City of Magic (Happily Ever Afterlife Book 1)

by Patricia Thomas

  "Will you read your book? When they find it."

  "Sure, I guess. I'm more interested in having my name cleared, but I'll take what I can get at this point. How about you?"

  "Literally, the second that they let me. I just feel like that book is going to have some of the answers I'm looking for. I don't even know what the questions are, but finding that book, whatever it is, can only make things easier. At least I'll see what happened to everyone I know. And maybe figure out a few things I’ve been wondering about my life before." Like why Darren had picked Kelsey instead of me. It seemed far less important than it had a week ago, but I was still desperate for any taste of my life before. And I hoped that reading about them would help fill some of that void I'd been feeling, missing all the people I loved.

  "Everything I want is here," Marc said. "In the After. All I really need my book for is to have someone here use it to help me figure out where it was I was supposed to start out in the After. Where Meg would be. I have to hope that she’s still waiting for me."

  "Of course she is. It hasn't been that long. I bet it takes a while to find everyone you knew before, even without all this nonsense." I waved my hands in the air, hoping the gesture would encompass everything we'd been through with the Archive and outside of it. "It will all work out."

  "I hope so. But the longer we are here, the harder it gets. I think about that all the time."

  The two of us stood in silence for a little longer, watching the flurry of motion around us, maybe imagining that the stacks we followed were getting smaller and smaller. I flinched a little every time a new book popped into existence, diverting my attention away from one that had been sitting there for who knew how long.

  "We should get out of here," I said after a while. "This isn’t getting us anywhere."

  "There's nothing we can do here that will help us or anyone else. This is as good as anything else."

  "Yeah, yeah, Mr. Positivity. But getting some actual food may help keep me sane, at least a little longer. So why don’t we do that for a while? We should probably bring Devon something soon, too, because I'm guessing with everything else going on they might have forgotten about him. And he's probably bored out of his skull."

  Marc looked back over his shoulder before nodding. "How is it that you’re always hungry?"

  "I'm not. But if there's food available, I'm usually happy to eat it. Just in case." I licked my lips dramatically in response. "It's a trait I picked up from an old friend."

  To my complete and total surprise, Marc actually smiled. "Meg is like that too. Somehow, guys get all the flack for our appetites, but it's the women in my life who seem to be more like bottomless pits. I had to stop to pick up snacks for her after every single one of my shifts."

  "She sounds like my kind of girl."

  Marc's smile disappeared slowly as he stared off at a nearby wall, lost in thought. "I just hope that wherever she is, she has enough to eat. Do you think they're feeding her?"

  I didn't know who the “they” Marc was referencing to was. And as much as I wanted to help, I didn't have the answer to his question. "I don't know," I said finally. "But I bet that wherever she is she's as worried about you as you are about her. So let's get something to eat and make sure that when you see her again, she can see you've been well taken care of."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Things didn't change much over the course of the next two days. No matter what time of the day I decided to risk wandering out of my room to stretch my legs, there were always librarians around. My best guess was, there had to be at least a few hundred of them. It was more people than I’d imagined they had in their whole organization, and still there had to be more of them outside of the city who couldn't show up at a day’s notice, but already their numbers far surpassed anything I would've guessed.

  On the third night, a knocking on my door woke me up only a few hours after I finally managed to get myself to sleep. I wondered briefly who I could talk to about getting an intercom system before my brain woke up enough to realize I was going to have to get out of bed and answer the annoyingly persistent rapping.

  The sound came again, fiercer, and insistent. I was still pulling on my pants when I realized that this might not be a social call. Could my book have been found and somehow, someone didn't like what was inside? There might be armed guards waiting for me, prepared to disappear me to who knows where.

  But what choice did I have, really?

  Inhaling, I opened the door and braced myself for whatever came next.

  Grayson stood there, hands behind his back. His dark hair looked more mussed than I’d ever seen it, the only testament to how little he’d slept through all this.

  He looked both formal and intense, but he wasn't pointing a gun at me just yet, so I reminded myself not to panic.

  I had no idea what to say, or what reason he could have for showing up in the middle of the night, so I just stood there and waited. Hoping he'd offer an explanation before I had to say anything at all.

  "They’ve finished." For a moment, I had no idea what he was talking about. "All the warehouses are empty, and every single book has been catalogued. It's going to save us a lot of work in the coming weeks and we have a chance of staying on top of the new arrivals now. But there's no sign of any book that features you, Marc, or Devon as a character. We've even cross-referenced the list of names that you all gave us of other people your stories might've featured. But there's nothing."

  I stood up a little straighter. "What does that mean? Did it get shelved already, and someone missed it? Or maybe I guessed the genre wrong and we were looking in the wrong place?"

  "Unfortunately, no. We have more to go on than genre when looking up specific titles. We cross-reference character, setting, genre, and any other defining features of a story we can find. If nothing else, Emilio Croy, the serial killer Marc was working to find, should've been a sure thing."

  "What does that mean?" I braced myself for bad news.

  "Honestly, I don't know. There are already groups working on new theories, but mostly we’re all just tired. Every bedroom in the building is full, and everyone else has gone home. But I know you were hoping for some answers, so I didn't want to keep you waiting."

  I cocked my head a little, trying to find the meaning of what Grayson had just told me. After searching for days, he delayed going to sleep for longer than he’d had to so that he could tell me what was going on. Being on the receiving end of the common courtesy of being kept in the loop was something I’d become unused to. "Thank you. Should I be worried?"

  "Yes and no." Grayson scratched at a day's worth of scruff on his jaw. "If you have nothing to hide…"

  "I don't. I swear. I wish there was something I could do to show everyone that I am exactly who I say I am, which is completely boring and unremarkable."

  "Well that much we know is a lie, but I’ll let it slide, this time. Your arrival here in the After, along with the mark on your wrist, must mean something. We’d have had better luck if we were able to get to more of you on that first day. I've been looking at this as though each of you is a different piece of the puzzle, and the more we have, the more we know."

  "Except, not one of us knows anything."

  Grayson's gaze drifted over to Devon's room and I realized that my friend had probably caught everything that was being said. I wondered why Marc hadn’t come out of his room already at the sound of voices to see what was going on.

  "What do we do now?"

  "First, I need to go meet with Marissa and the others. There is much we must discuss. After that, I think we all need to get some sleep."

  "To be fair, I was already doing that."

  The corner of Grayson’s mouth ticked up the tiniest bit, and I smiled in response. "Don't worry, when it comes to sleep, I'm pretty sure it will more than even out. With all this waiting, I’m sure I must have caught up on years’ worth of naps by now. I'm the best rested person in the building."

  "I don't know a
bout that." Devon's voice came from the room beside me. I chuckled, and even Grayson looked amused.

  "Alright, well, I'll let you get back to sleep. Both of you."

  "Who knows if tomorrow I'll manifest some sort of super awesome, bird power and we will have a little more to go on." I was joking, but the immediate shift in Grayson's expression made it clear that my attempt at being funny had been in poor taste. "Just kidding." I held up my hands to show I wasn't holding any weapons.

  "I know, just tired. I'll see you in the morning?" He said the last part like a question and I nodded my head.

  Hopefully, in the morning things would be a little clearer.

  Once I closed the door behind me, securely back in my room, I let myself really absorb the fact that my book was missing. The answers I'd been looking forward to for days now weren't coming. I tried to make myself believe that this didn't mean I'd never find them, but it was still a blow.

  When I finally crawled back into bed, sleep didn't come quite as easily as I’d hoped. Instead I played back over the time I’d spent in the Archive, looking for any clues, or warning signs I might've missed. Something I could offer as proof that I wanted to help. That I wasn’t the enemy.

  But everything was just as confusing as it had always been. I wasn't going to be any help at all.

  Apparently, Grayson's attitude the night before wasn't shared by the people he worked with. I left my room the next morning to find a female guard standing in the hallway posted at the juncture where our hallway met with a connecting stretch of bedrooms.

  Another was seated in a chair by Devon's room, on duty to keep watch during the day even though Devon couldn't go anywhere. A petite woman stood at the end of the hallway, leaning against the wall beside Marc’s door.

  "Am I allowed to leave?" I asked, a hint of frustration in my voice.

  "You can go wherever you like inside the building," the woman assigned to me said. "I just have to go with you."

  "Any particular reason?"

  "Orders." Okay, so this girl wasn't going to be all that chatty.

  "Whose orders?" Devon asked from beside me.

  Green eyes studied me, assessing for any danger or hidden agenda, but at least she answered. "Archivist Nyce. She thought it would be best if we could keep an eye on you. Suspicions are arising and she didn't want to take any chances."

  "Wait, are you making sure I don't do anything?" I asked. "Or, making sure someone isn’t going to try to do something to me?"

  My guard shrugged. "Basically, I'm here to make sure nothing interesting happens to you at all."

  Nope, nope, nope. Nothing about this new development sat well with me. Marc, Devon, and I had been more than cooperative, if not always gracious. And now they had stuck us with guards?

  The idea of a shadow watching me all day, every day, even more than up to now, wasn’t going to fly. But throwing a tantrum about the whole thing wouldn’t get me anywhere. What I needed, was to call in the closest thing to a favor I’d been offered so far.

  "Well then, things are probably going to go pretty smoothly for you. I've got a long day of sitting around and waiting ahead of me." I did my best to smile, hoping my guard would realize that I wasn’t directing my frustration at her. Not her specifically. Antagonizing the person I now had to spend the day with wouldn't get me anywhere. "What’s your name?"

  "Protectorate Bowman."

  I nodded, assuming she already was aware of who I was.

  "All right, Bowman. Can you help me? I'm guessing you don't want this to be part of your daily routine any more than I do, so is there any chance you could take me to Jonathan Credence?" Not that long ago, Jonathan had offered to be of assistance if he could. And I thought it was well past time for me to take him up on that offer.

  It took Protectorate Bowman far too long to figure out whether I was allowed to be brought to any of the councilors, simply because I'd asked to be. It wasn't a privilege that most of the librarians got to enjoy, according to her.

  But in the end logic won out, or my guard just didn’t care enough to argue with me, figuring someone else would tell me off later if needed. Though, Bowman didn’t end up leading me to the main offices like I’d expected. And I didn't miss how every few seconds she would look back as she led me through the building, to make sure I really was following her rather than trying to escape. Or, she was making sure no one attacked me at random, but either way I wasn't exactly getting a warm and fuzzy vibe from my newest forced companion.

  We found Jonathan in one of the newly emptied warehouses, poking around through a small stack of books that had accumulated since the night before. There were already a few hundred, and it was crazy to think about just how many books were created every minute.

  And now, I knew that my book wasn't among the ones I was looking at. It was more than a little disheartening.

  "Kadie, I've been told you wanted to speak with me."

  He looked at the guard standing behind me and gave her a curt nod. A moment later, she disappeared back out into the hallway, giving us a moment to talk in private.

  "I hope this is okay," I said. "Grayson told me yesterday that no one managed to find our books."

  Jonathan picked up a stack of titles from the floor and placed them on a desk nearby. "Unfortunately, no. It's certainly an unexpected development." His voice didn't hold so much as a hint of surprise, but I suppose he had more time than I had to consider the repercussions of all this.

  "Does this ever happen? Do people ever turn up and you just can't find their books?"

  The young man in front of me gave me a sympathetic look. "Not really. Sometimes it can take a while, but that’s usually because years have passed between a book’s arrival and someone coming to look for it. And even then, everything turns up eventually. But I'm hoping your books will be no different. Sometimes it's just a matter of our not having all the right information in our catalogue. If the back cover doesn’t mention you, it isn’t always guaranteed that we will have your records."

  "What's next then? I mean, as impressed as I am that you guys were able to get through that many titles in just a few days, I'm guessing reading all the books you guys shelved would be a different thing entirely."

  "I think you underestimate just how much the people around here enjoy reading, but you do have a point. Still, we will come up with something. You don't need to worry about it."

  I couldn't help it, I laughed out loud, surprised at how unconcerned the Head of the Archive seemed about all this. "I think that will be easier said than done." I paused for a second, the very beginnings of a plan forming in my mind. It wasn’t a good one, but it was something. "What if I can help somehow? Me, or Marc. Or even Devon. You know, we all would be willing to do whatever we can to figure this all out."

  "I have no doubts about that. But I'm not sure what any of you could do at this point that would make a difference. I know it's got to be frustrating for all of you, but I can assure you: we’re doing everything we can to sort out whatever's going on."

  "What about the mercenaries? The people who tried to grab us when we first arrived? Are there still any of them in the city? Do you think they're still looking for us?"

  "They are still in the city," Jonathan said slowly as though trying to figure out what it was I was getting at before admitting too much. "But they don't work for anyone in particular. They’re hired muscle." I didn't interrupt to point out that I already knew what a mercenary was. "They may have given up the search after that first day."

  "So why are we here at all?"

  "It's not that simple. The politics of our world are… complicated."

  "Try me."

  "Think of it as a chess game. No, that’s too cliché. Capture the flag, then. Except there are four flags. Each branch of the Archive of Ink and Soul. It is a common belief of those in the After that the Archive is the heart of our world. It holds all the knowledge that shapes our world, as well as so many of the people who populate it."

 
Jonathan rubbed his hands together as though for warmth as he continued. "For as long as there have been librarians, people dedicated to the protection and maintenance of the Archive, we have held control of the building and everything it holds. But as times change and the world grows, other groups vie for power. And there are those who would wish to wrest control of the Archive for themselves, believing it could help them shape a world more to their liking."

  "The Literati?" I said.

  "Among others, but yes. The Literati believe that by giving control of the Archive back to the people—more specifically, to themselves—they can use it to create a better world. And their followers are growing. Many among the Keepers and the Protectorate believe it is only a matter of time before they make their move."

  "So how do we fit in?" I asked. "Me, Devon, and Marc. And any others."

  "That’s the thing. We don’t know for sure. But your arrival here could signal a shift of some kind. Something that the Archive requires of us, or a change that we need to make.”

  I wanted to throw my hands in frustration but did my best to keep cool. "If you’re so worried about the Literari making a move, then you should do something first. What we're doing now isn’t getting us anywhere, and as much as I appreciate the desire to protect us—even if it’s just so you can figure out how our existence affects you—maybe you aren't using all the tools at your disposal."

  At last, Jonathan stopped moving and really looked at me. "I'm listening."

  "Use me as bait," I said. And then backtracked because I realized I couldn’t volunteer anyone else for what I was suggesting. "Just me. Let me go outside, follow me, track me or whatever, and see what happens. If someone tries to grab me then we'll know that they’re still looking for us. You can capture one of those mercenaries and get some real answers. Find out who hired them."

  "We already have some pretty strong assumptions about who's paying the bills, but I appreciate your courage on this."