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

have a useful specialty, besides for the know-how he’d honed to keep himself afloat.  But there had to be something.

Another day.  He’d figure an answer out later.  His head rolled back, his chest rising and settling.  He could nap - that much, he knew from experience.  He wouldn’t be snatched back inside just like that.  Alexandria was stubborn, but not unfair.  He’d have until night fell, at a minimum.

The thought of wasting even an hour on a nap appalled him, but then again, a day like this could hardly be considered a waste.  He smiled, rolling to bury his face in the soft green.

His phone beeped.  His eyes snapped open.  It might’ve been five minutes, or three hours.  He couldn’t quite tell.  Blinking away the bleariness, he keyed the screen on.

Nate’s name shone down at him.  Exam went like shit.  Scores don’t come back yet, but he’s a wreck anyway.  Wanna come help distract him?

Daniel grinned, chuckling.  His fingers danced across the keyboard.  Should’ve let me help you guys cram.

The Sent icon hovered in the corner of the screen.  He waited, poised with the phone pinned between him and the sky.

The reply came almost too quickly.  Don’t start.  Our place at five?

His heart leapt.  Score.  Beginning to grin, he tapped at the phone.

I’ll be there.

Daniel dropped the phone to the grass, laying back.  Worrying about things was hard - about his future, about what he wanted for himself.  About Leon, and why Alexandria was acting so damn weird.

It was a pain, and there was no sense letting it get under his skin on a beautiful real-world day.  Exhaling, he flopped back to his side, filling his senses with the chaos of reality.

* * * * *

Just a little more.

His arms shook, straining under the weight of the stacked books.  Owl gritted his teeth, hitching them a little higher.  “Couldn’t you shelve these yourself?” he muttered, casting a sidelong glare at a door frame.  “Do you need me to do all of it?”

The Library didn’t respond.  It was, after all, a Library.  But his next few stumbled paces set the floorboards to creaking cheerfully.

He rolled his eyes, pausing long enough to grab the book off the top and slot it into a gap on the shelf alongside him.  “Spoiled brat,” he hissed.

On any other day, it wouldn’t have been notable.  This was his job, after all.  But any other day wouldn’t have left the possibility of Leon running around the Library, and on any other day he wouldn’t have to be shelving books while fully garbed.  His damn breath kept fogging up the lenses of his mask.

At least this trip would be short, he told himself sourly.  He’d just taken in guests, after all.  He’d get several more short stays before Alexandria would make him open the doors again.  It wasn’t quite as appealing as spending every day out there, but he’d escape with only a handful of days or weeks inside rather than a full year.  Until his next, of course.

He shifted the stacked books to his other arm, making a face.  Maybe he could go out to the training yard once the shelving was done.  He could demolish some target dummies, let off a little steam.  Maybe he’d-

Something screamed out overhead.  Owl flinched, going stiff.  It was the Library - but not the panicked alarm it’d given when Lenny had set things down a path of destruction.  No, this was a softer sound, a jingling of bells that pierced the quiet with their musical tones.

He knew that sound.  Moving as if in a haze, he shambled over to a desk, depositing his unshelved books and straightening.  The bells continued their pealing all the while, singing their message for his ears alone.

Someone was at the door.

- Chapter Seventeen -

The books he’d so-recently carried waited on the table.

The bells sang overhead.

And Owl stared, brow steadily furrowing as his perplexion grew.

As if to snap him from his daydreaming, the bells screamed louder, accompanied by an ominous creaking of the shelves next to him.  Owl jerked, shaking his head to clear the fog.  “Don’t just stand around,” he muttered, lifting himself straighter.

It was fortunate he’d cloaked and masked himself, worried about Leon lurking in the wings.  The thought flashed through his mind, small and guilty.  But if he’d been loose in the Library without his uniform, he’d have been caught out.  Whoever it was, at least he was prepared.

He turned on his heel, hurrying toward the Library’s heart.  Couldn’t keep them waiting.

His thoughts raced all the while, matching his feet as he jogged onward.  You might be wrong, they cried.  It might not be someone at all.  Maybe it’s the next round of candidates.  Maybe-

Owl snorted, rounding another corner to cut across a catwalk over a massive, multi-story study.  Maybe it was just the biographies being delivered.  Maybe.  But he’d just recently spent a full year within Alexandria.  It’d be months more before she pestered him for visitors.  Probably.

Any argument he could summon up paled against the backdrop of pealing bells.

“Damn it,” he muttered, breaking back into a jog.

* * * * *

The first beads of sweat were just beginning to roll down his temples when he saw the doors to the entrance.  He stopped, then, taking a deep breath.  Couldn’t be a mess.  Had to be composed.  Had to be professional.  Even if it was just for a pile of papers.

When he was confident he could continue on without making a spectacle of himself, he nodded briskly - and reached for the handle.

The lights shone from within the entryway, momentarily blinding.  Owl winced, resisting the urge to shield his eyes.

A woman turned to face him.

An electric jolt shot through his limbs.  A person.  Here.

“Oh,” he heard her say.  “O-Oh.  Good.  Hello.”

“I’m sorry if you’ve...been waiting,” Owl said, stepping in and pulling the door closed behind him.  Was that disappointment he saw in her eyes as the latch clicked shut?  “I was- busy.”

“I haven’t,” she said, shaking