"Do I ever," Tommen agreed, slurring his words a little. To my horror, he took a step closer. And another. Too soon, he was sitting in the chair beside me, completely oblivious to my panic.
"How are things downstairs?" I asked, trying to change the subject, trying to do something, anything.
My mind was still chanting oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. Again and again. It was hard to think over the ruckus.
"Slowing down. A few people started falling asleep at the tables. So there's that. It's still a good time though. You should come back."
"Sure," I said, too quickly. I bounced up from my seat even though Tommen had only been sitting for a few moments, my book still clenched in my fists. "Let's go." Thankfully, Tommen took my sporadic behavior in stride and stood up again to follow me.
While it killed me a little to put it down, I hustled over to the closest shelf and popped my book into the first gap I saw. I couldn't just leave it on the chair, someone I knew might find it. They might even read it.
Then I'd be done for real.
I could put it back where it was supposed to be later.
Gods, I never should have picked that thing up in the first place.
Tommen scoffed. "No way. You're really going to just put that book back at random? Archivist Bronson will kill you." Tommen looked genuinely horrified. And he had a good point. We had so many lectures in the last two years about proper shelving of materials. But I could take another lecture if it meant getting away from that space as quickly as possible. "Here," Tommen said, stepping toward where I'd been only a moment before. "I'll put it back for you."
"No!" I lunged toward him before stopping just as suddenly, not even sure what was I planning to do and knowing I was only making things worse by drawing more attention to myself. "Don't worry about it. I'll come back for it later."
Tommen was starting to look at me a lot like the librarians at the front desk had been not long before. All I could do was hope that he would just chalk it up to alcohol. Or forget all about it by the next day because of his own drinking.
"Why are you being so weird?" he asked, already reaching for the book again.
My brain stopped thinking altogether then, and I reacted completely on instinct. I needed to protect myself. I needed to do something to undo all the damage I'd created in only a matter of hours.
I kissed Tommen.
At first, my lips pressed up against his like a hammer, with no finesse at all. And for a second, the two of us stood there, completely frozen but still touching. I was too horrified to open my eyes and see how he was looking at me. But then he moved and I felt the moment when his hand connected with my leg, his fingers delicately pressing into my thigh before his palm slid up towards my hip.
Gently at first, his lips pressed into mine, triggering a redo of the moment when we’d first collided. My lips responded immediately.
My distraction had worked perfectly. It had worked too well. Because soon, my fingers had found their way to the base of Tommen’s neck and were starting to work themselves up into his hair.
For a brief stretch of time, my book was forgotten along with the drunken choices that had led me to finding it. Everything around us was forgotten. There was only me and Tommen.
Me and Tommen. Together.
And it was wonderful.
Chapter 12
The next morning, I was forced to wake up far earlier than planned when light started streaming through my still open window and directly onto my eyes. Drunken Tari had been far too distracted to remember to close the curtain, and I was the one paying the price.
The first thing I remembered was that I had managed a decent comeback, ranking fifth in my class for the end of the year. But there was no time to even mentally pat myself on the back because as soon as I opened my eyes, squinting against the light, I remembered everything else about the night before too.
Everything I'd done.
Groaning out loud, I turned over and threw my pillow over my head to try to block out some of the invading sunlight.
While I managed to dim the strain on my eyes, I couldn't avoid the paranoia and confusion swirling together in my stomach.
I'd woken up that day expecting to finish my exams, and celebrate with my friends. Instead, I gotten too drunk, done the one thing I promised myself I wouldn't, and I'd kissed Tommen.
I'd really enjoyed kissing Tommen.
But that didn't mean it hadn't been as big of a mistake as risking finding my own book and reading it out in public where anyone could find me.
Okay, maybe kissing Tommen hadn't been quite that big of a mistake. I'd been drinking and feeling great, and needed a way to distract him. From the way he'd responded it was probably safe to say that we had both enjoyed the experience and been thoroughly distracted. Even if it couldn't happen again.
Still, friends could drink a little too much and make out between the bookcases in the place where they were both going to work for the rest of their lives, without having to be anything more. Right?
And that avoided disaster with my actual book. Because kissing Tommen had worked exactly how I'd hoped it would. The two of us had stayed there, tangled up in each other for a while before finally regaining our composure and separating. Things had been impossibly awkward for all of a minute before we both made excuses and went our separate ways.
And for all I knew Tommen could already be on his train, headed back home for the week. So at least I didn't have to do anything to clean up that particular mess for a while. Hopefully, Tommen would come back and everything would continue as it always had, like nothing happened.
Because nothing else ever could.
As much as I wanted to consider the possibility, there would only ever be so much of myself I could give to another person without risking everything. And I had decided to give my education as a librarian everything I had. Dating would only be a distraction. There were just too many reasons not to go farther with Tommen to ignore.
So that was that.
Finally sitting up, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and set my feet onto the cold floor. Outside my room, I heard Steph rummaging around in the kitchen. She still had a little longer before she had to catch her bus, and while getting up then meant maybe I'd get another one of her now famous breakfasts, it would also mean that the two of us would probably have to rehash what we’d both done the night before.
I moved over to my desk and decided to stay put, pretending to be asleep until I heard the familiar click of the front door shutting and locking. She was gone, and wouldn't be back for almost a week.
Which meant I had a week to figure out how to talk to Tommen–if we were both okay to just pretend like things never happened, then we wouldn't need to tell our friends. But a big part of me still wanted to find Tommen and kind of rehash what had happened, just in case. Just to see what he thought of the whole thing.
Not that I wanted to make too big a deal out of it or anything. It was probably better to be safe.
Unfortunately, the other mess I had to clean up was a little more pressing.
While I knew there was no reason that one misplaced sci-fi book could ever be traced back to me, it was still safer if I could get into the Archive and put it back exactly where it was meant to be so that no attention would ever be drawn to it. Despite the number of people who came into the Archive just to read or relax, because of the sheer size of our collection, most books went years without ever being picked up off the shelf. Some might never be read at all by anyone other than librarians.
I could be in and out in twenty minutes, putting the book back where I'd found it then leaving for the whole week to enjoy my time off like I was supposed to.
Or, I could spend a little more time reading Last Bastion of Humanity. I would promise myself that this would be it, the final time. I hadn't even read the thing cover to cover yet.
Nope. I had my chance, and I'd screwed it up. I’d put the book back, then I'd be done.
I got dressed q
uickly, already looking forward to having a long bath later that night. I didn't get a lot of opportunities for long baths and monopolizing the lone bathroom when Steph was home.
Right away, I felt guilty about being glad for my roommate's absence. I found a note on the kitchen counter.
‘Breakfast is in the fridge – Steph.’
Already paranoid about drawing more attention to myself, I entered the Archive through the backdoor which was technically a spelled passageway. The door opened from the back end of the building from a small garden area still on the Archive's property, and entered directly into the back end of the library section of the building even though anyone entering from the back would've had to pass under the entire Academy section of the Archive before reaching the library.
There was no one in sight as my feet met the now so familiar red carpeting. There was no back lobby, simply a small open area before the beginning of the endless stacks.
I used one of the corner stairwells to get back up to the science fiction section, constantly reminding myself not to look over my shoulder and to avoid looking inconspicuous as I tried to notice anyone noticing me. Anyone who could place me there at that particular date and time. Even though there was no reason seeing any apprentice would stick out in someone’s memory.
I was being ridiculous, and even I knew it. But I was still eager to have that day over and done with.
I found the section where I'd spent most of my night the evening before easily enough. Instantly, as I stepped into the seating area, my mind was brought back to the feeling of Tommen's lips against mine. The sensation of his body pressed into my own. Until then, I'd never really appreciated or cared about the fact that I hadn't dated at all in the last two years. And not all that much in the year before that as I put everything I had into my application to the Archive.
Maybe that was why I couldn't seem to shake the memory. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed that part of my life.
Either that, or it was the particular person I'd experienced it with that had me all turned around.
It was one or the other. But there wasn't really any way to know for sure.
I smiled to myself as I moved toward the exact stack of books where the two of us had connected, first in a moment of panic, then in a moment of bliss.
At least I had a week left to find a way to eliminate the smile that inevitably cropped up on my face every time I thought about Tommen.
My eyes scanned the bookshelves as I tried to figure out exactly where I had placed Last Bastion of Humanity. I had thought it'd been on the shelf at eye level, but the black spine of the book I was looking for didn't jump out at me. I checked the one below it. Nothing. Then the one above it, and there was still nothing. Slowly, I read each title on all three shelves and still didn't see it, then each title on every bookcase nearby.
And again.
It wasn't there. The book I'd been created in was gone.
My vision blurred a little as my mind reeled. The library had systems and places for tracking down lost books, and occasionally apprentices would be assigned to go over specific bookcases to find any books out of place or out of order.
But it had only been a matter of hours and already the book that I was sure had been placed in this bookcase was missing.
Hopeful that it was just bad luck, I backtracked to the section where it was supposed to have been shelved, where I’d found it the night before.
But it wasn't there either.
There was no way this was just a case of bad luck or bad timing. My book wasn't where it was supposed to be, and it wasn’t even like I could ask around to find out where it had gone or if anyone I knew had been working in the section since the night before.
The book could have already been up in one of the councilor’s offices as the people I most respected figured out how thoroughly I'd been lying to them over the last two years, that they'd wasted their time with my education. That I'd betrayed them all.
I leaned against the closest bookcase and made myself take a long breath to steady my heartbeat and my thoughts. It wasn't necessarily as bad as all that I had imagined. Maybe I was misremembering where I'd left it, or maybe someone simply had just picked it up by a fluke and was off in some corner of the library reading my story.
There could be dozens of explanations and not every one of them spelled disaster for me. But somehow, that didn’t offer much comfort.
"While I'm all for intensive study, everyone needs to take a break." I looked up from the reading nest I’d made for myself in a corner on the fourth floor to find Marissa Dorset, the Heart of the Archive staring down at me with a knowing smile on her face.
I shuffled up from the odd position I’d folded myself into to try and stand but the councilor quickly raised her hand. "No, don't get up. I interrupted. I'm just not used to seeing any of our apprentices here so often on a week off."
Still not feeling comfortable, I stayed in my seat, painfully aware that my shoes were rubbing against the chair’s fabric since I was sitting cross-legged with my feet on a chair. Not exactly classy or professional.
But I had thought I was alone.
"Just catching up on some pleasure reading," I explained, holding up a beautiful fantasy story I'd been enjoying that afternoon. But I knew it was possible she was right. I'd found a reason to justify coming to the Archive on every single one of my days off.
I made a point of varying my routine each day, but I always made a stop at both places where Last Bastion of Humanity had last been seen. So far, there was still no sign of the book I was looking for.
But the fact that one of the councilors was talking to me without demanding explanations was also a good sign. Every librarian I'd run into had treated me the same as they ever had, though maybe with a little extra teasing for not being able to pry myself away from the Archive.
"That's very commendable," Keeper Dorset said with a nod. It was a struggle to keep the smile off my face. Because the more time I spent at the Archive, the more certain I became that her order was the one I wanted to pledge at the end of my apprenticeship. While on paper, being an archivist was closer to what I would've guessed I'd have enjoyed when I first started this journey, the role of keeper was calling to me more and more. There was no better way to utilize my love of the Archive and my appreciation of the After. And it wasn't like there weren't any keepers who had opportunities to travel. Librarians worked all over the world and some even journeyed between their home realms to the others. No matter which order I joined, my opportunities were still endless.
I was more inclined than ever to follow my gut.
But I still had two years before I had to make any final decisions. And I was only days away from starting third year, when I'd finally get more firsthand knowledge about what life in each of the orders would really be like.
"I won't bother you any longer," Keeper Dorset said with a nod. "Enjoy the rest of your time off, and we'll see you back in class on Monday."
I mumbled something incoherent as the councilor walked away but then immediately sighed with relief as soon as she turned a corner.
Would I spend the rest of my life wondering if any interaction I had with a councilor or even a fellow librarian would be the one that ended my career?
My heart was pounding so loudly in my chest that I was surprised the Heart hadn't heard it.
Later that night, I left the Archive through the front door, determined that I wouldn't be coming back the next day. It was already Friday, and my friends would be starting to return home as early as the next morning. I had hoped to put all this behind me before seeing anyone else but I'd probably only attracted more attention to myself, and hadn't been able to see my book returned safely to its rightful place. Yet.
I would have wasted my entire week off, and probably had taken a few years off my life as a result of the stress.
I waved goodbye to Keeper Boyd who was working the front desk again as I passed. By that point, he had noticed me for my strangene
ss but would hopefully just write it off as eccentric behavior.
I'd even gone so far as considering using his computer terminal again to search for myself and delete the entire listing for Last Bastion of Humanity. I came from a world where basic technology was generations ahead of Sanctum so even though I wasn't a computer hacker by any stretch of the imagination, I could probably do enough to make my listing disappear. Then, while the book would still be in the Archive, no one looking for it would be able to find it.
At least, not if everything went exactly according to plan and nothing ever went wrong ever.
In the end, I hadn't been that stupid. Or that desperate.
All that was left was for me to live with the consequences of what I'd done. If I had just left well enough alone, then my book would probably still be exactly where it was supposed to be. No one would've found it, no one would've read it. I'd be safer than I was now. And I’d certainly feel more secure.
But I was learning that the farther I got into my librarian education, the farther away security seemed to get. I couldn't avoid making connections, I couldn't even seem to avoid being noticed by the councilors.
But I still had to believe it would all be worth it. I was less than two years away from crossing the finish line and becoming a true librarian. Then, I could move to another corner of the world, far away from the librarians I'd come up with and be somewhere where I’d never risk running into a councilor on a Friday afternoon, or doing something that would draw too much attention to myself.
My book would stay behind, and I'd start yet another new life for myself. It was something I was getting all too used to doing, though that didn't make it any less exhausting.
Chapter 13
I was more nervous for my first day of third year than I had been for anything else in my life that wasn't a life or death space battle.
Monday through Thursday would each be dedicated to studies of a particular order. For me, my Mondays would be all about work as a Scholar. Tuesdays, as a Keeper. Wednesdays, I would be working with the Archivists. And Thursday's with the Protectorate.
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