The Librarian: A Remnants of Magic Novel (The Librarian of Alexandria Book 2) by Casey White (reading list txt) 📗

He lay there, unmoving, as his pulse started to slow. His chest heaved, fighting for breath.

“Alex,” he whispered at last.

Wind whistled through the eaves, oddly mournful.

He chuckled weakly. “W-Well. I…” His eyes burned. “I made it back.”

Alexandria didn’t respond. He didn’t expect her to. He just closed his eyes again, listening to the distant howl.

If he’d come back to Alexandria, then he was asleep in the outside world.

And if he was asleep out there, then things had gone very, very wrong.

“Sorry,” Daniel whispered, under the shrieking winds. His head swam. “I...I think I messed up.”

The wind didn’t stop—but it quieted, just a little.

Slowly, wincing, he rolled over until he could get his legs under him. A fresh dagger of pain shooting through his calf was all the reminder he needed that his injuries hadn’t vanished in the transition. He gripped the bandaged wound, grimacing., and laughed hollowly. “Couldn’t make that go away for me, Alex?”

Alexandria didn’t respond.

What little humor he’d scraped together, it drained away within moments. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I know.”

Shelves towered around him in looming, ominous walls of black wood and brown leather. He grabbed hold of a shelf, groaning quietly as he pushed himself aloft.

Once vertical, he wasn’t quite sure why he’d wanted it so badly. His leg burned beneath him. Alex had put him back into his Librarian uniform, but it did nothing at all for the pain. His stomach churned unhappily. Worst of all, though, were the thoughts. The doubts.

What was he going to do now?

Taking a step forward, Daniel reached out, grabbing hold of the next shelf. “What next?” he mumbled. “What are we going to do next?”

Alexandria was quiet—but the next shelf he braced himself against creaked under his weight, long and drawn-out.

He smiled sourly. “No genius plans?” Another awkward step. Another shelf to take hold of. He licked his lips. “If I’m here, then I’m probably in trouble outside.”

That was putting it lightly. He didn’t remember getting shot, but that didn’t mean he was safe. They’d done something to him—and to Olivia. Something to put both of them under. Rickard and Indira wanted Alexandria. Once they got it, they wouldn’t need him anymore.

But there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it while he was trapped inside her walls.

“I need to go back out,” Daniel said. He sucked in a breath of air, steeling himself, and flexed his hurt leg. It spasmed, rippling with pain, but held. “I need to get away from them. Can…”

He glanced up to the eaves. The Library was dark, near as dark as he’d ever seen her. Only a few candles glowed from lanterns on the walls, barely illuminating his path.

“Can you send me back out?” he said. “I can’t stay here. I need to...to…”

To what?

A break in the shelves. An aisle. Daniel lumbered forward, floating as the supporting bookshelves fell away from either side.

What the hell was he going to do outside? Even if he woke up, he’d probably been drugged and jammed into their trunk. And Olivia...his breath caught in his throat. They had even less reason to keep Olivia around than him. He’d...Almost certainly, he’d be alone, surrounded by enemies both mage and ‘mundane’.

What could he do in the face of that?

“Please,” he whispered anyway. “I need to try. Even if it’s hopeless.”

The last of the wind fell away. Alexandria towered over him, totally and completely silent. The perfect stillness of it rang in his ears, pressing in like a woolen blanket to smother him.

And nothing happened. He didn’t crumple to the floor under a fit of exhaustion, didn’t watch the world fade out around him.

He didn’t wake up.

“Nothing?” he said in a tiny voice. “Y-You can’t do anything?”

His fists balled up. It wasn’t her fault, he told himself. He’d been drugged. Alexandria was many things, but even she had limits that seemed to hold her back from the real world. Most of the time.

All of which meant he was on his own. Again.

“Okay,” he whispered. “I...I guess. If you really can’t help.”

There, in the eerie quiet, he heard a woman sigh.

Daniel spun, wobbling madly. His heart leapt into his throat.

For a moment, he swore he could see a person standing among the shelves—but when he pulled himself upright, finally focusing his bleary eyes on the point, there was no one there.

The air coursed around him in gentle, oddly-warm currents, as though Alexandria was trying to comfort him. He bowed his head forward, trying to slow the wild hammering of his pulse.

Of course Alexandria couldn’t help. He’d gotten himself into this mess.

There was no reason he should be disappointed.

Lifting one leaden foot, he started forward again.

* * * * *

Daniel walked.

He couldn’t say why he’d started. Maybe it’d been that standing there in the quiet, alone, was more than he could bear. It wasn’t like walking was going to get him anywhere. But...it was better than doing nothing at all.

He walked. The study drifted by him, just as he’d left it. Papers littered the tables. Books, stacked on one end. A laptop, carelessly discarded on an end table near a fireplace. It was like the place was waiting for him to come back. Which, of course, it had been.

The lonely bars of his office windows waited in the gloomy darkness. A lantern burned inside, as though inviting him in with its warmth and light. He spared a moment to eye it, but only shook his head, continuing on his way. What would he find there, waiting for him? His notes? The AI project he’d been so devoted to just a few days before? The prediction models he’d slaved over for so many years?

Useless. Neither of those would help him now. If he didn’t find a way out of this snare, they’d never help him again.

He walked, leaving them behind as he wandered deeper into the wings.

Through it all, the only sound was the steady, shuffling thud of his boots against the stone. It carried him onward,