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They came in, ignored me, brought a book for checkout, and left. None of them looked the part of an ordinary library goer. All of them academic and socially awkward, avoiding eye contact and dismissing casual conversation. They seemed more or less like cosplayers from different eras, like Isa, clothes so terribly out of fashion it made me wonder if they were time travelers.

And the bolting shadow of a man I’d seen the first day?

I’d seen glimpses of him since.

“That’s just Zeke,” Isa affirmed for me. “Just like a cat.”

“Should I leave out some catnip or something? A tin of tuna?” I stared her down and earned a polite smirk.

“Honey, you are catnip.” She laughed at her own joke, and I decided to just let things run their course.

But, hey, my first paycheck came right on time, as promised.

So, any misgivings I had? I’d just pretend they weren’t there until I had to acknowledge it.

Even if books occasionally just yeeted themselves off shelves, and whispers kept ringing in my ears.

Chapter Five

Zeke

I’d been trapped in this fucking library for one-hundred sixty-three years, seven months and eight days…and some hours. I’d been locked up fucking pitiable months before I would have been free…

Despite every book I could imagine being at my fingertips, I was trapped. Trapped in a revolving-door world of one fantasy or story after another, but never reality. Always with the books. Always with the tasks.

If only they’d let me out.

Out, being a relative term. I could go to town and buy things. I had money, but everything I needed I could find in a book or have delivered.

But then I saw him, a new assistant they’d brought in.

When Isa died last year, I didn’t think they’d ever find someone to fill her spot, let alone another archivist. He’d been recommended by and trained under a professor in the mundane world, a Magus, I believed. Under my rank but over my station. They didn’t let people like me out without a leash.

The day I got my hands on an ink pen… They’d all regret it.

But that could wait.

I stared out at the boy with interest, his slim body and Russian androgynous face. The curls in his hair looked soft; the mahogany dark locks accented by a single streak of blond hair, either fantastically done or natural.

Gods, he was fine as corn flour, though.

When he looked at me? I had every inkling the man didn’t know shit about the library. The books spooked him, the way they whispered and talked shit behind our backs. Hell, the self-help books had moved their shelves twice, and he’d barely noticed. Trying to convince himself it was in his head.

Not my circus. Not my monkey. I don’t got enough bananas or peanuts for this show.

So, I sat back, quietly observing.

Wondering just what he was about.

And why he got to leave and live somewhere else, untethered and unbound as he was.

And I asked myself what his talent was, because it didn’t appear even he knew.

Not like I knew mine.

I knew the day I found out.

November 1862