For the next hour, Rue trailed Thaddeus around the library as he explained why he was putting things where he was. A few more times they used the lift. At least Thaddeus used the lift, while Rue took the stairs, even as they went deeper and deeper.

  And deep did they go.

  Every floor of the library felt as if it were the size of a block within the city, being massive rooms filled with long rows of shelving. There were also cases that, according to Thaddeus, protected rare tomes, ones that could not be replicated into second or third editions, making them far more valuable. When Rue pressed for answers, he allowed some further explanation that they were for certain magic-type users, and often reserved for specific families. They just stayed here for storage, but no normal person could study them, unlike the other books.

  There were fourteen floors.

  That part did send Rue’s mind reeling.

  “How can there possibly be this many books?” She asked Thaddeus in disbelief. “Is anyone actually reading all of these?”

  “Of course they are!” He insisted, seeming insulted by the notion.

  “Then where is everyone?” Rue gestured around them, the halls of the shelves otherwise devoid of life. “We’re the only ones here.”

  Thaddeus led her to the back of the floor they were on - eight - and pointed out heavy wooden doors, three of them, at the very end. “They’re in there. Reading rooms, soundproofed to remain quiet. That way, the workers don’t bother them.”

  “So, you.”

  “I’m not the only one working here, Rue. Miss Tomeheart also works here. There are a few other assistants who help part-time.”

  “You’re only here part-time?”

  “Well, no, I’m not. This is my main job, but–”

  “So they’re keeping the door closed to avoid you!” Rue nodded. “You are pretty annoying. And loud.”

  “You threatened to fight me because you were spooked by some basic magic!” Thaddeus said, exasperated. “I’m not any louder or annoying than you are.”

  “Basic magic?” Rue scoffed. “The walls were moving! That isn’t basic! Basic is conjuring a light, or being strong enough to lift a boulder, stuff like that. I’ve never seen anyone make walls move up or down.”

  “Those are common abilities. That was runic magic, and it’s more than moving the walls up or down. It’s a series of complex runes enchanting different properties that lift or drop a secluded room in a fixed vertical line. You activate the rune, trace the number of the floor you want to go to, and it takes you.” He looked at her as if it were the most basic process, even as Rue stared dumbly at him.

  “You said it was basic, then you said it was complex!” Rue protested.

  Thaddeus waved his hand as he picked up a book, place it on an empty slot on the shelf.

  “It’s a complex process, but it’s basic because it exists in so much of the city. Everyone who lives here knows about it.”

  There was only one book left on the cart by now. Rue plucked it up, staring at the cover, the title an enigma of letters. She opened it as they walked and talked.

  “I’m not from here, obviously. And the lady upstairs didn’t tell me about it either! If it’s so simple, why’ve I never seen it in another town around the kingdom?”

  “Because you need a few different specialists. A stone worker, a runic mage, those are the two absolutely necessary. It doesn’t help to have someone who can weave, or someone with strength.”

  “So, it doesn’t sound basic at all, if it takes so many people to get anything done,” Rue pointed out. “And besides, I’ve seen exactly those kinds of people in villages and towns and I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  As she thumbed through the pages, she came across a series of hand-inked pictures. After a moment, she realized they were pictures of organs, appearing vivisected. Her gaze lingered on the drawings, mentally organizing them into how she had seen the organs of hunted animals.

  “Really? Are there that many witches outside of the city?” Thaddeus asked, seeming surprised.

  “Yes?” Rue was doubtful that he’d be that ignorant. “Of course there are. Why wouldn’t there be?” She didn’t look up from the book, though she frowned.

  “I don’t mean it offensively. Just that, we - well, a lot of people living here - are told that the royal families are the majority of magic users,” he explained. “I know witches are a thing of course, but…The magic flows strongest here, so many are born here, when they are.” He then looked mortified for a moment. “Oh, no, don’t tell me you’re a witch, are you? I’m probably sounding like a jerk,” his eyes were wide.

  “I ain’t a witch,” Rue interjected before he could say anything else. “I don’t care whatever you’re saying.” As she said it, she realized that she sounded upset anyway. “I’m not!” She tacked on to try to cover the tone, only making it worse. “It’s just annoying that you’re sounding like everyone here is better than everyone else…You know, not here.”

  Even though that’s exactly why I came here, thought Rue to herself. She’d not admit that to Thaddeus.

  She turned another page in the book after her words, blinking as it came to images of humans open on dissection. Before Thaddeus could respond to what she had said before, Rue was speaking again.

  “What is this book?”

  He looked down at her hands, grateful for the distraction. He took it, briefly reading the sentences written beneath each image, and looked up to her.

  “It’s for a doctor,” he explained. “Each picture is to show a certain description. It’s a bit graphic, but it’s necessary. And don’t worry, this was done with cadavers, not anyone living.”

  “What’s a cadaver?”

  “Uh…Someone who is dead. Their body would have been preserved for learning purposes, like this.”

  Rue took the book back from him, thumbing to another page. Thaddeus gave her a long look, then spoke again.

  “Rue, can you read?”

  She didn’t bother to look up from the pages, head tilting to change the angle. “Did you just realize that?

  “I thought…” He sighed, shaking his head. “Nevermind. You know that you can’t work in a library if you can’t read, right?”

  “It can’t be that hard,” Rue frowned, looking up finally.

  They had reached the lift and the stairway. Thaddeus gestured at the doorway. “If it isn’t that hard, then go into the lift, and take it down to the tenth floor.”

  Rue stared at him, then stared at the lift. Her features pinched up before she finally stomped her way over to the door and went into the lift. Thaddeus looked impressed.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “You’ll have to make it work, too,” he reminded her.

  “I know! Tell me how to activate it.”

  “Put your palm against - yeah, right there, you found it. The runes look faded but they’re active. Do you feel the warmth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Alright. Now you’d just have to trace ‘ten’ in there, just the numbers, if you knew them. If you want to work here, you need to know–”

  He cut off as Rue promptly started to trace on the rune. “I know my numbers, idiot. Everyone knows those. How else do you pay for stuff?”

  He couldn’t answer her, as she was already swinging the door shut in his face, and the lift promptly started. Thaddeus sighed. Rue had left the cart, just carrying the book with her, so he left it by the lift and turned to walk the two floors down to meet her.

  When Thaddeus reached the tenth floor, he found the door to the lift open, and the lift itself empty.

  “Rue?” He called out. He stepped into the main floor, gaze sweeping over the lines of shelving. He didn’t see any sign of her. “Rue, are you in here?” He went further in, head swiveling side to side to try and catch her in the rows of books. “I know that you know that you don’t know where the books are,” he called, lifting his voice a bit louder.

  There wasn’t a peep. Silence stretched over Thaddeus as he walked deeper within.

  “...Rue?”

  His brows creased. She had probably drawn the wrong number on the elevator, he reasoned to himself. Despite her claim of knowing them, it was probably still a weak point of any of her abilities. Thaddeus started to turn around when he heard a shout come from the very end of the room, towards the reading rooms.

  “GET BACK IN!” In a slightly more muffled shout after, “You’re going to ruin it!”

  Perplexed, he hurried towards the shouting.

  He was mortified to find Rue in the doorway of one of the rooms, with a lanky man in black robes and carefully braided and pulled-back hair standing outside of it, appearing even more perplexed than Thaddeus was.

  “Come on, get back in, before–” Rue saw Thaddeus and threw her hands up in exasperation. “It’s too late now! There he is. Are you too stupid to understand directions?” Rue stormed from the room and went past the man, towards Thaddeus.

  “I was trying to play a prank,” Rue explained hotly. “But this guy wouldn’t chill out. He’s acting like I was going to mug him.”

  “Rue,” Thaddeus uttered, “that man is a doctor. And I am so sorry, mister Alsan, for the disturbance. This will never happen again, I can promise you that.”

  “I’m not quite sure what–” The doctor, Aslan, was promptly interrupted as Rue fired off.

  “Doesn’t matter! I won’t do it again, yeah. He can’t make that promise, can he? ‘Cause he isn’t me. Get back on in your room.”

  The doctor stared at Rue, then at Thaddeus, whose mouth gaped open in a struggle for words. Without saying anything else, or more accurately attempting to say anything else, he did turn to disappear back into the reading room. The door shut behind him with a soft thud. That left Rue and Thaddeus staring at each other, the former with pinched lips and shifting foot to foot.

  “...Do you want to tell me what that was? And where is the book?”

  Rue brought both of her hands up defensively. “I was gonna try to jump out and scare you. This place is unsettling, y’know, so it felt like a good moment. I got into that room, I even figured out you have to press your palm on it to get it to unlock. See? I’ve got it all figured out. But that guy was in there. I was worried if I tried a different room, you’d already be too close, so I told ‘em to just stay there and shut up. He got all worked up! I swear it. I know he looked all innocent when you got here, but I think he was just trying to make me look bad.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “Then he was leaving the room, and you got here when that happened, I guess.”

  She nodded, and her hands dropped, staring at Thaddeus intensely. Thaddeus slowly shook his head.

  “I’m not really sure what….I mean…Why were you trying to scare me?”

  “I told you. This place is unsettling. Creepy. Weird.”

  “No it isn’t.”

  “It is! How isn’t it?”

  “How is it?”

  “It’s fourteen floors deep, Thaddeus! Of course it’s creepy! I mean, we’re kissin’ the center of the world! We’re gonna pop out the other side! And all these books, it’s so quiet, it feels like something could be lurking around any corner!”

  “No, it’s just you lurking around the corner! It’s not possible to just ‘pop’ out of the other side of the world, either.” He ran his hand through his hair, messing it up some. Rue watched the motion, tracking it like a hawk would a mouse. He noticed that, and fidgeted uncomfortably. “It doesn’t matter. Just– we need to put that last book up, alright? Where is it?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Uh, in the room, with the guy.”

  Thaddeus looked past her, to the door Aslan had disappeared into. He sighed very heavily. “...It’s fine. I’ll put it away later. I think that your visit should probably end here, Rue.” His features pinched with a bit of worry as he said it.

  Rue deflated a touch. Thaddeus started to feel bad as her features gained a crestfallen shadow. Perhaps she had just gotten a bit too excited and comfortable. People skills and reading skills could be worked on. He filled his chest with a breath, about to talk, when Rue’s features snapped sharply.

  “I’ll be back,” she said. It was a promise or a threat. Maybe both. A bit too sinister sounding. “This job is easy. I can learn it.”

  She stormed out, feet landing heavy, but the room was not designed to carry sound. Each footfall landed with a flat strike. Thaddeus watched her departure, her shoulders stiff and her posture awkward, as if she were trying to stand tall, but wasn’t quite used to doing so. He wasn’t sure what to say and he probably didn’t need to. His boss, Elke Tomeheart, would be the one to handle anything that happened from here.

  “...Alright, Rue,” he murmured, shaking his head. Thaddeus remained where he was for several minutes. Rue had gone for the stairs instead of the lift, wanting to give her plenty of time to reach the top and leave, before he took the journey up himself.

  ~

  Rue reached the top, panting and feeling a tremble to her legs. Rapidly ascending several flights wasn’t hard, but it was certainly unpleasant. She went right for the shut door ahead, that she knew to look like just a wall, and ran her hand along it until she found etchings of a rune. Her hand pressed overtop it, and a moment passed before it emitted a warm glow. She hopped back as the door rumbled and shifted, crawling to the side and imparting a path into the library lobby.

  Rue marched through. Tomeheart, the librarian, was at her desk writing with a pen in hand. She didn’t bother to look behind herself, forcing Rue to go around to the front of the desk to appear in front of herself. She cleared her throat loudly.

  Tomeheart continued to write. Rue narrowed her eyes. “Hey. Did you hear me?”

  Tomeheart frowned. “Yes. Just a moment.”

  Rue blinked, affronted. “What? What for?”

  Tomeheart didn’t answer. Rue muttered a curse under her breath. She leaned forward, staring intensely at the satyr as she wrote. It felt like an age, but it was really only a minute later before she set the pen down and looked up.

  “Did you finish putting all of the books away with Thaddeus?” She asked.

  “What were you writing that was so important?” Rue asked.

  “Poetry. The books, they are put away?”

  “You ignored me for poetry?” Rue scowled.

  “Please. Patience is a virtue in a library. If I let my thoughts become distracted, I may have forgotten what it was I was thinking. The books?”

  Rue waved a hand dismissively, nodding. “Yeah, the books. They’re all away. Thaddeus taught me the system, I got it all figured out. All the books were put away, he made sure I know what I need to know. It was all real easy. Can I have the job?”

  Tomeheart stared at her, and rapped her fingers a few times against the tabletop.

  “...Come back tomorrow morning. Ten strikes of the bell. What is your name, young miss?”

  “My name is Rue. And you’re Tomeheart, yeah?”

  “Elke Tomeheart. You may call me just Tomeheart though, yes. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Rue.”

  The formality earned a frown from the young woman. “It’s Rue. Just Rue. Not ‘Miss’, ‘Misses’, ‘Ma’am’, or whatever else. I didn’t say none of that. Just Rue.”

  “It’s just a title, for politeness,” Tomeheart offered.

  “I don’t find it polite. My name is Rue.”

  “Alright,” the satyr conceded, already sounding too tired to fight it. “Rue it is. I apologize for causing insult. It was not intended.”

  Rue grunted softly. “Yeah. It’s fine. Ten strikes of the bell, I’ll be here.”

  Tomeheart looked her up and down. “Good. Try to, ah…Visit one of the public baths, too, please. You smell a bit unfresh.”

  Rue’s cheeks heated. She mumbled something, looking down at herself. “The clothing is new,” came from the grumblings. She turned then and darted for the door, leaving Tomeheart watching her disappear. A few moments after the heavy wooden doors to the outside closed, Thaddeus stepped from around the corner of the opened door, approaching Tomeheart. He spoke in hushed words to her.