With one final gasp and a shove, the orb shot forward - and the dreamer vanished into the middle of the paper-and-ink filled blob.
Owl grinned, victory lighting in his eyes. “Drink your fill,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Whatever you’re looking for, I hope you can-”
He never heard the boom. He just felt the air slam into his front, hard as concrete and hot like fire. The sizzling of hot steam against his jacket roared louder. His concentration shattered in an instant. It was all he could do to throw his arms up over his face, throwing up a pale semblance of a shield between him and the onslaught of boiling-hot water.
And then, it passed. The hot touch of water fell away. The scream of the wind rose to take its place again. Owl’s gut churned at the renewed whispers, more insistent than ever. They bypassed his eardrums, sinking into his thoughts themselves and worming deeper and deeper until they-
He forced his eyes open, stumbling forward again - until the sight of a glowing figure still meandering before him stopped him in his tracks.
The dreamer. It was...untouched. Unharmed, but also unchanged. And of course, he realized. Its magic had been what tore Alexandria apart in the first place. If its answer had been so easily received, it would already have left.
Again, he’d failed.
“No,” Owl whispered, stumbling after it. Water splashed about his ankles, growing deeper by the second. “No, no, no.”
That water was Alexandria’s blood. How much could she afford to lose? How much could she recover from - or would the Library simply...vanish? When he glanced up, tight-lipped, the destruction rained down more pointedly than ever. “It’ll spread,” he whispered, aghast. “Farther and farther. Please, Alex, just-”
He bit off the words, turning his face away with a muted, desperate noise. Alexandria couldn’t help herself, not when she was being torn apart at the seams. He needed to stop the dreamer’s destructive walk, before...before it...
Again, an idea sprang into his mind, and again, his thoughts zeroed in on it with razor-sharp precision. If he was going to put an end to the storm, then he had to get the dreamer back under control. He needed to get its attention, let it know that he was here. That he wanted to help. But he’d tried that, after all - and all he’d gotten for his efforts were a spackling of burn-marks across his front.
Maybe Alexandria could do better.
Owl’s fingers splayed out again, tensing, and he planted his feet against the ground. Slowly, picking up speed, he started to churn his hands about each other in a steady, endless spiral. The water lapping at his legs shook, resisting his call. He exhaled, a single image fixed in his mind.
For the second time, the waters started to quiver. This time, though, no river rose from their waves. No orb came to rest before his hands. The pool around him washed about at first, little more than a turbulent mess.
Something took shape from within the chaos, though. A spiral, curried on by the steady movements of his hands. It coiled about his feet, spreading outward with the encouragement of his magic.
The pulling and tugging of it against him was almost too much. At any second, he knew it could all go wrong, and he’d lose his footing, lost to tumble into the magical depths. His lungs already burned, something he was quite sure had to do with the added humidity after the water-baptism attempt. It wasn’t water, after all. With every breath fire and his legs shaking from the effort of standing, he stretched his fingers out straight, still spiraling, and-
And pushed them out to either side, his palms flat and his arms braced. The air pushed back, groaning with the effort of what he was asking for. The spiral around him roiled, rumbling like a freight train - but the waters sprayed away, out and up and everywhere.
Come on. He forced the tides higher, rising up the walls and seeping into the cracks of Alexandria’s once-pristine structure. It was her blood. It was her. And if it was her, then maybe he could- Maybe he could fix this.
Through the haze of the firestorm and the roar of the voices and wind and the constant agony of the books striking him, he could see the silvery glow spreading up the walls.
Maybe he could fix her. And with her fixed, maybe she could fix all of this.
His eyes slid shut, squeezing tight. He only had one chance, he knew, with his limbs growing more tired by the second and his skull aching as though someone had split it open. A trickle of something warm slid down his face, dripping from his nostrils. Blood. He was...he was bleeding.
“Make it count, Daniel,” he heard that woman’s voice whisper in his ear, one last time.
With the magic pulsating between his fingers both real and imaginary, he let his mind wander outward - and picture it. Alexandria. He’d never seen this room before, of course.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t imagine it. He knew the Library. He’d been wandering its halls for centuries, soaking up the sights and sounds and smells of his home. He knew what Alex liked - the gilt, the flair and show of it all. The banisters worked from mahogany, the brass settings that’d gleam from every surface.
She wore many different faces, of course. Maybe Leon was right, and these rooms had all been real libraries somewhere, sucked into her domain by whatever magic flowed through her veins. Or maybe they were moods she wore, donning and discarding rooms when she tired of them. But even if she presented herself to him as the lowest, most basic cave, or a threadbare shack held together with rusted, straining nails, it was still her.
He knew her. And if anyone could put her together, it’d be
