by Casey White
But one wall had been shoved back to make room for a long, waist-height table. Books littered one end of it.
Leon stood half-hidden behind the stacks, staring at him—and snorted. He turned back to the table, bending back over the laptop he’d braced against a dictionary-sized tome, and arched an eyebrow.
“Welcome back. You done sulking?”
- Chapter Thirty-One -
Leon was still here.
Great.
Daniel twitched, trying to get up, but his arms decided that wasn’t going to happen. He tried to say something—he wasn’t quite sure what, but something—but it came out an unintelligible wheeze. His lungs burned.
Leon snorted, pressing a hand to his face, and momentarily looked away from his laptop. “Christ,” Daniel heard him mumble. “You look ridiculous, you know that?”
“I- I’m...I’m n-not-”
“Look,” Leon snapped, turning back to him. He drew himself up taller, leaning on the table. He looked for all the world like some sort of lord, glaring down at his humiliated subject. “We’ve got way too much shit to get done for you to go all self-pitying on us. So, like I said. Are you done?”
Daniel collapsed back to the ground, letting his gaze slide away from Leon at last. Was he done?
As though he’d wanted to hurt Leon. As though this was all some kind of temper tantrum, like he was a child. “Leon,” he whispered, rolling over—more slowly, to keep his ribs from shrieking in protest again. “Look. It’s- It’s not about you. I know...you want to help. And I-I appreciate that. B-But-”
“Would you shut up with that?”
Daniel swung up into a sitting position, going mute. Leon scowled across the abnormally-large sitting room at him. “I’m not in this shit to get myself killed, you know,” he said. “I don’t know why you think I’m out to get shot or something. I kind of like living. I’d rather live in a world that still had you, y’know?”
“That’s- That’s nice, but there are too many of them, and-”
“Then we’ll figure something else out, won’t we?” Leon’s hand slapped into the wooden tabletop for emphasis. “We’re in Alexandria. We have all the time in the world to find a new plan.”
“Well, not all the time,” Daniel mumbled. “I’ve never stayed here longer than a year, and-”
“Dude, I’m not staying here a year with you,” Leon said, starting to laugh. “I like you, but Christ. A year with only the two of us locked into a building together would end in murder. We have plenty of time. Can you agree on that?”
Daniel made a face. “I guess.”
“Okay,” Leon said, rolling his eyes. “Progress. God damn. And you call me the suicidal one. Let a man help you.”
Daniel didn’t bother responding to that one, only gathered himself and stood. His chest still ached, and his throat prickled as though he’d burst into coughing at a moment’s notice, but he felt...better. Just a little.
“So what’ve you figured out?” he said. He trudged closer, taking up a spot opposite Leon at the table. “Made any earth-shattering discoveries?”
Leon winced. His shoulders hitched higher. “W-Well. I’m still-”
“So you haven’t,” Daniel said, and groaned. “Look. I know you want to help—And I’m not saying no,” he added, holding a hand up as Leon turned on him again, “But you have to promise me. We can look. But if we don’t find a good solution, you have to be realistic. You aren’t allowed to do anything stupid.”
Leon snorted. “As though I’d do that anyway. I’m not an idiot.”
“Leon-”
“I’ll be careful, Daniel,” Leon said. He smiled across the table, even if his eyes were weary. “I meant what I said. I’m not out to get myself killed.”
“Okay,” Daniel mumbled. He nodded, gripping the table more tightly. “Just...remember.”
“Anyway,” Leon said, turning away. “In less depressing news. I might not have found the answer to all our problems yet, but I haven’t been sitting here idle, either.”
“Oh?” Daniel said. The spark of new hope in his chest was painfully transparent. “Then, uh. What are you finding?”
“I was thinking, is all,” Leon said, and gestured to a map pinned up on the wall. “Alexandria is a catalogue of all knowledge ever, right?”
“More or less,” Daniel said. “It’s more limited than you’d think sometimes, but-”
“Well, ‘knowledge’ is a broad thing, isn’t it? It comes down to anything anyone on the planet knows. That’s a pretty big bill.”
Daniel’s brow furrowed. “I guess. How’s it relevant?”
Leon half-glanced back, grinning. “Well, those people who have you? They know where they are, more or less. And they all know where they’re going.”
The light went on in Daniel’s head. “Then-”
“I pulled up a map,” Leon said. “You’re not moving anymore. I...think it’s because of the whole Alexandria thing. How’s it work? Is it, like, we’re frozen in a single moment, somewhere during our sleep, or is it that time outside is moving really, really slowly?”
“I don’t know,” Daniel said.
“I think if we can- What?” Leon twisted back around, his eyes wide. “Really? You don’t know?”
Daniel shook his head. “Not really, no.”
“Dude,” Leon mumbled, running a hand through his hair. “How long have you been Librarian?”
“Since I was a kid.”
“And you’ve been in here every night since? And you never bothered to experiment with it?”
Daniel’s cheeks flushed. “Look, I’m sorry, it’s just- it’s not that simple, and-”
“No, no.” Leon held a hand up, looking down. “It’s fine. I get it. It’s cool. Little weird, but I suppose that’s how all of this goes.”
“B-But, um,” Daniel mumbled. He leaned closer. “You can see where they’re going?”
“Yep,” Leon said, latching back onto the conversational cue with his usual vigor. “When I asked Alex about it, she brought up this.” He jabbed at a point on the map with enough force to bend his finger back. “It looks like, um.” Grabbing for his notepad, he peered at what he’d written there. “It’s a Booklender facility.” He glanced over to Daniel. “One of Indira’s places.”
“Got it,” Daniel said wryly. “I figured that much out.”
As Leon turned back to his laptop, Daniel chewed on what he’d said. “They’re hiding at a Booklender house,” he mumbled. “Not one of the Bookbinder places?” His fingers rapped against the table. “Maybe...Olivia said they were putting the Bookbinders up while they were here. Are they foreign, then?”
“They seemed like it,” Leon said. “I mean, I don’t know. Maybe Olivia would know more.”
“Who isn’t here,” Daniel said. “Damn.”
“W-Well, yeah,” Leon said. “But, I’ve heard a few accents so far. I guess a lot of people have accents, but-”
“I can look them up, if it’s relevant,” Daniel said. He glanced over to the bookshelf behind Leon—and froze.
He recognized those books—the black, leather-bound books, and the ones wrapped in plain cloth, and the massive tomes all the way at the top, each with a Madis in gold lettering.
The mage books. The ones that had been housed in the subterranean library, alongside Alexandria’s statue. She’d actually brought them up and out to where Leon could access them.
Daniel leaned against the table more heavily, letting his head bow forward. Alex. I...Thank you. I know how much that means.
“B-But, um.”
He looked up. Leon was staring at the map, but as Daniel watched, his eyes dipped to the floor. “I guess none of it really solves the problem at hand. Knowing where you are doesn’t mean a damn if I can’t get you out.”
“Yeah,” Daniel said. He pursed his lips, staring at the map, as Leon hunched over his laptop again.
It was as he’d told Leon. There were still just three of them, and Maya wasn’t even one o
f these ‘demi’ mages. What exactly could they hope to do with two people?
“What we need is an army,” he muttered, scowling. “Assholes wouldn’t act so tough then.”
Leon snorted. “I’ve got some friends. You got any more of these relic things? We could work on it.”
Daniel groaned, shaking his head. “No. Hell, no. What, you think we can solve this problem by cobbling together some sort of dream team out of acquaintances? That’s ridiculous. It’d never work.”
“Oh, I know,” Leon said with a chuckle. “I’m just saying.”
“They’d have no clue what they were doing,” Daniel said. “They wouldn’t know how to use their powers, just like you two assholes. And why the hell would they want to fight?”
“Hey, how attached to that pile of cash you gave Maya are you?” Leon said, flashing a grin his way. “I can think of a few friends who might fight for that kind of money.”
“Keep your grubby mitts off it,” Daniel said, arching an eyebrow in his direction. “That’s for emergencies.”
“This is an emergency.”
“Well, yeah, but-”
Daniel stopped. Leon kept typing away, muttering darkly to himself.
They couldn’t just buy off Leon’s friends. It wasn’t fair—and he wanted to risk them every bit as little as he wanted to risk Leon. Besides, finding a bunch of random, innocent strangers to join their fight would be no better than calling the police.
But what if there was another option?
“That guy,” Daniel mumbled. “The tracker. He wasn’t part of Rickard’s team.”
“What’s that?” Leon said.
His mind was racing, though, poring back over the facts. It was hard to remember, through the fear and pain, but… “He said Rickard wasn’t paying him to fight. That he’d paid him to...I don’t know. Track me, or whatever.”
“Okay,” Leon said slowly. “So what?”
“So, Rickard was paying him to be there,” Daniel said. He whirled as best he could with a stiff, gunshot leg, advancing on the bookshelf. “Alex—there are mages out there who work for hire, aren’t there? People you can pay to do things for you?”
“Oh,” Leon said.
Daniel smiled grimly. “Are there any of these demi mage people in range who would fight for us if we paid them?
For a few moments, nothing—and then, a book near the end of the shelf started to wobble. Daniel grabbed hold of it before she could change her mind, turning to slap it down onto the table.
When he pulled it open, page after page of picture-adorned bios flopped down in front of him.
“Okay,” Daniel whispered. “Okay. This...I can work with. Probably.”
“Probably?” Leon said. “Why probably?”
Daniel kept turning the pages, staring at the names. The powers. “This is a whole other level of stupid,” he mumbled. “See, like…” He rubbed at his face, grimacing. “It’s bad enough mages out there know I exist. It’s really bad that I’ve gotten you three dragged into our fight. But to seek other mages out? Get them involved, when they’re guns for hire?”
“Oh,” Leon said. His shoulders drooped. “Yeah, I...I guess this isn’t such a great idea.”
“It’s a last resort,” Daniel said, looking up from a picture of a woman with black hair and a scowl. “It’s something to keep in your back pocket. But we can keep looking, for now.”
He watched Leon nod, his expression hardening. “Okay. Yeah.”
“You’ve still got the money I gave Maya.”
“Yeah.” Leon cracked a grin, and started running his hand across the books on the shelf. “Holy shit, dude, how rich are you?”
“Rich enough,” Daniel said. “Use as much as you like. And if...if this doesn’t work, and I don’t get out-”
“Daniel-”
“I want you guys to take that money. There’s more, back at-”
A wave of vertigo slammed into Daniel. He lurched, seizing the table for stability.
“Daniel!” he heard Leon cry. But his friend froze a moment later, his eyes widening.
Leon’s skin was lighting up. Already, he glowed like a torch, building by the second. As though he was a dreamer.
“N-No,” Daniel mumbled, furrowing his brow. “Not...Not a dreamer.”
Alexandria was sending him home. But- She’d only do that if-
Daniel crumpled, hitting the ground hard. With a flash of light, Leon disappeared.
His cheek hit the floor, and-
His eyes opened. His blood roared in his ears, his heartbeat thundering.
“There,” someone said. A hand was on his face—and a man was leaning over him, with a stern face and dark hair. Daniel blinked, trying to focus on him, but his eyes wouldn’t cooperate.
He’d seen that man before. He’d been there, at the garage. Then- He had to be-
The man looked away, taking a step back. “He’s up,” he said. “All yours.”
As quickly as he moved away, someone else took his place. “Yes, I can see. Thank you, Janik.”
Rickard loomed over Daniel, smiling faintly.
“Good morning, Librarian.”
- Chapter Thirty-Two -
Out of all the sights Daniel would have wanted to wake up to, this was none of them.
He jerked back, his limbs tensing, but something dug into his wrists. They’d bound him, he realized. He was sitting in what felt like an office chair, his hands pinned behind the seat back.
Blinking, he swallowed, stealing a glance at his surroundings. It looked like...a house, but one that’d been converted into some sort of home office. Figures milled about, watching with half-hearted interest, and-
His eyes snapped to a familiar pair of figures in the corner, against a wall. Olivia. She sat propped up, a purplish-green bruise spreading across her cheek and a dribble of blood oozing from her nose. She stared right back at Daniel, wordless.
Will crouched alongside her, one hand gripping her shoulder. He wouldn’t meet Daniel’s eyes at all—but he edged toward Olivia, a physical wall between them.
“There will be time for reunions later,” Rickard said. Daniel turned back to him. He circled a few steps away, peering around a corner. “We really should begin, if we’ve gone to the trouble of waking him. Tonya?” He raised his voice at the last, leaning through a doorway, but made a face. “Where was-”
“I-I’m here,” a woman said, hurrying into the room. “I’m here. Was there, um. Were you-”
She stopped dead when she caught sight of Daniel. He saw her hands tremble, and then she balled them up into fists.
“Ah,” Rickard said, breaking into a smile. “There you are. It’s about that time, wouldn’t you say?” He gestured toward Daniel, almost deferential. “If you’re ready.”
“Right,” Tonya whispered. “Yes, of course.”
She didn’t move, though, only stared at him as Rickard bustled off behind her. “Miss Booklender!” Daniel heard him cry. “We require your presence!”
What the hell was all this? Daniel glanced to Olivia, but her eyes drooped. He’d never seen her look this defeated before. It didn’t suit her.
But she wasn’t dead. He took solace in that much. In this shitshow, she’d managed to stay alive. That’d have to be good enough.
A flurry of motion brought his eyes back front and center, in time to see Indira slip from one of the hallways. Her lips parted as she saw him, then pressed tightly together. “Librarian,” she murmured, clasping her hands. “I am...so sorry. That it’s come to this. That-”
“Now, now,” Rickard said, patting her shoulder as he strode back into the room. “He was given the chance to choose differently, and warned of the consequences should he not. We must focus on moving forward from this, now.”
Indira nodded, her eyes darkening. “I suppose.”
“Still playing by someone else’s tune, eh?” Daniel mumbled, shooting a look at the guildmaster. “You could do whatever you wanted. You can tell yourself this is
justified, but-”
“I believe that is enough chatter,” Rickard said. He turned to Daniel for a moment, raising an eyebrow, but glanced to Tonya. “Mistress Telepath, if you will?”
Tonya nodded again, licking her lips. “Yes. Straight away, Rickard.”
Rickard slowed in his pacing long enough to reach out, squeezing her shoulder reassuringly. “It will be fine,” Daniel heard him murmur. “Remain centered. We are here by your side. You will not lose yourself.”
She smiled weakly. “I know,” she whispered.
When she turned her gaze to Daniel, it hardened, and he flinched back. Well, he tried to. The chair only rocked, not giving him more than a few inches of movement.
Before he could say a word, she vanished from sight behind him—and a hand settled onto the back of his head. He jerked away at the unwelcome touch, and her fingers dug into his scalp.
Something pushed against the edges of his thoughts.
Daniel gasped, shuddering. It was...utterly impossible to describe, just a jumble of flashes, feelings and emotions and fragments of sentences. His mind wouldn’t focus. It was like someone had taken their hand and shoved it straight into him, into the core of his being.
It’s wrong. That much, he knew. His sense of self rebelled against the touch, pushing back with all the strength he could muster.
“H-He’s fighting,” he heard Tonya mumble. “Putting up shields. I can’t-”
“Keep going,” Rickard said, his voice soothing. “Keep trying.”
So it was working, was it? Daniel grinned, squeezing his eyes shut. Big, strong walls—that was what he needed. Tall oaken trunks. Thick, heavy stone bricks. He forced his thoughts to zero in on that as best they could, fixing the image in his mind. Stay out, he willed, even as the red-hot brand tearing a streak through his thoughts burned deeper. Go away. I won’t-
“S-Stop,” Olivia whispered. “Please. Don’t-”
“Quiet,” Indira said. “You’ve caused enough trouble.”
He was holding his own, but losing ground. The burning hand ripped at his barriers, etching away the wood and stone like useless styrofoam. He gritted his teeth, hands clenched.