“Come on, Isla, he can’t hear. Besides, your face tells me you wouldn’t mind so wholly if he did. I’ve seen you two holding hands.”
Isla gently lifted a few books, helping search for anything that looked like a notebook.
“It’s complicated—until recently, he was a daily annoyance. Then all this Aetheric Arts business happened and ... he’s being different. I’m different. And yes, if it makes you happy, I do like him, a lot. As I’m sure your romantic heart has noticed, we’ve been closer. But I don’t know what it all means. I’m still working it all out.”
“Andrew isn’t different, exactly,” Juliette said slowly. “It’s been clear from the beginning that he liked you, Isla.”
Isla scoffed, but at Juliette’s raised eyebrows she muttered, “You’re not serious. He has only recently shown interest in me.”
“Isla, you’re the only one who cannot see that that man has been interested in you from the start.”
She looked over at Andrew. His small frame was dwarfed next to Edmund’s. He looked up, seeming to sense her gaze, and offered her a soft smile. It moved her that he was so attuned to her. Maybe Juliette was right. How had she not seen it all along?
The group pressed on with their search, the hour growing later, the library now empty except for the four of them. Their paths gradually converged in a shadowed corner of the library. Outside, night had fully settled. Isla straightened, her back stiff from so much time spent bent over the shelves. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her of Andrew’s offer to make dinner.
She was aware of Andrew’s presence more than ever before. The thought that he had always liked her, along with the possibility that they could be Fated, made her heart race. If he had liked her so in the past, would he stick with her in the future? The low light of the library seemed to draw him closer, his movements somehow always within her periphery.
She bent to retrieve a book from the lower shelf, her hand reaching out just as Andrew crouched beside her and reached for the same volume.
Their fingers brushed across the book’s spine—a fleeting touch that sent a tremor through her. She’d held his hand before, yet each time felt more significant as she came to know him better. Physical attraction was one thing—pleasant, undeniable—but when you glimpsed the goodness within someone, their soul shining through, it changed everything. His features hadn’t altered, yet somehow he seemed more attractive than ever.
He was close enough that she could see the faint reflection of the lamplight in his glasses, the line of concentration etched across his brow softening into something else entirely as he looked at her. The space between them shrank, not in distance but in the weight of unspoken things. She was ready to take their relationship beyond hand holding. She wanted him to kiss her.
A noise startled her and she jerked upright, losing her balance just enough that her hand fell onto Andrew’s shoulder.He tilted his head up, a slow smile tugging at his mouth, and the intensity in his eyes made her breath hitch. Had he seen the desire reflected in her eyes? Flustered, she pulled her hand back, heat rushing to her cheeks just as words threatened to tumble from her lips—only for Edmund to appear, expression grave, a finger pressed to his mouth in a sharp command for silence.
He had Juliette’s hand in his as he pulled her toward Isla and Andrew. Letting go of Juliette, he pointed to the library entrance as two men entered. Something in their manner hinted at nefarious intent. They wore dark clothes, their features unclear in the dimness.
The old library seemed to groan around them, floorboards creaking in protest as the men walked, as if warning them that danger drew nearer. Shadows stretched long and skeletal across the aisles, pooling in the corners, but it wasn’t enough to hide them if they came any closer.
“Juliette, can you use your shadows to help us blend in?” Edmund asked her quietly.
She nodded once. A dark mist curled from her palm, sinuous and alive, writhing like smoke with intent of its own. Isla shivered, her memory flaring of the first attack. Of shadows wrapping around her, choking her, holding her captive. How lifelike those shadows had been.
Seeming to sense the unease, Andrew placed his palm on the small of her back. Juliette’s shadows rose higher, swallowing the group in velvet blackness, and the dim light of the library was snuffed out. Blindness fell. The world was nothing but breath and a heartbeat—her own—ragged, quick, and too loud. Then Andrew’s arm drew more fully around her waist, anchoring her, and she leaned instinctively into him. Her hand shot forward, landing against his chest, fingers curling tight intothe fabric of his shirt. His steady warmth pressed against her cheek as she buried her face into his shoulder, bending her head to fit against him.
But she did not choke. She could still breathe. This darkness was not the same. This was Juliette’s protection, not an attack—and Andrew’s nearness made her believe she would come to no harm.
A gruff voice cut through the blackness, closer than she expected.
“Do you think she’s left?”
Another answered, softer yet sly. “The librarian that’s always here? It looks like she’s finally gone.”
Andrew traced small, reassuring circles near her waist with his finger.
“Juliette, can you create a small opening so we can see what they are up to?” Edmund’s deep voice was quiet, but it still startled her to hear it so close.
At eye level, a tiny peephole shimmered into existence in front of her and Andrew, the shadows bending to Juliette’s will. It wasn’t a clear view of the room, more like looking through a pair of dirty glasses. Isla still didn’t know exactly why they were hiding, but she trusted Edmund’s judgment—his instincts, honed from years as a soldier. The newcomers’ hope thatthe librarianhad left heightened her suspicion.
Isla shifted slightly away from Andrew to peer through the opening, her panic easing as she’d begun to feel more like she was in a cozy blanket rather than a suffocating haze. His arm remained around her waist, and his cheek brushed hers as he joined her, looking through the tiny peephole. The two men were striding with purpose toward their corner.
“We won’t have long before the caretaker comes to clean and turn off the lights. Let’s be quick about it,” one of the men said.
The men stopped at a table with a chair next to it. It was a private study area in one of the furthest corners of the library, where students who truly wanted to get some work done came to study, out of the way without fear of interruption.The first man lifted the books from the table and tossed them aside carelessly.
The shadows around their peephole twitched, almost reactive to a sharp gasp that escaped Juliette’s lips—a librarian’s horror at such wanton disrespect for the printed word. Juliette started to mutter under her breath, something along the lines of, “Handle a book like that again and I’ll ...” Her threat was cut short, muffled. Isla suspected Edmund had placed his hand over Juliette’s mouth to prevent her from speaking further.
The two men moved the table, then the rug that lay beneath it. Isla caught a glimpse of a symbol etched into the tiled floor, though the details remained obscured.
