Again, he hesitated, glancing around. Alexandria seemed to pause, going quiet for a moment—followed by a surge of noise as the wind and groaning resumed in full.
Daniel’s teeth gnashed together. Before he could start arguing with Alex, though, the shelf alongside him shifted. The books fell to one side with a clanking of chains.
A book waited at the end, in the empty space left behind. Daniel reached for it, then stopped.
He’d expected another book like the rest, bound in black leather and gold with a magical tool emblazoned on its cover. Instead, it was one of those oddly-normal books, wider than the pamphlets left scattered here, wrapped in plain cloth.
“Rickard isn’t a mage?” Daniel said, furrowing his brow. He took hold of it at last, pulling it into his grasp. “Then...how the hell does he connect to this?”
Madis, his thoughts whispered again. It’s the only thing that’s left.
“How about it?” he said out loud, pitching his voice low enough he wouldn’t disturb Leon. “Could you do me a solid, Alex? One more time?”
The chains holding the chandeliers up clattered as they swung back and forth. The shadows pinwheeled across the walls. From behind him, he heard Leon mumble in surprise.
“Think of it like this,” Daniel whispered, fixing a desperate grin to his face. “The sooner we get the answers we need, the sooner we’ll get out of here and stop asking questions.”
For a moment, the tiles beneath his feet groaned, as though she truly was debating if she wanted to simply swallow him whole. He grabbed at the shelf, his face going pale, and the book in his arms shifted.
When he clutched it to his chest, cursing under his breath, the shaking stopped—and a light gleamed from farther down the hidden library.
A blue light. Just like...Just like that day. Daniel looked up, his eyes going wide.
One of the lanterns all the way at the end glowed, its flames burning with that vivid, otherworldly color. It hung over the desk sitting against the wall, but...more importantly…
Daniel swallowed.
That lantern hung next to the archway leading to that room. The blood room.
For a moment, his nostrils flared. The smell of rot and decay filled his lungs, burning away his senses behind the horror of it.
Just as quickly as it’d appeared the blue light winked out, filling the room with mundane warmth again. He rocked back onto his heels, exhaling, and stared at the doorway with newfound apprehension.
“So...he’s in there,” Daniel whispered. “Is that it, Alex?”
He hadn’t spent long in there. That first day, he’d only peeked in for a moment, and, well...he hadn’t felt any need to go back since. But even from that glance, he could remember the shelf sitting along the far wall.
And he could remember the hulking tomes sitting on its shelves, organized into neat rows and labeled with names.
Daniel snorted, letting his eyes slide closed for a minute. “At least he’ll be easy to find,” he murmured.
“Daniel?” he heard Leon say from the table they’d claimed. “What is it?”
He lifted his head, clutching the ‘Rickard’ book closer to his chest, and fixed his eyes on the archway.
“I’ll be right back.”
Step by step, Daniel advanced toward that archway.
He didn’t want to. He really didn’t want to. It’d been years in Alexandria-time since he’d first crossed into that foul, dark room, and once had been more than enough.
But if it had the answers he needed, he didn’t have much choice on the matter.
He came to a stop in the gap, one hand braced against the stonework. And...there it was. His nostrils flared, already complaining.
It was just like he remembered. Cages, lining the walls. Coagulated, half-dried blood coating, well, everything. Symbols littered the floor, and despite his impressive catalogue of learned languages, he had no clue what they said.
His eyes were drawn to the far side of the room, though—and the heavy, broad bookshelves waiting there.
Nothing for it. Taking a deep breath and wishing a fond farewell to clean air, Daniel stepped forward.
One step at a time. That was the trick. He inched forward, placing each footfall on the narrow slivers of clean stonework he could find. One step, and then another.
“Hey, whats-” Leon’s voice cut off abruptly behind him. When his friend spoke again, there was a good bit more confusion in his words—and horror. “What the hell is this?”
“I don’t know,” Daniel said. He shuffled forward again, grabbing hold of a metal-barred cell wall to keep from falling. “It’s...It’s always been down here.”
“Is that blood?”
“I think so.”
“Jesus Christ.”
The floor rumbled beneath Daniel’s feet. He grimaced. Settle down. I’ll be in and out. No big deal.
Alexandria didn’t seem to appreciate his reassurances. The rumbling stopped, but slowly.
“I don’t think- I don’t think all the mages have played nice,” Daniel said, making a face. Another awkward lurch forward, and he’d passed by the worst of the pooled blood on the ground. Finally. He let go of his hand-holds, straightening, and turned to face the bookshelves more directly. “It matches what I was taught, Leon. Mages are dangerous. They do bad things.”
“But why’s it here?”
“Good question,” Daniel mumbled. He shook his head, striding forward. “It’s all information, I guess. There are books here, too. The biographies. There’s got to be something that sets these mages apart, and that’s about as much as I can tell you.” Another two paces and he stood before the bookshelf. He looked back, though, to where Leon waited in the archway, and smiled faintly. “I don’t like it either. Sorry. But...it looks like what I need is in here.”
“I guess,” Leon said, wrinkling his nose. “Be careful.”
“I will be.”
“Don’t catch anything.” Leon glanced to
