Page 57 of Blood Lovers

To be an actual librarian in the real world you need a master’s degree. But the Guild came to collect me at undergrad graduation. Zusi and Tristin, in fact. They were already partners, but it was new to them, so they were still getting used to the idea of one another.

They took me back to the Guild headquarters and suddenly I was the newest Guild library intern. I spent my time shelving books, and answering questions, and helping Guardians do their research.

I didn’t choose to be a librarian. Hell, I didn’t even get to pick my classes at college. Every semester I’d get an email from the Guild liaison with a schedule. Everything all paid for and my textbooks waiting for me to pick up in the bookstore. All I really did was show up.

And now that I think about it, that’s still all I do.

But I loved my job at the library and I’m going to miss it. Maybe that’s why I’ve dreamwalked my way here?

It’s not a lavish library. Very… standard, actually. It’s pretty. And old. There is a lot of well-polished dark wood and some oil paintings on the walls. But the library’s grandeur has always been in the books themselves, not the décor or the architecture. That’s why it was so surprising to me that the Guardians were given access to all those Guild Lounge perks. That wasn’t the Guild I grew up with.

Or possibly, it wasn’t the Guild I was shown.

Right now, I’m standing on the top floor of the massive central hub, looking out at hundreds of thousands of books. There are nineteen floors below me—terraces, really—and on each floor the books are arranged in a particular way, as one does with library books. But there is no Dewey Decimal System here. The organization of these books is all about age, and then topics, and then, of course, titles and authors.

Older books are arranged by subject on the bottom half of the shelves because they are most often used for Guardian research. And the newer ones are all up at the top. Only accessible with ladders, because the Guild feels that the Old Ones knew much more than we do now.

The whole point of the Guild, aside from protecting people from monsters like Paul, is to uncover the secrets of the Old World.

Not Old World as in Europe. But Old World as in… something else. Some missing civilization. I’m really not quite sure on that point. And even though I had access to every book in the entire Guild library, I was forbidden from opening them up, let alone reading them. There was a shelf number on the spine and when I saw a book that needed shelving, I just put it back in order.

If a Guardian needed help finding something, I would get it for them and hand it over.

I never once opened one. Ever.

That was basically the only rule I had. “Do not read the books. They are not for you.”

And who was I to look this gift horse in the mouth? They saved me. Not to mention educated me and still, today, they are looking out for me.

Plus, I think the Guild elders put me in the library as a test. To see if I would cheat. I was there alone most of the time. I didn’t really have a boss. There were a few older Guild librarians—legit ones, not interns like me, but I wasn’t accountable to them. And we were solitary workers, not teams.

I wasn’t even accountable to the archivist who ran the place. I was just… there. Kind of.

But I did not cheat.

One rule. It was basically like… You may live in my paradise, and you may eat all the fruits on all the trees—except this one. A real Garden of Eden kind of directive.

A test. With dire consequences should I fail.

If I was kicked out of the Guild, where would I go?

Would Zusi still be my friend?

I would like to think yes, she would. But she’s not really in control of her life. She might push boundaries here and there, but she’s a Guardian. I don’t think disobeying an order is actually an option.

I did not want to lose her, or anything to do with the Guild, so I did not read the books.

Of course, they couldn’t stop me from seeing the titles. And the titles of the oldest books were always telling. Old-World Mechanics. The Physics of Ether. Sound and Light for a New Age of Magic.

And, of course, there were also grimoires.

I knew those shadow books belonged to my ancestors. They were the writings of the witches who made me. Not the Black witches, because obviously, we are the anomaly and used as feeders or to power spells upon our deaths. But the bloodlines of the witches who made us were powerful in their own ways.

I look across the open space to the other side of the massive library and find the clock tower. The face reads 11:11.

Something is changing.

And then I am somewhere else.