wonder of magic. Sure, many people would argue that the spacefaring and impossible technology of the universe I'd come from was enough like magic that the distinction didn't count, but in my life before, every impossible thing had some explanation, even if I didn’t understand it. Here, sometimes an explanation of magic was all there was.
Passing through the other side of the door, just behind Vince, I exited onto yet another sidewalk. We were standing in front of a row of tiny houses that were distinct in their Japanese architecture. In a completely different part of the city. I hadn't thought to account for these passageways when I'd mapped out the walking distance between the train station and the Archive before I’d arrived. But, because none of the books, newspapers, or magazines I had been able to get my hands on had given hints of where most of the city’s passageways were, it's not like planning that ahead of time would have helped me at all. Unfortunately, sometimes, planning could only get you so far. And, while I wasn't a big fan of leaving too much up to chance, there wasn't much more I could do.
Applying to become a librarian and arranging my move to Sanctum, had taken years of study and preparation. And I knew I was as ready as I could be.
That was going to have to be enough.
And then I saw it. Still in the distance, but maybe only a few blocks away. White stone walls, with the occasional brick in a vibrant jewel tone, reached several stories over the houses that stretched out nearby. Each corner of the building had a tower a few stories higher, seemingly stretching up to touch the sky.
I'd seen pictures, but the reality was so much more than I'd been able to imagine.
The Archive.
In my life before, I'd never have been able to believe that a place like this could really exist. A world made up entirely of characters from stories and their children and their children's children. A world shaped by every genre or type of storytelling that had ever made an impact on humanity. And a city at the center of it all, or at least the center of the world I knew. Sanctum was an amalgamation of so many different kinds of stories and landscapes and cultures. And the Archive was its heart, at least in this part of the world.
And I was looking right at it.
I had known that it would be beautiful, but I hadn’t been prepared for just how much it would move me.
"Tari, right?” Gennie asked, nudging me with her shoulder and drawing my attention back to where I was.
I nodded.
"We’ve gotta go," she said, cocking her head toward the guys, who were now nearly half a block ahead of us, though Grayson had his head turned over his shoulder to make sure we didn't fall too far behind.
"Got lost in thought for a second there," I explained, forcing my feet to start moving again.
"I know that feeling. This is all still a little surreal for me. I wasn't sure I'd get in, and now, here I am."
Gennie and I walked in silence for the next few blocks, taking long strides in order to catch up with everybody else. My brain couldn't seem to cope with how much closer I was getting to the Archive with every step I took, and I couldn’t make decent conversation at the same time. Conversation could wait.
We turned the corner, and all at once, the building took up my entire field of vision, stretching across several blocks. I had to remind myself to start breathing again.
Glass doors lined a large section of the front of the Archive, and nearly an entire flight of white stone stairs led up to the entryway from the street. I wanted a second to take it all in, but Protectorate Avos was already climbing the steps, moving at a pace that had to be hard to maintain for any long period of time. I made myself take another step, climbing the stairs with Gennie, trying to keep my balance as I stared up at the building looming over me in all of its glory.
This was really happening.
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City of Magic (Happily Ever Afterlife Book 1) Page 24