“Yes, Daniel?” He didn’t have to be looking at her to know she was rolling her eyes.
He didn’t care, either. “What’s that?”
She made a tiny, amused noise, and lifted the object.
It was a mask, he saw, melded to fit the curves of her face and painted like some sort of...bird. A beak jutted from its porcelain surface, equally smooth and dark.
“Yes, well,” she said, cradling it closer to her chest. “You did ask, and...you’ll have to learn sooner or later. We don’t have all that long.”
He blinked. “Until what?”
“Follow,” she said, reaching out to grab the door handle. Her eyes were still unreadable, but a sardonic smile twisted at the corners of her lips. “It’s time we talked.”
- Chapter Four -
The door creaked open. Jean pushed through, moving briskly.
Daniel followed on her heels, caught between fear and curiosity. He’d never been here before. The Library was massive, and finding a new room was a regular occurrence, but...it was dark inside, and the ceiling was lower, and he couldn’t shake the feeling it was like stepping into another world entirely.
Jean reached up, though, moving confidently despite the gloom, and twisted a knob. Lanterns flared overhead, filling the room with light.
A...studio. Daniel slowed, hearing the door close behind them. Windows lined the far wall, ancient and thick-paned. Wooden benches covered with tools and containers sat before them.
“Don’t just stand here,” Jean said. He snapped back to awareness, lifting his head. She was watching him from the corner of her eye, a smile playing at her lips. “Take a seat.”
She set the mask she’d held down with a clatter, crossing to the far side of the room. “Today was a lot. Sorry about that.”
“I-I’m fine,” Daniel stammered, easing onto a stool. He clasped his hands around the wooden seat, hunching his shoulders higher. “I wasn’t scared at all.”
“Oh, I know,” Jean said with a laugh. “You’re a brave one. Got to be, as my apprentice.”
“Yeah,” he said. His spirits lifted at the warmth in her voice, the affection. Her apprentice.
A drawer slammed shut behind him. He twisted his head around, trying to get eyes on what she was doing, but Jean walked back to the table before he could.
She spread something across the table - paper, he thought - and then dropped a mass of faintly-slimy grey down onto it. A scent filled the air, like dirt and water and long-dead plants.
Clay. She’d grabbed a hunk of clay. He watched her shuck off her heavy leather coat, dropping it onto the table farther down, and roll up the sleeves of her shirt.
“Well,” she said, taking the clay in hand. Over and over, she pressed the ball of her hand into it, working it out. “I hope you’re getting a handle on things. This calm won’t last forever.”
His pulse quickened. “Jean?”
Not that he was stupid. The Library was massive, and only Jean and him lived here. That seemed...wrong. He didn’t know why it was wrong, since that was how it’d always been, but...
Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could see things. Other people, other shapes. People his own age. They filled the space around him like ants in a hive, running and laughing and calling. Their voices hung on the edges of his thoughts, more than a dream but less than a memory.
Daniel didn’t know how, but he did know there was something more out there.
“Alexandria,” Jean said, letting her eyes rise to the walls around them. “She’s a big place.”
“...Yeah?” he ventured, growing more confused by the second.
“She’s got all the knowledge you could ever want,” Jean said, turning the clay over and beginning again. “Only, with just the two of us?” She shook her head. “It’s not enough. She’ll get bored. Itchy.”
“What do you mean-”
“The Library wants to be read,” Jean said, looking up. Her hands never stopped their movement, working the clay into a smooth, flat oval. “That’s its purpose. It’s why it exists. And our duty as Librarians is to enable that.”
Daniel fell quiet, his fingers tightening against the stool. Something in Jean’s voice had shifted - this had become a lesson, right when he least expected it. “And...the guests?” he said, unable to hold himself back.
Jean chuckled. “Right. Very good.” She wet her lips, eyes fixed on the clay. “I said the dreamers come looking for answers. They’re...sort of the direct line, you might say. They need answers, so they come looking. But they’re not fully here.”
“They’re ghosts,” Daniel muttered, his mood souring.
She laughed harder, at that. “Well, yes. In a way. Oh, don’t be all caught up in superstitious nonsense now. The dreamers might be the departed, but they’re not evil, and it’s...better than nothing. But they’re not enough either.” Her hand lifted from the clay long enough to slap the tabletop. The sound of flesh striking wood echoed across the studio. “So we arrange for visitors to come - to really come. All of them, all of their mind. Not just the needy part of them.”
“Guests,” Daniel said.
“Right,” Jean said. She reached out, grabbing a wooden roller from a rack ahead. “I closed the doors while you were learning, Daniel. You needed time to acclimate. But...I can’t keep Alexandria locked forever. We have prior obligations, visitors who have been waiting patiently. Besides.” Her smile twisted into a smirk. “Alexandria will get impatient if we delay much longer.”
“S-So there will be more people,” Daniel said, feeling as though the ground was dropping away from underneath him. Repeating after her was about all he could manage with his mind racing to keep up. “Visitors.”
“That’s what I said, yes.” Jean played the roller across the clay, her green eyes intense. Without looking, she reached out, picking something up off the table - a bit of metal, shaped like-
Like his own face, Daniel realized, shivering. It was him staring back up at Jean, stony-faced and impassive.
“You’re still learning, and that’s good,” she said. “Time moves differently
