The Library (The Librarian of Alexandria Book 1) by Casey White (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📕

of wind-chimes blowing on the breeze, and scowled.  Don’t you dare laugh at me. This is your fault.

But Leon and James froze.  The friend kept glancing between Owl and Leon, his face bone-white.  Leon hadn’t taken his eyes off Owl, his brows furrowed heavily.

“Okay,” Leon said at last, turning to square off.  “I guess.  I mean...it’s you, isn’t it?  Look, man, I answered your questions last time.  I don’t have anything else to-”

“I know,” Owl said hurriedly.  “I know, I know.  I’m not going to attack you or anything.  Just want to talk.  That’s all.”

His fingers grabbed for the leather edge of the hood, trying to pull it up, but it kept catching on...everything, it seemed.  The collar of his jacket.  The high-necked shirt he wore underneath the jacket.  And more than anything, the shaggy mess of black hair hanging down over the shirt.

The silence dragged on as he grappled with the hood, fighting to pull it free without letting his mask fall.

Softly at first, the sound of their shoes scraping against the elegant floors of the Library rose in his ears.  “Uh,” Leon said.

“L-Look, could you guys, just, like...turn around?” Owl said desperately.  “I need to- I can’t-”

“Do you need help with that or something?” Leon said, taking a step forward.

Owl stumbled back, still clutching his mask.  “N-No,” he said, shaking his head.  “Nope, I can get it.  Just, uh.  Could you-”  The bookshelf. It hung right at the edge of his vision, solid and very much opaque with books.  He seized the idea, waving a finger toward the pair in a loose loop.  “Turn around?  For just a second?”

“Just do it,” he heard James mutter.  “Weirdo.”

Leon laughed nervously, but turned around at James’ nudge.  The two faced away.

Finally.  Owl hurled himself behind the edge of the bookshelf, dropping his mask to the rack and grabbing for the hem of his hood.  With one final tug and a grunt, he pulled it free.  It settled over his face in the next instant, right where it should be.  He hissed in relief.  About time.

Again he thrust his mask onto his face, and this time, when he reached for the straps to bind it against his head, they were ready and waiting down the inside of his collar.

The breath he’d been holding in slid out as he pulled the last one tight, giving the mask a tentative tug - and felt it hold. The clips to hold the hood tight to its rim snapped into place smoothly.

“Okay,” he said with a sigh, stepping back out into the hallway.  “I...yeah.  Sorry about that.  Um.”

The two visitors were waiting right where he’d left them, still turned away.  Heat began to climb Owl’s cheeks, safely hidden behind the mask.  “Y-You can turn back around.”

Get yourself together, he screamed at himself silently.  You’re the Librarian.  Stop acting like a bumbling juvenile.

Leon and James turned around, though - and while James still looked more wary and suspicious than anything, unbridled curiosity simmered in the depths of Leon’s eyes.

“I’m...sorry.  About last time,” Owl said, resisting the urge to grind his teeth together.  Part of him still wanted to screech sorry for what and drag the both of them to Alexandria’s front door.  But-

The lanterns alongside him rocked ominously, letting globules of wax fall to the floor.  I know, Owl whispered.  I won’t. I know you’ve got your damn hands in this, and that means I’ll put up with it.  For now.

“You are?” Leon said.

“Yeah,” Owl said.  “I just...I might have.  You know.  Overreacted.”

“You grabbed me.”

“And you were an intruder, visiting the Library without permission,” Owl said, with an amused-if-resigned note starting to slip into his voice.  “Don’t blame me.”

“The library?” Leon said, with that same interest still burning in his expression.  Something in his voice, though...it lacked the proper import, the knowledge that the title should have held.  It was definitely still library-with-a-little-L to him, then, not the Library.

And that meant he didn’t know.  Not really.  Probably.

Well.  Owl wrinkled his nose, realizing the mess he’d stepped into.  Leon hadn’t known - until he’d gone and said the name right to his face.

“It’s...don’t worry about it,” he mumbled, scuffing at the ground.  “It’s-”

“It’s here, isn’t it?  This place.”

Owl glanced back up.  Leon stood, bouncing on his heels with his hands shoved into his pockets, and gazed at Owl with eyes alight.  In all his years as Librarian, Owl couldn’t quite remember someone looking as enthused as Leon did in that moment.

“Yeah,” Owl said, unable to stop himself.  “It’s...It’s here, yeah.”  He chuckled softly, leaning forward and sweeping one arm across his front in an elegant bow.  “Welcome to the Library.  You’re...not guests, but I am the Librarian.  I suppose I have to look after you anyway.”

“Librarian?” he heard James mumble.  “Uh...Leon, are you sure this-”

“But you already knew that, right?” Owl said, lifting his head and looking back to Leon - who grinned, still rocking on his heels.

“Yeah,” Leon said.  “Kinda figured, anyway.  That Fox guy got called a Librarian, too.”

“By that journal you found?” Owl said, his blood electrifying.  “About that.  Could you-”

“I told you, though,” Leon said, elbowing James and turning away in the same motion.  His eyes had returned to the Library around them, the wonder in them as rich as the first time Owl had seen him.  “This place is insane.”

“You weren’t kidding,” James said, his voice low.  His expression was distinctly more wary than Leon’s, but he followed behind his friend, creeping deeper into Alexandria’s wings.

Owl stood where he’d been, one hand still upraised, and watched, dumbfounded, as they started walking away.  He was the Librarian.  In this place, his word was law - and it’d been decades since anyone had dared ignore him. Centuries.  And yet, those two had-

“Hey!” he heard Leon holler from ahead.  “Bird-man!  You coming, or what?”

“Asshole,” Owl muttered under his breath.

But there was a grin on his face under its porcelain facade as he stalked forward, sweeping back toward his two new charges.

*