Owl heard the dreamer sigh, saw him bow his head. And then-
Alexandria leaned forward as the dreamer’s outline shifted, merging with hers. “You’ll always have a place here,” she murmured.
In another instant the dreamer was gone, reduced to flickering embers that cascaded down into the water. Owl watched the woman hold the pose, one hand clasped to her chest.
The strings holding him upright had been cut away, though. The world tilted wildly, spinning. Owl lurched, what little control he had left disappearing along with the dreamer’s ironclad grip on him. His vision drifted in and out, speckled with black. He tried to lift his arms, to catch himself - and was met with only heavy, agonizing numbness instead. The pain was back and stronger than ever. Maybe it’d never left at all. Overbalancing, he tumbled into the-
She was there. He never saw her move - but her arms wrapped around him, catching him before he could fall.
As though watching from a thousand miles away, he felt her pull him closer. “Thank you, Owl.” The words slipped past his hearing, pouring straight into his mind and wiping away everything in their path. Things were fading faster, now. The feeling of her arms around his shoulders. The ground beneath his legs. The pain was vanishing too, at least.
All things considered, he’d take it.
He tried to open his mouth, to respond. This was Alexandria, after all. He didn’t need to be told her name to recognize her. She only laughed, though, the sound echoing through his too-empty thoughts. He was moving, lowering from her embrace.
“Rest, now.”
The last thing he felt was the water closing over his face.
- Chapter Forty -
Water.
It trickled around him, filling the air with a gentle susurration.
Daniel opened his eyes.
He tried to, anyway. Every muscle in his body screamed at the slightest motion, as though he’d run a marathon while being whacked with sticks. Worst of all was his head, which hurt worse than every hangover he’d had in his life combined. When he told his eyelids to move, they thought about it, and only begrudgingly obeyed - but sent along the bill for their efforts.
Blue-green light filled his vision.
Daniel lay there for a long moment, just...staring. The ceiling overhead was some sort of white stone, carved with a thousand different whorls and spirals. His brow furrowed gently. He...knew those designs. Why? Where had he-
He lifted his chin, trying to peer around, and the motion set him to rocking. Daniel froze, the fog of sleep vanishing in an instant. There was no mistaking it - he was floating.
A shiver rippled down his spine. Alexandria. She’d set him down in the water. So...where was he now?
When he lifted his gaze again, more slowly, a figure drifted into his sight. A statue. A familiar statue. Daniel let his eyes rest on the stoneworked woman, with hair to her waist and a waterfall pouring from her palm.
“Okay,” he rasped, sucking down one deep breath after another. “O-Okay, Alex. So if...if that’s the statue, then I’m-”
If that was Alexandria’s statue - her avatar, more like - then he was in the basement. The murder-basement filled with books and blood.
More specifically, his thoughts whispered, if you’re in the basement, and that’s Alex’s statue, then that’d mean the water you’re in is that pool.
Daniel froze. He could picture it clearly, as though it’d been just yesterday that he wandered down seeking information on magic. He could see the glowing chamber, with a network of veins in its floor and a statue in the corner. The image of the liquid pouring from her hands into a pool was just as clear as it’d been that day.
A bottomless pool.
Suddenly, floating there seemed like a bad idea. Daniel twitched, then thrashed, his sore limbs protesting every inch of motion. Water splashed around him. The edge. The pool had an edge. He just had to find it, and-
Fighting against the bleary panic saturating his thoughts, Daniel struck out straight ahead. With every awkward paddle and kick, he thrust his head higher. He wasn’t one to be afraid of the unknown. Being the Librarian had a way of getting rid of that. And yet...The notion of him sinking under the eerily-calm waters and vanishing was all too realistic for comfort.
The instant his hand touched stone, he latched on for dear life, dragging the rest of him closer - and then he stopped. His hand was bare, with no glove to hide it. And...He glanced down shivering, to confirm what he already knew. His jacket was gone too, and his mask, and his pants. He was left in a pair of boxers, floating over-
Nope. Daniel pulled hard, a noise caught between a gasp and a grunt bursting from his throat, and hauled himself over the pools’ edge with shaking, trembling arms. For a moment, he thought he might not have enough strength for even that much. He’d simply fall back in, trapped in the waters until he tired and sank.
With a fresh jolt of fear-fueled adrenaline running through his veins, he toppled over the lip, crashing to the stone floor.
There he remained, limbs heavy and breath ragged, as the seconds slipped away.
He could still see Alexandria’s statue there in front of him. Watching. Is this your doing? he whispered, his eyes drifting across her carved face. Did...Did you bring me here?
Well, the only other option was that Olivia and Will had brought him here - in which case, they’d disobeyed his orders, charged into the destroyed section of the Library, carried him away, gained entrance to his room, stripped him of all his clothing, and then lugged him down into the forbidden wing and dumped him in a pond. All before just...walking off.
Somehow, he didn’t think Alexandria would have tolerated half of that. Even if she’d let Olivia and Will strip him, exposing his identity, he couldn’t believe she’d let them into the basement. Not when it contained so much information on magic and
