His room was...wrong.
The last time he’d been here, it’d been the same as always—a massive bed in the room’s center, covered over with thick blankets. Furs had covered the foot of his bed, thick carpets laid over the floor. A fireplace had burned in the room beyond, casting a flickering light over his bookshelves, the windows showing his garden beyond.
All of that was gone. Well. Not all of it, he amended hastily. The bookshelves were still there, but instead of the elegant, richly-worked shelves of before, these looked more like the industrial, joined-metal shelves you’d find in a garage. The walls were as bare as the ceiling, all unpainted, weathered wood. The room’s only light came from a single candle resting in its holder on the wall. Even his bed had been reduced to a narrow cot, just a thin mattress over a metal frame.
But he was here. He’d been allowed back in. He’d never expected to be so relieved to see the inside of Alexandria’s walls again.
“Okay,” Daniel whispered, easing himself upright. “Alex? Is, uh. Is everything okay?” Even after the dreamer-fueled magic storm, Alex hadn’t looked like this. Bruised, yes. Battered, yes. But not shabby.
The only reply he got was the creak of his door easing open—and not the Owl-emblazoned door he was used to. Even his door had been downgraded, reduced to simple iron-banded oak.
His heart in his throat, Owl padded toward it. With one final groan of old, rusted hinges, he pulled it open and let himself into the room beyond, taking the candle from its hook.
He made it all of three steps before stopping short, eyes wide.
This should have been the sitting room. And it was, in a way. The chairs were still there, although they were plain, rust-spotted metal folding chairs instead of the overstuffed behemoths he was used to. The doorways around the room were gone. It wasn’t even shaped like the sitting room anymore, more like a giant study. Bookshelves lined one wall, as plain as the ones in his room. A single door sat opposite his bedroom, a familiar keyhole on the latch.
“This is it?” Daniel said. He strode forward, toward what he already knew was the front door, and rested one hand against the cold iron. He twisted, examining the room, but...that was all. Just a single room no bigger than a school gymnasium, with a few rows of bookshelves on one side and his bedroom door in the corner. “This...you’re so small.”
The door rattled beneath his hand. He jumped back—but found a chuckle rumbling up from his gut. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to offend.”
Tearing his eyes from the bookshelves, he peered across the hazily-lit distance into the other side of the room. And then he stopped.
A familiar statue sat tucked against the wall, and while he was used to seeing it lit by silver-blue, this time, the statue was dark. The shadows almost swallowed it up entirely.
Alexandria was out in the open. Daniel hurried toward the statue, his heart hammering. “Hey,” he said. “Shouldn’t- Shouldn’t you be hiding this away a little better? Shouldn’t you-”
“No need,” a voice said—a voice he was coming to recognize as the Library’s, echoing through his ears with an ethereal, otherworldly strength. He’d never quite heard her sound so exhausted, though, and she didn’t appear in the flesh. “I will be...better. Before it becomes a problem.”
Daniel slowed, a few paces away from the statue. “Okay,” he said. “And, uh. The talking thing. Is this-”
“Don’t get used to it.”
He chuckled. “Got it.”
Easing closer, he reached out a hand to the statue—and froze. His horrified gaze dropped to the well.
It was empty. He couldn’t make out even a droplet of water in its depths. No light gleamed up from within. He swallowed. “Alex, are you-”
“I’ll recover,” she said. “Merely...exhausted, from your adventures in the outside. Don’t you have anything else to ask?”
He let his breath out in a long, shuddering sigh. Did he have questions? Yes. Yes, he did—a whole pile of them, in fact. A smile tugged at his lips. At least she was giving him a chance to air them. He supposed he should be grateful.
“Is it over?” was all he could say, though, sinking to a crouch alongside her dry well.
He heard her sigh. “No,” she said. “I don’t think it is.”
“But,” Daniel began, shaking his head. “But, we killed Madis, and-”
“We killed his host,” Alexandria said. Her words filled the tiny Library, echoing back and forth until it felt like his head might explode. “His heir survived and escaped, along with his relic.” She paused, and Daniel got the distinct impression she’d be wrinkling her nose, if she was there. “Madis will be reborn through him into a new form, his knowledge intact.”
“Oh,” Daniel said, faltering. “And...And he’ll remember this? I mean…me. Will he-”
“I do not know.”
Daniel stopped. The room went quiet, until at last, Alexandria began speaking again. “He thought he was stronger. I have shown him how wrong he was.” A hint of what sounded like satisfaction slipped into her words. “I’ve reclaimed some of his memories. Some of who and what Madis is. I hoped to rip away his knowledge of me, and of you.” Another moment of quiet, and this time he could almost feel her eyes on him. “I’m afraid I don’t know how successful I was.”
He nodded slowly. “That...The book he had. And the ink. The...blood.” Alexandria was silent. He took that as an affirmation. He chewed his lip, still mulling
