Apprentice (Into the After Book 1)

by Patricia Thomas

  "Looks like we’ll be living together, then. Fair warning, you may need to remind me to do my fair share of the dishes, and I have a habit of singing way too loud in the shower."

  "Good to know." I already knew which room I'd be suggesting she took, happy to have a longer walk for myself to the bathroom if it meant I wasn't going to be woken up at odd hours by an impromptu concert. "Did you want the grand tour?"

  An hour later, Steph and I were still up and chatting, both glad that we didn't have any commitments with the Archive until after the weekend. She had happily agreed to take the room near the bathroom and we both spent a little time moving our respective bags into our bedrooms and getting settled. But rather than bothering to unpack quite yet, I found myself back in the kitchen, curious about what else had there was for us there. It hadn't been long before Steph had come back out to join me as well and we both got to chatting about how excited we were to be there.

  "My grandmother was a Scholar for the Archive," Steph explained. "She pledged to the library when she was in her forties. When my mom and uncle were still young. The whole family moved to Sanctum so she could follow her dream of working for the Archive, so I grew up hearing stories about it."

  "That's so cool. I did most of my learning on my own. I've been in hard-core research mode ever since I got my acceptance letter."

  "What about you?" Steph asked. "Where's your family from?"

  I stalled a little, rifling around in the cupboards above the sink until I found a tin labelled tea and pulled it down from the shelf. I raised my eyebrows at Steph in question and she gave an enthusiastic nod. "Always."

  I put on the kettle and tried to remind myself not to panic. I’d prepared for these very questions. I’d prepared for years.

  "I grew up in Summerset. It's a small town just outside of New York. Very small town vibe, since my parents both came from books with massive overpopulation. They wanted to raise me somewhere a little quieter, or maybe they just wanted a chance for some peace and quiet for themselves." I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant as though I hadn't rehearsed this same story a thousand times before.

  Steph nodded as though she understood, and gave no sign that she knew I wasn't being entirely truthful.

  I had lived in Summerset, but only for a few years, and I’d made a point of moving at the end of every lease, so that if somehow it ever came up, people would say they knew me, but that I'd moved around a lot. Hopefully it would be enough to explain why nobody there had any memories of me as a child. But I had no reason to think anyone would go looking. The records I’d created for myself were impeccable. It was only the lack of any childhood connections that remained a potential red flag for the youth I'd never had in the After.

  For almost as long as the Archive had existed as more than simply one large building with endless piles of books, then four, there had been a few rules governing it. Rules that governed the type of person who could pledge themselves to the Archive as librarians.

  First, no prosaics—no one without at least one ability that went beyond the natural. Each librarian had to have some innate connection to magic or an ability beyond what could be considered normal in modern-day fiction. The rule gave librarians an edge, one more way to ensure that only the best of the best was working within the Archive.

  I was covered there at least. But my ability had been written for me by the author, instead of inheriting it from a parent.

  The second rule was that while most of the people who made up the population of the After had come directly from stories themselves, only those who had been born in the After could be considered for librarian positions.

  I'd heard different arguments for this one, ranging from the idea that no one who came from a story directly could ever truly be trusted in their loyalties. There would always be hidden personality traits or backstories that couldn't be controlled or ever fully anticipated. The second reasoning, the one I wasn't all that keen on, was that people who had been born in the After were somehow more well-rounded than those of us who had stepped into the world fully formed. Anyone born here would've had the chance to develop their personality right from the beginning, along with all the life experiences that went with it.

  Those of us that were written into existence would inevitably have gaps in our knowledge and our life stories, and some believed we could never truly make up for it.

  I, however, didn't believe that at all. When I’d first arrived I'd been sixteen years old, and already a medic and a prodigy. But I'd never gone to school, never had a home that wasn't the spaceship where I'd lived during the wars that I fought in. I had no memories of anyone that would qualify as a parent, and for all I knew I didn't have any. Whoever had written my story simply hadn't fleshed out that part of my back story, which meant those things were parts of me that I could never have.

  I could absolutely see how someone like me would be different from someone who was born in the After and had grown up here, at least at first. But it had been years since then. I'd had a decade to build memories for myself, to learn new skills and to form relationships. I'd fallen in love and had my heart broken more than once. I'd gone to university, had learned how to knit and had become something of a karaoke nerd. And I'd done that all by myself, just like anyone else would.

  But as far as the Archive was concerned, none of that mattered. Thanks to the circumstances of my creation, I would never qualify to become a librarian. It was a fact that had tormented me for years, at least until I decided to take matters into my own hands. I'd crafted an existence for myself that lined up with what the librarians of the Archive were looking for, while avoiding making it look too perfect, putting in a few acceptable flaws and mistakes. And I worked on it for years, making sure it could pass any test or hold up against any scrutiny. And even after that, I'd waited another year before even beginning the process of testing to apply to the Archive, just to give myself a chance to change my mind or realize what I was doing was too risky.

  But my call to serve the Archive had been too strong in the end and one day, after I'd had a little too much to drink, I put a stamp on my application and dropped it in the mailbox on my street corner before I had any chance to change my mind.

  And it was done.

  The next day, I almost managed to convince myself that I'd dreamed submitting my application. But not quite. So instead I spent months obsessively checking my mailbox, waiting for a response. And soon enough, it came. I'd passed the first hurdle and could officially begin the application process toward achieving my dream job.

  It'd been the best day of my life, and the most terrifying. Because every step closer I got to being a librarian, was a step that could also lead to my discovery. I had no idea if there were penalties for trying to deceive the librarians, but the idea of going against their will still made me feel nauseous every time I thought about it. I considered confessing almost every day, worried that somehow I was missing something and my presence could somehow hurt or shame the Archive. But so far, in the end, I always chose to have faith in myself. At least for a little while longer.

  So I memorized my falsified life story a hundred times over, adding in new details each time while also reminding myself never to overshare or risk opening myself up to making a mistake or having someone get too curious.

  Maybe in the end, it would be too much for me to juggle. But at least I could trust myself never to forget a single detail. Something I had my author to thank for, whoever they were.

  "So did your grandmother give you any ideas about what we can expect during our first year?" I asked, turning the conversation back to my roommate as quickly as I could. Even if I hadn't been trying to get the conversation as far away from me as possible, having a person who had real connections at the Archive was an advantage I intended to make full use of.

  "Not much beyond what you would've already seen in the info packet. Grandma still swears that things don't really get interesting until your fourth year. For now, we mostly have classes to
look forward to along with training on the basics of library science. The stuff that any real world librarian would have to know how to do, since the Archive is open to the public as well as operating as a research center, and the heart of the After as a whole."

  I nodded enthusiastically, not able to keep the smile off my face. I was excited about every single part of whatever was coming next. The classes, sorting books and helping people find what they were looking for among the endless stacks. Though I still had trouble imagining how long it would take me to memorize the layout of the Archive the natural way.

  Still, I was more than happy to use my innate ability to my advantage on that one. While it all seemed perfectly normal at the time, once I arrived in the After I realized that the book I'd come from had been a science fiction story, set in a distant future when technology had grown far beyond that of whoever had written my book.

  It had never been explained to me how I had the ability to download information directly from a computer into memory banks installed in my head, but it was a skill I took advantage of as often as I could. The space I had was technically limited, and I occasionally had to go through my saved files to weed out anything I didn't really need to make room for the new. But if there was a digital map of the Archive on a computer somewhere, I could have the layout of the entire building in my head in a matter of seconds, and it probably wouldn't take up much space at all.

  Soon enough, a massive yawn force its way out of my mouth and my hand flew up to cover my warped expression. A moment later, Steph’s yawn mirrored my own, extending her hands up over her head in a stretch.

  I looked over at the clock on the microwave. "Wow, it's two in the morning already. I guess I should get some sleep."

  "I'm going to do the same," Steph said, standing up from the chair she’d moved over from the dining room table. "Did you have any plans for the weekend?"

  I shook my head. "Not really. Probably to go check out the city or figure out what's nearby in terms of places to buy groceries. Or maybe find a karaoke bar." Steph didn't exactly look enthusiastic at my last idea but she didn't shoot it down either. "Well, if you want some company, I definitely wouldn't mind having someone else to wander around with. Otherwise, I'll probably get lost for a week and miss the first few days of classes before anyone even realizes I'm not around anymore."

  "No way. I’m your roommate now, I've got your back. And I'd love someone to go exploring with too... Although, there is one other thing I will probably end up wanting to do. And it's probably a little dorky, so you don't have to go with me if you don't want to."

  Steph studied me for a minute, her blue-eyes twinkling with recognition a moment later. "Going back to the Archive?" she asked, a smile beginning to play on her lips.

  I bobbed my head up and down a few times. "Yes. I know we're going to be there almost all the time but I really want a chance to go check it out before we officially start. There's just..." I wasn't sure how to explain what it was that was already calling me back to the Archive.

  "So many books?" Steph guessed. "Or just, so much to see? The place was huge."

  "And amazing," I said before I could stop myself. "Any chance you know how many books they have in there?"

  "I asked my grandma once, but she says nobody knows for sure. Over a million, but there are new ones coming in all the time, and occasionally ones that stop existing altogether, so no one's ever been able to pin down a real number."

  "Is it sad that I kind of want to read every single one of them?" Steph laughed and a tingle of excitement shot through my body. Sometimes it was still hard to believe that this wasn’t just a dream. It was so much more than I had ever thought to want for myself for over a decade. Now here I was in Sanctum, living a literal dream come true.

  This was going to be a lot of fun.

  Chapter 4

  Steph and I may have been a little overly optimistic when we'd been imagining our time as apprentice librarians as something that could technically be described as fun.

  No, that wasn't quite right. A lot of it was impossibly fun—there was nothing I loved more than learning about books and being around books. But right from the first day of classes–a milestone that was hard for me to wrap my head around having to go through all over again as an adult–it was painfully obvious that this experience was also going to be a lot of damn hard work.

  Even the first week, which was mostly introductions, tours and library science basics, left all us with massive textbooks and reading assignments, and with the impression that we'd never truly be caught up with everything we had to learn.

  It was hard not to feel like I had an innate disadvantage because every other student in my class was exactly the kind of person who thrived in the world of the Archive. Sure, I'd managed to convince whoever was in charge of applications that I was that kind of person as well, but I knew the truth. I hadn’t been born here. I didn’t quite fit.

  Every time the thought crossed my mind, I pushed it out. I'd made it this far solely on my own personal belief that I could do anything that someone who had been born in the After could do.

  And while it quickly became apparent that there were significant gaps in my knowledge about the world I lived in, it seemed to be true for my classmates as well. We had all come from different corners of the Western Realms and had picked up different knowledge and customs along the way. So, a lot of our first year of studies outside of the actual library was dedicated to getting us all on the same page.

  All our classes took place inside the Archive itself, but in a section separate from where most of the books were stored. The back of the massive building, which had its own entrance, was made up of classrooms of various sizes and one lecture hall that could seat about two hundred. All the classroom rooms were connected by hallways that seemed to have come straight out of a Victorian manor house, like someone had plucked several of the old-fashioned homes and stuck them on the back of the Archive, blending them in with the rest of the architecture.

  But I was slowly getting the hang of all it. And no matter how often I ended up hiding out in the back corner of a room, sure enough, I still ended up talking to someone new every single day of my first week. I was going to get to know all these people, whether I liked it or not.

  One classroom, tucked away directly under the northern tower of the building, was almost completely circular in shape, and every stretch of wall was covered in maps of the After. There were smaller maps depicting specific regions, but near the door to the classroom was a world map, showing us the most recent approximation of the entirety of the After, taking in all four Realms.

  The map had to be at least five feet long, but still wasn't big enough to go into any detail beyond pertinent borders and the names of specific places or countries, with a few major cities included here and there. I had never had any trouble adapting to this new map, since in my old life, I’d never even visited the home world. For others, seeing places like Rome and Toronto side by side was more of an adjustment.

  Beside it was a map of Earth, or the place that some people called the Before. The world where all our authors had written their stories, pieced together by the occasional book that came through with visual elements, including up-to-date maps. No one could know for sure if it was entirely accurate, but I was fascinated by the depiction all the same, along with how it compared to our world.

  There were certainly obvious differences. While Earth had several distinct continents, the After was made up of large landmasses that were each connected in some way or another, usually by elaborate land bridges. Only about half of the After was made up of water, significantly less than Earth, but both places seem to have countless islands of varying sizes, though none shared any similar place names.

  Gennie and Steph stood at the far end of the room, talking to each other as they pointed out locations on a map of a place called the Under Kingdom. I had introduced the two of them on our first day of classes, and the three of us had formed something of a mini gr
oup, though it was probably still too early to say how cliquey our year as a whole would end up being.

  For this class, during the discussion lead by Keeper Atorsek—who was becoming one of my favorite teachers—I had excused myself, pretending to want to check out some different maps so I wouldn't have to get too far involved in any one conversation about various cities or where we'd come from, which seemed to be what more than half of my class was talking about.

  It had been easy to fall into a new routine. Our class had been broken up into two groups. Ours took three classes every morning within the Archive’s hidden academy while the second group worked on the floor, acting as librarians, curating the Archive’s collection.

  In the afternoons, we switched places, putting our textbooks away to take over some of the more mundane tasks needed to keep the Archive of Ink and Soul’s most basic functions running. We were promised that our class structure would become a little more conventional after our first few months, but I certainly wasn't complaining. The more I learned about the Archive and the After, the more I knew just how important this work was. How much of a difference it made.

  The way Keeper Atorsek told it, each book that came into the Archive also brought with it the essence of its story. The more powerful or popular the book was on Earth, the more of an impact it would have in our world. So something on any one of these maps could change in an instant as a new bestseller or trend came through the Archive, rendering one of the maps we were looking at out of date almost instantly.

  I raised my hand as the Keeper paused his lecture to more closely examine the map he was studying.

  Keeper Atorsek looked over at me and nodded.

  "So who updates the maps?" I asked. "Are there librarians that do that? Or someone else?"

  "A mixture of both, actually. There are certainly those dedicated to mapmaking without being associated with the Archive, but we do have Archivists who have dedicated themselves to this area of study. If you're interested in learning more, you should ask Archivist Nyce, since she's in charge of that order.