Heat. The world went white, and his eyes squeezed shut in a meager defense against the overwhelming glow. The mask warmed against his face. The smell of burning hair filled his nostrils.
It faded a moment later - at least a little - and he cracked his eyes back open.
Adrian’s hands were filled with fire, coursing down from the candles overhead and burning the fabric threads to ash. The man’s hair was a mess, flapping about his face in dusty, red-spotted strands. But his eyes were fixed on Crow, narrowed and furious.
With one, final cry, the fire clenched in his hands started to spray toward Crow.
Owl’s mouth fell open, his heart stopping. No. Not Crow. He needed to-
Crow stretched out a hand, almost gently. Her fingers parted, like she was reaching toward a friend, not a deadly assault.
The fire brushed against her fingertips - and she twisted her hand, turning it inward.
Still gaping, Owl watched as the fire seethed and melded itself around her.
The surge from Adrian’s hands seemed endless. It felt like an eternity it poured from his grasp, pulsating with heat as it blasted toward Crow. Each time, she pulled it from the air as though it was little more than thread for her to spool. Her hands twisted, spiraling about each other in a complicated motion that left the fire coiling in on itself until it started to die out.
There, with the light still at the very edge of overwhelming and the heat wrapping itself around him like a blanket, Owl saw Adrian’s expression crack. The rage there fractured, showing the uncertainty beneath.
He couldn’t win. He had to know it - Crow had taken every last one of his attacks and turned it away. She didn’t even look like she was struggling. Owl’s heart leapt. More than ever, it was clear that she was the Librarian. She was strong. And against a power like that-
Again, Adrian’s eyes flicked to Owl. Owl flinched, frozen in place.
He didn’t look angry anymore.
He looked resigned.
He saw the man’s hand twitch toward his pocket.
With Indira’s cry echoing about the entryway, Adrian plunged his hand in - and pulled it free. Something silvery glittered in his fingers. He threw his arm out and-
The ground roiled under Owl’s feet. He wobbled, hopelessly off balance for an instant, and then tumbled backward.
Something flashed by as he fell, mere inches past his nose.
He slammed into the ground a heartbeat later, his scream turning to a helpless wheeze.
With the world still spinning around him, Owl lay flat, gasping against the burning in his lungs. He needed to get up. He needed to see what was happening. The best he could manage was rolling over, curling up and starting to cough.
The air wasn’t hot anymore. As the seconds flitted past, he opened his eyes, turning over.
“Stop.” Crow. Her voice was soft, but firm. “Indira, that’s enough.”
“I...” he heard the other woman cry, her voice twisted with emotion. “I...I can’t let him-”
“I understand. But you have to stop.”
Crow. She needed help. With a final splutter, Owl rolled to his hands and knees, clambering upright.
She’d wrapped herself around Indira, he saw. Her hand was fixed about Indira’s wrist, holding her back. The booklender clutched a shard of glass in her palm. Rivulets of blood coursed down Indira’s wrist from where she’d cut herself, but still she gripped the thing tight enough she shook.
A moment later, Owl saw him - Adrian, a scant few feet in front of Indira. He twisted and fought, groaning faintly to himself.
He was fighting the floor, Owl realized. The floor that’d opened beneath him, the stonework parting and giving way to mud beneath. Already, Adrian had sunk to his knees. Another inch disappeared as he watched.
“Help,” Adrian cried, struggling to free one of his legs. His other sank deeper with the motion. “Jesus. Jesus Christ. You have to-”
“Oh, my god,” Indira whispered, her eyes going wide as Crow inched back far enough for her to see. The glass dropped from her senseless fingers. “Adrian. He-”
The mud rippled ominously. Adrian dropped another few inches, sinking to mid thigh. Planting his hands against the stone and pushing, he looked up to where Crow waited. “Please!”
Crow eased herself off Indira, settling the woman to the ground. Her face turned to Owl, hidden behind the mask. He saw the question there anyway, and nodded. I’m fine.
“You came into Alexandria and attacked me,” Crow said, looking back to Adrian. “You broke the peace, Adrian.”
“Fuck,” Adrian gasped, still trying to heave himself free. With every inch of his legs that vanished into the murk, his attempts grew more feeble - and the mud seemed all the more greedy as it sucked him in. “I-I’m sorry. I just- Please, dammit!”
“Worse than that, you attacked my apprentice,” Crow said, and her voice had gone eerily still. “You tried to take his life. A child, as you pointed out to me.”
A shiver ran down his spine. Adrian had...tried to kill him?
Slowly, he glanced back over his shoulder.
A knife hung from the wall behind him, its tip embedded in the wood of the door frame. That silvery flash passed through his mind again - and the fall. If he hadn’t gone down...if the floor hadn’t sent him tumbling...
His mouth was bone-dry when he lifted his gaze to Adrian and Crow again. The man had sunk to his waist, his expression turning more frantic by the second.
And he didn’t seem to have a reply for Crow. His mouth opened, but no words came out.
“Help me,” he whispered at last.
Crow bowed her head. Her hands clenched into fists, then opened again.
“You’re done, Adrian,” she said, looking up again. “The Library makes up its own mind.” Owl couldn’t see her face, but he heard the grim smile in her words. “And I think it’s saying it doesn’t want you here.”
This was the Library’s doing, then? It was intervening? Adrian pushed himself up another inch, then sank deeper with a cry. “C-Come on, Crow!
