I woke up several hours later with the kind of groan that sounded less like a person rising from sleep and more like a disgruntled crypt spirit climbing out of its coffin after discovering someone had rearranged its bones alphabetically.
My eyes peeled open with all the grace of rusted hinges, and for a moment I lay there blinking blearily at nothing, trying to remember what century it was, who I was, and why my neck felt like I'd been strangled by my own pillow.
Eventually, memory returned in a sluggish, swirling wave—Elvina, the director, the stupidly dramatic blood-coughing, that bizarre moment with Tora, and finally, the deal I'd somehow agreed to without my brain present to supervise.
Saints above. Right. That little disaster.
I jerked upright in bed so fast the bunk gave a faint metallic squeal beneath me. I whipped my head around like a hunted animal, surveying the barracks.
Everyone was still asleep—soft snores, occasional drool, one guy mumbling dream curses about someone stealing his sandwich. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. If I had to sneak off, better to do it while the entire room was clinically unconscious.
I leaned over the edge of my top bunk and hissed into the shadows, "Psssst. Brutus. Brutus, wake up."
The deep rhythmic snoring below paused. One eye cracked open—hesitant, confused, and radiating the eternal question of why does Loona insist on disturbing my peace at this ungodly hour.
"What now," he grumbled, voice like gravel stirred in a bucket.
I flashed what I hoped was a dazzling, extremely trustworthy smile. "I need you to cover for me today."
Both his eyes opened at that, because even half-asleep Brutus had enough experience to know that those words, from my mouth, were usually followed by something either incredibly stupid, incredibly illegal, or—occasionally—a bit of both wrapped in a ribbon of chaos.
"What're you up to this time?" he muttered, rubbing his face with his hand.
"I'll tell you later," I whispered. "Promise. Just—if anyone asks, say I'm sick, or dead, or meditating, whatever sounds believable coming out of your mouth."
Brutus squinted at me for a long second, then shrugged with a grunt. "Fine. Leave it to me."
I blew him a playful kiss and a wink, and he actually snorted a small, reluctant chuckle before rolling back over. Good old Brutus. Reliable, solid, vaguely parental in a grumpy-uncle kind of way. A rare thing in this cesspit.
Now—time for Operation 'Sneak Out Like a Questionable Rat'.
I dropped silently from my bunk, toes hitting the ground with a soft thud. The barracks smelled like sweat, damp fabric, and the faint hint of someone's feet having declared war on humanity.
I crept along the aisles until I reached the vent—the same one Dunny had once used to escape the second floor like some chaotic sewer sprite with questionable morals. Without hesitation, I pried the grate open and stared into the pitch-dark tunnel of dust, grime, and regret.
"Well," I whispered to myself cheerfully. "If Dunny can fit, then so can I. Probably. Hopefully. Saints help me if this thing bites."
Then I shoved myself in.
It was an unbelievably tight squeeze—like trying to stuff a full-grown man into a child's sock—but fortunately, I was small, flexible, and only mildly ashamed.
The metal walls were cold, the dust instantly clogging my lungs in a single hateful gulp. I wriggled forward like an elegant and sexy worm—don't question the imagery—trying not to think about the fact that the builders probably never intended a living creature to be in here.
Halfway through, while contorting my spine into a position no chiropractor would ever approve of, I briefly questioned all my life choices. Why am I here? Why did I choose this? Why is this my method?
I could've simply stalked the halls using my ability, slipping through the darkness without a trace, but no. That would've been efficient. Logical. Risky, yes, but significantly less humiliating than crawling through metal intestines.
But this? This was foolproof. And I, regrettably, was allergic to being caught on the second floor alone. Especially right now, with a championship death match scheduled in three days and the entire facility buzzing like hornets on cocaine.
After what felt like hours of crawling and swearing internally at every sharp corner, insulting dust clumps that dared touch my lips, the vents finally angled upward. I wedged myself into the incline with a grace matching that of an injured animal and forced my way up until I reached the second-floor's grate.
Finally. Saints above. I kicked the grate open with the force of a starved raccoon, slithered out, and landed in a crouch on the sleek marble floor—followed instantly by a suffocating cough as dust blasted from my lungs like powdered regret.
Nobody was in the hallway. Good. I put the grate back as quietly as possible, brushed dust off my clothes, then peered down the long corridor stretching into the lanternlight.
The second floor.
Higher-ranked slaves wandered these halls. Scholars, attendants, Velvets—people who were actually allowed to know things. And I needed knowledge today. Desperately. The library was somewhere on this floor, and I, armed with nothing but spite, dust-filled lungs, and a delusional sense of confidence, intended to find it.
I began stalking down the hall on silent feet, keeping to the shadows, every muscle tight and coiled. If I could find the library—
Footsteps sounded.
Rapid ones. Not the heavy clank of guards. These were quick, frantic, quiet—someone carrying something, maybe. I bolted into the nearest corner, slipping into my realm of shadows in six heartbeats.
The world around me dissolved into a muffled haze of smoke and muted sounds. I shifted to crouch behind a massive vase as the footsteps approached.
I snapped back into reality again, just in time to see her.
A woman in dark robes, hair a messy bun, arms overloaded with books and papers—an entire tower of them—raced down the hallway like she was fleeing a fire. Her cheeks were flushed, her expression frantic, and she muttered something under her breath about deadlines, idiots, and "Oh gods he's going to skin me alive."
A smirk curled across my lips.
Jackpot.
I slipped after the frantic robed woman like a glamorous shadow, keeping several strides behind her but close enough that, if she dropped dead from stress, the stack of books would fall directly into my arms.
Each time another Velvet drifted near—elegant, self-important, perfumed with superiority—I activated my ability to keep hidden.
The robed woman sped ahead, almost tripping over her own sleeves. Her wild-eyed panic served as my guide, pulling me through a maze of corridors, past massive arched windows, under lanterns that flickered like they were considering retirement.
My heart thudded in my chest—not with fear, but with that rising thrill of I should not be here, which was, frankly, my favorite pastime.
Eventually she skidded to a halt, slammed her shoulder into a pair of looming dark-wood doors, and burst inside as if she were escaping pursuit rather than entering a library.
I trailed in after her, flicking off my ability and folding myself back into clean, crisp reality. Not that it mattered.
Because the moment I stepped through those doors—
—my jaw dropped.
This was not a library. This was a warzone.
Dozens—no, dozens upon dozens—of Velvets in various states of implosion sprinted across the enormous hall.
Papers flew like startled birds. Scrolls shot through glass pneumatic tubes with violent whoomps that made the room tremble. Ink quills scratched at furious speeds, sounding like a thousand rodents gnawing a thousand chairs. People shouted across the room, over one another, sometimes at one another, hurling phrases like:
"I said binder six, not seven—are you trying to kill me?!"
"Stop bleeding on the ledger!"
"The map is upside down, you dumbass—the continent isn't supposed to float!"
I blinked. Once. Twice. This… was the legendary archives of the second floor? The vast repository of ancient knowledge? The quiet sanctum of wisdom and research?
It looked like a paper factory had exploded during a nervous breakdown.
Slowly, cautiously, I started picking my way across the lower floor, stepping around panicked scribes, ducking under a flung scroll, weaving past attendants frantically loading rolled parchment into a series of those transparent glass air tubes lining the wall.
Each scroll was fed into a slot, then shot upward with a violent pop that nearly took my eyelashes with it. Gods above.
And then—smack!
Someone collided with me. A whirlwind of elbows, ink stains, and absolute panic shoved a cluster of scrolls into my hands before I could even open my mouth.
"Desk eleven," the man barked. "Third seat to the right. Move—move!"
"But I—I don't work here," I tried to say. "I'm just—"
But he was already gone, swallowed fully by the chaos, leaving me with an armload of scrolls and a dawning suspicion that this place had no idea who belonged where anymore.
I sighed—long, dramatic, and maybe a touch theatrical—before looking around for any sort of calm amidst the literary tempest. The library rose around me in three towering circular floors, each ringed with balconies and shelves that climbed toward the vaulted ceiling.
Hanging from the rafters was a massive rotating atlas, a colossal globe surrounded by mechanical rings that clicked softly as they spun. It cast drifting, swirling lights across the room—beautiful, serene, absolutely at odds with the disaster happening beneath it.
Upstairs looked calmer. Organized. Silent enough to not cause auditory damage.If Iskanda had a desk anywhere, it would be up there—far away from ground-level madness and accidental paper assaults.
I glanced at the scrolls in my arms. Desk eleven. Third seat to the right.
No thanks.
Instead, I headed for the nearest table, whistling casually like I owned the place. A woman sat there—frazzled hair, trembling hands, ink smudged across her brow—working at a speed usually reserved for creatures with eight legs. She looked like she hadn't slept in at least two revolutions of the lunar cycle.
Perfect.
I plopped the entire stack of scrolls onto her table with a jaunty little flourish. She froze. Her quill froze. Her soul, I think, briefly tried to flee her body. Slowly—painfully slowly—she dragged her gaze from the scrolls to me. Her eyes were enormous. Not surprised. Not annoyed. Utterly terrified.
"I—these—why—" she whispered, voice tiny and cracking. And then her face crumpled like a dying flower. Tears welled. Trembled. Then burst.
She started sobbing. Loudly. Like I had personally delivered her the news that her cat had been arrested.
"Oh—uh—there, there," I said, patting her back awkwardly. "Think of this as… character development?"
That made her cry even harder.
Instantly three attendants came sprinting over, surrounding her like a triage team around a wounded soldier. One fanned her. Another tried unsticking a scroll from her hair. The third screamed something about "emergency ink removal protocol."
Time for me to leave. Immediately.
With the softest whistle and the most innocent expression I could muster, which, frankly, was not very innocent, but I tried, I pivoted on my heel and strolled—sauntered, even—toward the grand staircase leading to the upper floors.
Because this chaotic pit was not where I would find answers. But upstairs…upstairs was where the real secrets lived.
And I was determined to uncover every last one of them.