We were in a corner of the library I didn’t recognized, seated in two ragged armchairs sitting opposite from one another, a table placed at an angle in between us.
I wasn't sure what else to do, so I handed her the book. She raised her eyebrows for a second, but didn't question me. She studied the front cover for a second, and then slowly flipped it over to the back of the book.
"I don't get it," she said, after a minute.
"That's my book. Where I came from."
For a second, Eliza didn't say anything. Instead, she looked at me, and then back down at the book. "Where did you get this, Kadie?"
"It showed up at my door a few hours ago." I realized I was crying all over again and my words were barely understandable, but I still struggled to get them out.
"We need to tell someone about this."
I shook my head, frantically. I didn't want anyone else to know all this about me. Not that there was much to learn.
"Kadie, if you’ve been hiding this…"
"I haven't. It just showed up, with a sticker saying it was from someone's personal collection. I don't even know what that means."
Eliza moved to stand, but she sat back down as I started to fumble for the words to try to tell her everything. I'm not sure how much sense my mumbled synopsis of the story could have made, but Eliza didn't interrupt once. Instead, she just listened as I told her everything, including the storylines that had nothing to do with me other than a passing reference. I must've gone into excruciating detail on Darren and Kelsey's love life.
Once I finished, I'd run out of tears and barely had any steam left in me. I was desperate for a glass of water. "So, what does that all say about me? I didn't matter at all. You could take me right out of that story, and all that would've changed would be how long it took Kelsey and Darren to get together. My parents don't even have names! If I ever find them, are they even going to know who I am? Who they are?"
I was about to keep rambling on when I noticed an uncomfortable shift in Eliza's expression. I didn't know what it meant, but there was something Eliza knew that she didn't want to tell me.
"What is it? Just say it."
"We can talk with Protectorate Avos some other time," Eliza said, reaching out to put her hand on my knee. "Maybe you should get back to sleep for a little while. I can take this to the councilors."
"Tell me," I said, my voice hard. "Please."
Eliza sighed. "I'm not even sure how to explain this. If you'd shown up in any other part of the After, you would've seen it for yourself. But not every character in a book, makes it to the After. Sometimes, they just don't have enough substance to fully materialize in this world. It's not an exact science or anything, and without reading the book for myself, I can’t even make a guess. It all depends on how real a character is in the context of a book. Are they just a passing detail, or would some reader somewhere fall in love with them? You’d probably be better off talking to one of the librarians who has dedicated themselves to studying this."
"So, you don't think my parents are here at all?" A new horror washed over me.
"I don't know anything. That was just the first thought that popped into my head. We should really talk to someone else. Let them know what's going on."
"How can I know for sure? What happens to characters who aren't strong enough to make it over here?"
"They simply never appear—" Eliza cut herself off abruptly, as though thinking better about whatever it was she’d been about to tell me.
The thought was sobering. The lost remnants of someone who hadn't made it through, never enough of a person to be truly real.
Eliza must've seen the fresh look of horror on my face. "We don't know anything for sure. Can we please just go talk to one of the councilors?"
I sat there for a second, trying to figure out if there was something I was missing. Something that might help. But she was right, we needed something more. Someone more. "Grayson," I said finally. "Would he be here already?"
Eliza nodded. "We'll go to his office, and wait for him if we have to."
We stood up together, and All In tumbled from my lap to the floor. I hadn’t even realized Eliza had given it back. When I leaned over to pick it up again, something fell out from between the final pages in the back cover. An envelope sat on the floor staring up at me. Taunting me.
CHAPTER TWENTY
"What's that?" Eliza asked.
My fingers wrapped around the thin, yellowed paper. "I have no idea."
Handing Eliza the book, I ripped open the envelope to get to its contents, dropping the discarded paper carcass to the floor.
Kadie Meyer,
We are sending this to you as a show of good faith, and to demonstrate to you just how far our reach goes, and what we can offer you.
Your time here in the After has been marked by intrigue thus far, and as a result, we do not wish to wait any longer to make your acquaintance. We have something you are looking for, something very close to you. Come to the harbor Reclamation Center as soon as possible. Show this note to no one.
You will not be harmed.
There was no signature.
Hands trembling, I turned the paper and showed it to Eliza. She read through it as quickly as I had.
"Okay, now we're absolutely going to Grayson."
"What if it's my parents?" I asked in a hopeful whisper, already falling behind Eliza as she moved quickly through the stacks. "What if they did make it here and someone has them to lure me out?"
"The sheer amount of information we don’t have right now is astronomical, Kadie. But it's all going to be okay."
"You know, I keep hearing that and it's almost never true."
Eliza didn't answer, instead she continued leading me down the hallway to the offices of the councilors.
"Are they in?" Eliza asked the new girl who was manning the reception desk.
"The Heart and the Hand." Was her the response. "Scholar Credence already came and left. Archivist Nyce will probably be a while yet."
"I hear that," Eliza said. "That woman couldn’t wake up on time if the world depended on it."
I shot Eliza a harsh look, this wasn't the time for joking around with one of her colleagues.
"We need to see Protectorate Avos," she said shortly after.
The receptionist started to shake her head, but then looked at me a second later, realizing who I was. "Yeah, he's going to want to see her," Eliza said.
The receptionist didn't argue, and pressed a button on her desk. A second later, I noticed a flashing green light from around the same area. "Go on in."
I started talking as soon as I got through the door to Grayson's office, barely taking in his confused expression. A minute later, Eliza put her hand on my shoulder. "I've got this."
Eliza did do a far better job than I could've of explaining everything that happened that night, even though she hadn't been there for the whole time. Thankfully, she left out most of the pathetic details of my life before.
Finally, I handed Grayson both the letter and the book.
"What do you think it is? What do they have that I want?"
Grayson's eyes were still scanning the paper in front of him. "She thinks it’s her parents," Eliza said. "But based on what she told me about their role in her book, I'm not sure it could be."
"Show me," Grayson said, handing the book back to me. "Find where they're mentioned. Whatever you've got, I need to see it."
It took me far longer than I would've liked to backtrack to the right spot in the story, as I got unwanted flashbacks of all the major plot points while I flipped through the pages. At last, I found the conversation between Darren and I where we talked about families. I handed the book to Grayson and braced myself.
"That's it?" he asked, after reading.
I nodded.
Grayson's already stern expression morphed into a frown. "I'm sorry. But there's no way that was enough to bring them here. Whatever it is that the person who had your book has, it'
s not them."
"But things were different for me. Isn’t it possible somehow, whatever brought me here when I shouldn’t be here, also brought them? What if someone made it happen?"
Grayson hesitated, which was enough to send hope swelling through me all over again. "I don't think so."
"But you can't know for sure?"
"Nothing is for sure in the After, we’re always finding new people or places that challenge our expectations. But I'm confident in this. I can't imagine they’d have anything that would be of any real value to you. My guess is they were just hoping you would read the letter and run out the door without stopping to think about it."
"Maybe I should've."
"That wouldn't have gotten you anywhere. Each door to the outside of the Archive has a spell to stop you, Marc, and Devon from leaving. You would've frozen in place until one of us could've come to collect you. So, whoever came up with this plan, clearly didn't think it through."
I slumped down into the chair I had been leaning against, all the wind knocked out of me. Now I knew both just how insignificant my life had been before the After, and that someone was officially trying to screw with me. I still didn't know who that someone was, or how I’d gotten sucked into their plotting in the first place.
"I'll have to keep these," Grayson said, placing my book and my letter on the desk in front of him. "You should get back to your room, get some rest." What he didn't say was that I certainly looked like a hot mess, and I was clearly worked up. But for very good reasons, as far as I was concerned. "Eliza, will you take her?"
"No problem."
"No! Or… yes, a problem! We’ve been through this already. I don't want you keeping me in the dark anymore. Whatever you're going to do with those, I want to know about it. If you're going to talk to the councilors, I should be there. This is my life." My family, though I kept that thought to myself.
"I promise, as soon as we know anything for sure, I'll tell you. But all we have at this point is the fact that someone who knew where you were sleeping has had this book the whole time. This is our biggest concern. Something in the book itself may give us more to go on about where it has been. Jonathan might be able to magically backtrack its whereabouts. But for now, I'd like to know you're somewhere safe."
"Why? It's not like I can leave. Here or in my room, what does it matter?"
"It matters. Please… trust me on this." Grayson just looked at Eliza. It was all the nudging she needed to gently guide me by the elbow, back up out of my chair and out of the office. I cast one last look back over my shoulder at Grayson. His eyes locked onto mine right away and he gave me a small nod. I had to believe that meant that he’d do whatever he could for me. And at least that was something.
Still, I wasn't happy. I stormed back up to my room, so quickly that Eliza nearly had to jog to keep up with me for a change. Even though she hadn’t been the one to do any of this to me, I was ready to slam the door in her face as soon as I reached my bedroom.
Instead, it was Devon who grabbed my attention. "Okay! Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"
I looked over at Devon who was standing right in the corner of his room, as close to the front of his cage as he could get. "Marc stormed out of here hours ago, and then you. And now you look like some asshole killed your puppy. What am I missing here?"
"It's been a super fun night," I said at the same time as Eliza caught up with me.
"What do you mean, Marc’s gone?" she asked.
It was Eliza's question that Devon locked onto. "I don't know, he left in the middle of the night like a bat out of hell. I figure he just needed to stretch his legs. You know how he gets."
And for the first time, Eliza didn't comment on exactly what she thought of the way Marc could get.
"Was he holding anything when he left?" Eliza looked frantically between Devon and Marc’s room. "A book, maybe?"
My heart dropped.
"I didn't notice."
"Okay," I said. "Stay with me here for a second. Did you see anything unusual tonight? While you're sleeping."
Devon gave me a look that made it quite clear just what he thought of my very stupid question. "I woke up tonight to the sound of someone knocking on my door. I got up and my book was there waiting for me."
"And then someone slammed… Marc. He slammed his door, right after you came out. I was barely awake." Devon elaborated. "But I think that's what happened."
"So, Marc got a book too. His book." I looked at Eliza, trying to figure out if her train of thought was the same as my own.
"Wait, you guys got your books? They found them?"
I shook my head. "Someone had them all along. They also came with ransom notes, trying to lure us out of the building." Too slowly my brain put the pieces together, along with what they would have meant for Marc.
"Meg," Devon and I said at once. I turned to face Eliza. "If someone has told Marc that they have his wife, he’ll do anything he can to get to her.
"Well, he can’t have gotten far." Eliza confirmed the one thought that was holding me back from all-out panic.
"There was never any way we were leaving this building. Magic," I said, explaining to Devon.
"Then, where is he?" Devon asked. "It's been a long time."
"He's probably just working off steam, or something." Eliza didn't sound convinced.
"You don't think Marc would at least try to get out? Or go for help? Or something? He would not have gotten a message telling him that his wife was in trouble, and then proceeded to get frustrated and pout about it for a few hours."
"I promise you guys, there is no way he left the Archive."
"Maybe check? Just to be sure?"
Eliza nodded, and disappeared soon after, leaving Devon and I alone in the hallway.
I used the time alone with my friend to fill him in on everything else that had happened. Specifically, everything I'd read and the note I’d gotten along with its ominous promises.
"I just feel so... empty," I said, finishing my story. "I mean, who even am I?"
To my surprise, instead of offering up some words of sympathy or encouragement, Devon gave me a seriously unimpressed looked. "You're kidding, right?"
"What? This changes everything."
"How do you figure?"
"Am I even a real person?"
"I don't know, do you see me as a real person?" I didn't say anything, not sure what he was getting at. "We both know that I couldn't have been anything more than a side character in the story I came from. I mean, evidently, I was fantastic and memorable, otherwise I guess I wouldn’t have made it here. But I had nothing to do with the plot of that book. And I don't need some invisible asshole to drop my story on my doorstep for me to know that. But that doesn't change who I am to me, or who I am to you, I hope."
"No, of course not." Already, I felt like an idiot.
Devon leaned over against the rigid metal bars of his cage. "The way I see it, I am who I am. Or at least, who I was when I got here. But everything else is up to me to shape. God knows I've had more than enough excitement in the last little while to have some seriously confusing memories to look back on. And I've met people, made new relationships. What or who I was before this doesn't even really matter."
I did my best to hold Devon's gaze, considering the weight of his words. I wished they opened some sort of emotional floodgate for me, making it all better, but I wasn't quite ready to see it like that. And still, while my life before the After hadn't exactly been one of happily ever after, or riveting adventures, at least I'd had a life. I could still feel the love I held for my parents deep within myself. The love that a part of me still held for Darren. Those things, at least, were all mine.
I opened my mouth to respond but at that same moment Eliza came back around the corner practically panting. "He's gone," she said. "Marc. He left the building hours ago, just walked right out the front door. Jace saw him—the guy working the desk tonight—but didn't think anything of it. Didn
't even realize who he was until we asked. Nothing stopped him, he just left."
After that, all the guards we'd somehow convinced the councilors to get rid of turned up almost at once, searching Marc’s room, my room, and everywhere nearby for any sign of my now missing friend. It didn't take long for them to determine that there was nothing there worth finding, and they were soon recalled back to Grayson's office to come up with a new plan. A plan that, I couldn't help but worry, was far too late to make a difference.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As much as it was unfair to Devon, I couldn't stay there in that hallway, just waiting.
I was, so far, beyond sick of waiting.
Instead, I made my way back out into the central library, doing my best not to catch anyone's attention. Already, quite a few other people had come in from the street to start perusing books, but it would be hard not to notice the librarians talking amongst themselves, whispering in hushed voices wherever I found them, doing the same thing I was in an attempt to keep a low profile.
Once again, I was back at the front door. The front door that I knew could no longer hold me, if it had ever been able to. A few people gave me cursory glances, but no one said anything as I took a few steps closer to the entryway. There were people everywhere.
Would anyone stop me if I walked out the door?
Maybe it would be a better plan to head for the back of the building and go out that way.
I slumped against the closest wall, with an exhausted huff. Why was I even considering going outside? What would it accomplish? I'd be better off staying where it was safe, and waiting for someone else to tell me what would happen next. But it had been over an hour since I'd talked to Grayson, and I hadn't heard anything at all. I was sure he would be involved in the search for Marc, both in the building and outside of it, once it was clear he was missing. I was a footnote yet again.
They all had to be on their way to the Reclamation Center by now. Or, they were already on their way back.
City of Magic (Happily Ever Afterlife Book 1) Page 18
