The Library (The Librarian of Alexandria Book 1) by Casey White (ebook reader 8 inch .TXT) 📗

his leather-covered chest.  There wasn’t a chance in hell he’d believe that Leon was clueless in all this.  You didn’t just accidentally find your way into Alexandria, after all - much less come equipped with knowledge of the Librarians.

And...he’d mentioned a journal.  Someone had fed him knowledge - or even pointed him here.  Owl shifted from foot to foot, watching Leon.

For his part, the man seemed as uncomfortable as Owl.  He still grinned nervously, when he wasn’t drinking in the sights of Alexandria.  Every so often, though, his eyes flicked to Owl’s face, his mask, and his expression turned waxen.

“S-Seriously,” he mumbled.  “I’ll leave.  I don’t- I just want to...Just let me out, okay?”

“You haven’t answered my questions,” Owl said, his voice carefully level.  Couldn’t scare Leon - or should he?  He needed the man to be truthful.  Coercion wouldn’t get him the truth, though.  It’d just get him scared babble.

“I don’t know your answers,” Leon said, a hair shy of a gasp.  “Seriously.  So I’ll just- I’ll just go, yeah?”

“Not yet,” Owl said, rocking back on his heels, and watched Leon’s face crumple.

He’d need Alexandria’s help if he was to coerce the intruder with magic, he admitted with a sigh.  He could control the empty spaces of the Library, but impacting the people within...that was harder.  Not that he’d had to do anything like that himself, but he’d found a note or two within an old Librarian’s journal.

The bookshelves creaked, shifting under the force of a breeze that blew through the wing.

Owl made a face, glancing up.  Look, I’m sorry.  But I need answers.  If he knows something about you, I have to figure out what.

The wind didn’t slow - and neither did the creaking.

“She’s impossible,” Owl muttered under his breath.

“What’s that?” Leon said, perking up.

“Nothing,” Owl said.  Look.  You’ve got to...there’s got to be something you can do to make him talk.  A truth potion?  You’re magic, right?  And...if he knows about you, then we’ll have to wipe his memories before-

The Library groaned to life, tired limbs shifting and straining.  Owl staggered back, his head snapping up.  The chandeliers overhead rocked back and forth, sending droplets of wax plummeting to splatter against the shelves.

Leon shrieked, stumbling away and throwing his arms over his head.  Owl just gaped, dumbstruck.

Why?  Why was the Library reacting like this now, when-

Light flared in his eyes, bright enough to blind.  Owl twisted away with a muted cry, clapping a hand over the tinted lenses of his mask.

And then the light was gone, and he cracked his fingers to peer out.

Leon.  The man had vanished.

He was alone.

* * * * *

Owl searched.  For hours, he paced the shelves, his eyes narrowed and searching for the slightest sign of life.  He hadn’t dismissed the man - and so Leon might still be around.

Somewhere.

With every step through the ancient halls, though, he grew closer and closer to accepting the truth.  No voices echoed through the racks.  No footsteps broke the quiet.  No figures moved at the edge of his vision.  It was just him and the Library, with the candlelight flickering down cheerfully from above.

Whoever Leon was, wherever he’d come from, he was gone now.  Owl turned back toward the study with a sigh.

But the worry in his chest remained.

- Chapter Fourteen -

Darkness filled the lonely office.

Candles burned in sconces around the study, casting a dim glow over the shelves and books.  The light of it flickered between the iron bars of his territory, drawing narrow lines of color against the black.

Owl stared at the monitors lining his desk, only the tempered glass of his eye-lenses keeping him from burning his vision to uselessness.  Numbers paraded across the screens in line after line of code.

He chewed his lip, his hands resting against the tabletop.  No matter how long he looked, it wasn’t helping.  The numbers danced into his mind and darted away just as quickly, leaving him to run his eyes up and down the display.

He needed to work.  He needed to be useful, to make his next stay in the outside world a better one.  That was the plan.  He’d promised himself that, years prior - waste nothing.  Want for nothing.  Make every stint a little better than the last.

Every time he blinked, though, he saw Leon, standing among the bookshelves.  He’d been so damn blithe, completely unaware of how extraordinary his visit had been.

Which, of course, led Owl to the other matter weighing on his mind.

“Are you about ready?” the Librarian murmured, his voice low.  The others wouldn’t disturb him.  Probably.  Lenny and Emma were still occupied with their work, their intensity growing with every grain of sand that fell from the massive hourglass-clock.  Even if they heard him, well, it wasn’t that big a deal.  They’d picked up on the Library’s strangeness already.

But the only sound to break the quiet was a low, ominous creak as a distant door drifted shut.

Owl gritted his teeth, letting a hissing breath slide out.  “Come on,” he muttered.  “Something more was going on there.  Why?  Why did you let him in?  Why did you-”

Out in the study, a stack of books tipped over.  The sound of leather slapping the tiled floor rose to cover his voice.

Through it all, Owl glared up at the ceiling, counting the seconds.  When silence again fell, he made an irritated noise.  “Fine.  Don’t tell me.  It’s not like I’m supposed to protect you or anything.”

The air itself seemed to tighten, going thick - and then loosened, a gentle breeze drifting through his office.  A warm breeze.

That was all the apology he’d get, Owl knew.  He ducked his head forward, rubbing at his skull through the thick leather of his hood, and pushed himself upright.

“Don’t get mad at me if there’s trouble,” he whispered, reaching for the door.

The study passed in a blur.  His third guest sat in the farthest corner, surrounded by endless stacks of books.  He looked up at Owl’s passing, raising a hand in a wave,