The scrap of paper weighed heavily in his pocket. The letters scrawled across it flashed in his mind.
Her name.
In the weeks after Jaruwah had stuffed it into his hand, Adrien had run his fingers across the ink until her name faded almost entirely. Nevertheless, he knew what it said. It was impossible to forget. He had spent hours staring down at it and trying to come to terms with what came next for him. The last time he had seen Emerson, she had been brandishing a knife at him in her kitchen. He winced internally at the look of betrayal he remembered in her eyes. Her arms had been littered with new red tattoos, and he knew it was at least partially his fault.
“And why should we welcome you back?”
The sound of his mother’s voice broke through his thoughts, dragging him back to the present and away from the vision of Emerson swimming in his mind.
A scrawny man stood in the middle of The Central Library’s main hall. His cheeks were drawn and his eye sockets had hollowed out after spending weeks in the dungeons below the Library. Yet another secret Atalanthya had kept from him until he became an Archivist. And now, Adrien was responsible for putting people in those dungeons. The man dropped to his knees and crawled forward while the Head Librarian looked down at him imperiously. Her twelve Council members followed the man’s movements with cloudy eyes.
“Please,” he begged. “We were promised immunity if we returned.”
Internally, Adrien scoffed at the man’s overt display of weakness. It was one thing to pledge oneself to the wrong cause. It was another entirely to turn traitor at the first sign of real danger. At the very least, this man could show a scintilla of dedication to his movement. Instead, it had only taken one sighting of an Archivist in the flesh for him to come crawling back to The Central Library. If only this man knew exactly how many Archivists had been walking the halls of Foundation over the last decade. On the other hand, Adrien wondered whether he would stay with The Central Library if a genuine offer was extended to join Foundation.
No.
That was impossible now. Although he could not be sure whether Emerson was too far gone, he was certainly past the point of return. Despite his mandate to assassinate Foundation’s newest Head Librarian, he hadn’t made any real moves to take Emerson out in the months since Iris Blackwell fell and she took over. But he was quickly running out of time. Atalanthya had gone from dropping hints to outright asking him for updates even though she knew he had none. He had avoided entering Foundation’s Catalogue at all costs. However, that hadn’t stopped him from seeking her out. These days, Adrien’s only source of contact was watching her from afar.
It was impossible to talk to her when Silas Rathbone trailed her like a shadow. Adrien let out a derisive chuckle at the memory of the promise he had made to her the evening he escorted her to the Guardians’ Gala. His neck felt hot with shame when he remembered his words—that he wasn’t concerned with a man who would be a distant memory. As it turned out, her shadow had turned into a permanent fixture. He shook his head to dispel the recollection of Silas tracing his tongue along Emerson’s throat before whispering something into her ear outside her front door last week.
A sudden kick from Adrien’s left brought him back to the present. Ezekiel, seated next to him, was frowning at him and glancing pointedly at the hand Adrien had clenched around the scrap of paper with Emerson’s name on it. He unfurled his fist and looked back to the spectacle playing out in front of them. His mother was glaring down at the Foundation defector.
“The Central Library has no need for disloyal turncoats,” Atalanthya said with a sneer. The only thing the Head Librarian hated more than public displays of emotion was betrayal.
The defector sputtered indignantly. His appeals for mercy had fallen on deaf ears.
“But…the message from the Archivist was that defectors would be given immunity?” he bleated.
“Yes.” Atalanthya rose to her feet and leaned over the table. She bared her teeth at the Librarian in a bloodthirsty grin. “I lied.”
The doors behind Adrien flew open and two Archivists strode into the room. At the sight of them, the defector paled and turned back to Atalanthya in desperation. His entreaties were useless, though, and the Archivists dragged him out of the room.
“Saw that coming,” Adrien muttered to Ezekiel.
In response, the elderly man threw him a stern look, warning him to be quiet. From her seat at the center of the long table in The Central Library’s main hall, his mother’s eyes drifted to him. Adrien met her stare head on. If there was one thing he could say about his transition from Guardian to Archivist, he was no longer in awe of or afraid of his mother. Perhaps he should be grateful that she had not excommunicated him, but the only emotion Adrien felt these days was resentment.
Nevertheless, his feelings had little impact on the people around him. His mother did not acknowledge them, and the entire Library appeared intent on proceeding with business as usual. This mean that, despite his mother’s refusal to publicly acknowledge what he was, special privileges were still bestowed on him as the Head Librarian’s son. Other than the Council members, the main hall was packed with Guardians and Academics. Given the Archivists’ status as The Central Library’s dirty little secret, he was the only one of his kind present.
Atalanthya rose to her feet.
“You are dismissed,” she said.
Librarians streamed out of the main hall, returning to their homes or their research. Adrien followed the path of the crowd, doing his best to avoid both his mother and Ezekiel. When the last echo of footsteps other than his own faded, he rested his back against the stone walls and sighed in exhaustion.
“Are you all right?”
The voice startled him and Adrien leapt away from the wall, reverting instantaneously into the newly acquired mask of indifference he now wore in public. Ezekiel stood in the middle of the corridor, watching him.
“I’m fine,” Adrien lied.
Ezekiel raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
His pretenses had never fooled the old man. Ezekiel had always seen right through him. He was polite enough to phrase it as a question, but Adrien knew his handler didn’t believe him. They had not spoken since the day he demanded Ezekiel meet him at Frida’s coffee shop. With a start, he realized that had been more than three months ago. New York City was in the midst of a blisteringly hot summer, even if Adrien couldn’t feel it through the chill that had lingered in his bones since winter.
“I’m worried about you,” his handler said, walking forward and leaning against the wall of the corridor. “You’re not doing well.”
A hoarse laugh escaped him at the concern he caught in Ezekiel’s voice.
“Yeah?” Adrien said mockingly. “I know you’re not one for exaggeration, but that might be the understatement of the century.”
After receiving his target, he spent the first month in denial. Avoiding the inevitable. In the second month, he devised dozens of escape routes. In the third, he had finally accepted that there was no way around what he had been ordered to do.
“Have you come up with a way out of this?” he asked despondently.
The old man shook his head sadly. Adrien dug in his pocket and fished out the slip of paper with Emerson’s name on it. He held it out.
“Please take it,” he begged. “I can’t look at it anymore.”
Ezekiel tucked his hands into the pockets of the tweed suit he always wore.
“You know I can’t do that.”
Adrien dropped his hand, but the slip of paper hung between them like an anchor dragging both of them to the depths of their worst nightmares.
“Could you do it?” Adrien asked. “If it were you? Would you do it?”
“Yes.”
It was the truth. Ezekiel had dragged Miles Blackwell into one of the Catalogue’s books even though Iris had seen him as a mentor and surrogate father figure.
“I will never lie to you,” he continued. “I will search for escape routes until the last moment. But Iris and Atalanthya were right. The Catalogue will outlive us all and it is more important than all of us. After witnessing firsthand what Foundation’s Catalogue does to its Librarians…I fear you may have to come to terms with what you must do.”
Deep down, Adrien knew his friend was right. As much as he wanted to deny it, or avoid confronting it head on, Emerson had chosen her path. Foundation was an infection in the Catalogue. If Ezekiel could not find a way out, it was time to start preparing for the inescapable.
“I am glad this is not my path,” Ezekiel murmured. “But I wish it wasn’t you.”
A throat cleared to their left and both men jumped in surprise. The Head Librarian was standing in the corridor with them. At the sight of her, Adrien’s handler stiffened.
“Ezekiel,” Atalanthya greeted him in a formal tone.
He inclined his head in response but said nothing.
“I would like to speak with my son,” she said.
The old man glanced at him and Adrien grimaced. He had no desire to speak with his mother, but he would spare Ezekiel an interaction with the Head Librarian. In the last ten years, he could count the number of times he had witnessed them speak to each other on one hand. With a sympathetic look, Ezekiel vanished as he pulled himself out of The Central Library’s pages and back into New York’s Regional Library.
Atalanthya turned her attention to him.
“You have not made any progress with your target,” she said in an accusatory tone.
He looked at his mother, remembering a time when he had to look up at her. Now he towered over her. The turning point in their relationship had undoubtedly been the day she tasked him with murdering the woman he loved.
There was no denying his feelings now. It was the talk of the entire Library. Around every corner, Adrien heard whispers about their entanglement and he couldn’t even rebuff the gossips. Emerson Blackwell’s green eyes haunted his dreams. The ghost of her breath against his neck and her nails scraping down his chest followed him everywhere he went.
“No,” he responded. He had no excuses left to give her. “I haven’t.”
His mother’s eyes raked over him and he felt like a little boy again under her judgment.
“Some things are more important than your feelings,” she reminded him. “The Central Library and its Catalogue have stood for millennia. We do not have the luxury of letting them fall because of our personal…afflictions.”
He remained silent. In the end, his mother was not wrong and he had no room to argue. It was simply a matter of willpower and he had not mustered the strength necessary to take down the woman hell bent on destroying his Catalogue. But he would. Otherwise, everything he had worked toward in his life would crumble. Nevertheless, that knowledge did nothing to assuage the dread and bitterness bubbling beneath his cool exterior.
“I have an update on Emerson’s location,” his mother continued.
“Where is she?” he asked. The words came out hoarse and he cleared his throat self-consciously.
His mother directed a skeptical look at him and replied, “Emerson is purging Foundation of our Archivists. It would appear she is unleashing a set of her own assassins. I believe you’ve met one of them already.”
Only one candidate came to mind.
Silas Rathbone.
Adrien felt his fingers twitch involuntarily. He wanted to punch something, or scream into The Central Library’s silent halls, but it would be counterproductive to lose his temper in front of his mother. Her idea of strength was stoicism, regardless of the pain a person felt.
“We have already lost seven of ours who have been imbedded in Foundation’s membership for years. You need to act, Adrien,” Atalanthya said. “Archivists are falling because you have been hesitant to commit to your target.”
He gritted his teeth and did his best to control the tempest of emotions churning beneath the surface. The effort was futile—his mother saw right through him.
“Where is she?” he repeated the question.
“Emerson is tracking one of our Archivists inside a book called Khuzudhil. His name is Kairo Koslov. He stretches the rules, even as far as Archivists are concerned,” his mother admitted. “Anything you want—drugs, weapons…people…you name it. He’s got it. But it’s all a smokescreen for what he really sells: books. Specifically, journeys into books. Kairo’s specialty is selling banned books to Central Librarians who are curious about Foundation’s Catalogue.”
“What?” he asked incredulously. He couldn’t help the fear that festered in his stomach at the thought of Emerson confronting what sounded like a trafficker in drugs, guns, and Librarians. He shook his head to dispel that reaction and reminded himself that, not only was she his enemy now, but Emerson could also handle herself just fine. “He’s a trafficker? Why have you allowed him to operate for so long?”
“Kairo may color outside the lines, but he has been wildly successful as an Archivist.” His mother pursed her lips, correctly reading the judgment that flitted across his face. “On the back end, we clean up his messes by punishing the Librarians we catch buying books from him. And we send Guardians after the books he sets loose. Even you have received missions resulting from his…spillovers. But he’s taken down over twenty of Foundation’s Librarians in the last decade without being detected.”
“Until now,” Adrien responded drily.
“Until now,” Atalanthya repeated, unamused. “Now he needs our help.”
“He doesn’t sound like the kind of man who needs anyone’s help,” Adrien countered.
“You may view Silas Rathbone as a joke, and Emerson Blackwell as just the girl you introduced to our Catalogue, but this is no laughing matter,” Atalanthya scolded him. “Kairo is in danger. Your feelings for her are no longer the priority. You need to take her out.”
Without waiting for a response, Atalanthya turned on her heel to leave him alone with his thoughts in the abandoned corridor.
“I guess you’re the one with experience on this front,” he lashed out.
His mother turned back to face him. The sadness in her eyes nearly caused him to take a step back, but he stood his ground.
“Yes,” she answered. “I am. That’s how I know you will get through this.”
Without another word, Atalanthya pivoted and walked away from him, leaving him to the task he finally had to face. For the first time in his life, he couldn’t come up with a way out of the mess he had created.