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

The hallway sprawled out before him.  He kept walking, his slippers sliding against the smooth-cut stone.  The words ran back and forth in his head, rearranging themselves as he tried to find the best way of phrasing what he needed.  This was going to be a problem - but he did need it.  He just needed to be smart, and be careful.

Finally, he came to a stop, right in the doorway of a particularly massive wing.  "Okay," he whispered.  "I know you're there, Alex.  Like I said.  We...need to talk."

A low breeze fluttered at the hem of his sleeves, pushing gently, but he plowed ahead.  "I need to see what's out there," Daniel said.  "All of it."

The wind stopped.

Not a great sign.  "I know you don't like mages," he said.  "I know you don't want anything to do with them, and you don't want them in your halls.  I get that, and I'm fine with that.  Only...I'm running blind here, Alex.  I don't know anything, and...I can't live like this."

It wasn't just the wind that'd stopped, now.  The entirety of the Library was dead silent, without so much as a door creaking or a shutter rattling to break the eerie quiet.

Daniel licked his lips, rocking gently on his heels.  "I'm not- I'm not saying I'm going to act on anything.  I don't want to do anything.  But I need to know.  About magic.  About you.  I need to be able to piece together the things that I never got taught, Alex. I need to be able to protect myself. I need to be able to make forward progress with something of my own. Something that’s mine."

He waited, glancing about the halls, but again, no response was forthcoming.  "I need it," he whispered, faltering.  "I think...it might not be today, or tomorrow, or anytime soon, but dammit Alex, I need something or I think I'm going to go crazy."

His hands clenched into fists.  This time, when the silence fell, he didn't try and fill it with words, didn't try and negotiate his way out of the quiet.  He stared straight ahead, a muscle in his jaw pulsating.  Alex would listen, or she wouldn't.  Either way, he'd said what he'd come to say.

The ball was in her court.

The seconds ticked on.  His ears rang, filled by the unnatural silence that had fallen over the Library.  And still Daniel waited, chewing on his tongue.  It was like a staring contest, he thought wryly. Only here, he couldn't even see his opponent.

Just when he was about to break the silence and try again, the world went dark around him.

He yelped, jumping - but before he could say anything, a pale glow split the darkness.  He spun.

All of the lights in Alexandria had been extinguished.  Even the windows high overhead were pitch black, like the sun had been swallowed whole.  But there, halfway down the hall, a single brazier shone with a sick, flickering ball of blue fire.

If he hadn't been spooked before, that certainly did the trick.  He gaped for a moment, his eyes fixed on the unnatural light.  He'd...never seen anything like that in Alexandria before.

His legs carried him forward through his mind's confusion, though. Alexandria's message was clear.  Collecting himself, he hurried toward the brazier.

No sooner had he pulled up even with the ball of blue fire than it winked out, casting him back into darkness.  Again he flinched - but again, a light split the darkness from ahead of him.  Another ball of fire glowed from over a brazier, farther down.  Swallowing, Daniel charged forward.

One brazier flared to life after another.  Daniel followed behind grimly.  The pieces were starting to settle home.  Alex was leading him somewhere, and there were only a few places they could go.

Of course, the fact he'd just come from this direction made the destination even more clear.

When the sitting room appeared in front of him, Daniel couldn't even pretend to be surprised.  He just slowed, his eyes scanning the familiar room.  "Alexandria?" he said, his voice low.  Damn it, if this whole thing had been a ploy to get him to go back to his duties, he'd-

His door slammed open with a metallic screech.  Daniel stopped, his eyes widening.

The sitting room went black.  Even the fireplace went out.

A light flickered from within his quarters, dim and blue.

"Alex," he said, his voice sinking lower.  "I don't want to go back to my room.  I want answers.  I deserve this much.  So don't-"

The light flared brighter.  For a moment, the sitting room was thrown into high relief.  It faded back to a dim glow a moment later.

Daniel stared at the still-open door.  His mind had gone quiet somewhere along the line.  What did it come to, in the end?  Did he trust Alexandria?  Did he trust that she respected him enough to not brush him aside - or was this just another game she was playing?

What would it be?

"Okay," he whispered at last.  "Okay, Alex."

He stepped forward, easing through the doorway and into his familiar quarters.  They looked entirely different, with the fairy lights overhead cast into shades of blue.  The whole room seethed in strange blues and greens, until he hardly recognized his own possessions.

The door creaked slowly shut behind him.  The latch settled home, with the lock following suit.

He cast a glance back toward it.  His face twisted, his lips curling down in a scowl.  "Really?  After all this, you're going to-"

The click was low, quiet enough that he almost missed it under the sound of his own voice.  But he heard it - and he stopped, glancing over to the source.

A set of bookshelves rested against the wall, alongside the doorway.  The journals of his predecessors rested on them, sprinkled with a thick layer of dust.

Only now, one of the bookshelves jutted out a fraction of an inch from its fellows.

He walked closer, his head spinning.  When he rested his hand against the