Magic had nowhere else to be, so he camped in the library’s main floor.

It made little sense for him to sit in the room set aside for him and waste away all day—Mira might have chided him for it if he did, anyway. Sitting around in the basement of the building wouldn’t do much to solve his questions, either, so he braved the public space and found a secluded corner of the lobby with a book in his hands, one leg crossed over his knee.

The spot he’d chosen was close enough to the front desk that he could see Vallian leaning on the edge of it, thumbs driven into his eyes as though sitting there was enough to cause him a headache. Light caught on something around his neck and every now and again, the man reached to the back of his neck to fidget with something beneath the collar of his jacket that Magic never had the opportunity to see. When people approached, Vallian quickly readied himself, his words a low murmur despite the hollowness of the library.

Beside the front desk, Delilah was balancing on a thin strip of the carpet border, her arms outstretched as if she were balancing on a tightrope and the ground beneath her on either side was a gap she could fall into. When the front door opened, her head would go up and her feet would falter. Even with his face in the book (which was randomly chosen based on proximity and interest), Magic was able to tell when Delilah fell off the bump in the floor, her failure noted by a quiet, “Oh, man,” each time she fell off.

At one point, the failure had frustrated her so much that she’d let out a sharp but quiet Rabbit’s foot, and Vallian had scolded her gently for it, reminding her to be careful with her language in front of the patrons. Magic could only assume it was the northern equivalent to the western curses—except instead of referring to Ori, a mythical phoenix, it was more heavily focused on Soma, the mythical rabbit.

He was very much content to sit there, eyes skimming the same phrases of the book over and over again until an opportunity presented itself to approach Vallian and ask his questions.

Even if the real reason for his delay was more centered on working up the confidence to do it. He’d never been good at confrontation unless it was desperately needed and he hated doing it. Especially if it went wrong. There was no coming back from a discussion gone wrong and considering the fact that Vallian (and by extension Jovie and Soma) was the one offering the Central District Library to him and his sister, Magic was very much aware that a misstep could put him and Mira out of a place to stay.

When there’s less people around, he decided, thumbing through the pages. They crinkled under his touch, the sound melodic to his ears and strangely comforting in a room filled with unknowns.

Magic kept himself focused on the words of his book, skimming the content. He’d picked one solely based on mythology, one that detailed the creation of the Maidenwoods through all five of the Spectacles’ involvement, Ori for her light, Soma her ability to coax life from nothing, the serpent, Qu’ar, his ability to create storms, the salamander, Friit, his ability to make the land fertile, and Locht, who watched the creation passively and created the fog to keep the wildlife in a state of constant humidity. For growth, the text claimed, but Magic wondered how much of this specific fable was accurate.

He’d been on the verge of reading the next myth tucked away behind the pages when he heard the scuttling of footsteps, small and quick and heading in his direction. From just above the top of the book, Magic saw the two emerald eyes of the overly enthusiastic child who, moments ago, was walking a tightrope along the carpet. A hungry glint shone in them—for information or something to keep her busy, Magic wasn’t sure. What he did know was that Delilah was vibrating, shuffling from foot to foot as if she could hardly restrain herself.

This girl was raring with unspoken words and he realized then that she was not going to leave him in peace any time soon. Not when he pushed his glasses up and stared back at her, and not when he handled the book to be centered in front of his face.

Delilah shuffled over to the side of the chair he was sitting on, arms crossed over the armrest. Her whole body came forward, feet kicking in the air and Magic shuffled further into the corners of the furniture. Already he felt the air get thicker, harder to breathe. His arms stiffened.

“Whatcha’ reading?” asked the girl, craning her head to try and peek at the words Magic held close to his eyes. The text blurred in front of him.

“Words,” he replied simply, hoping to disinterest her.

She didn’t take the bait. “How can you read so close up like that? When I do it, the words get squishy.”

“That’s not squishy, Delilah, that’s blurry.”

“You can read when it’s blurry?”

“Yes. Now go away. You’re in my space.”

He kept his focus solely on the text as Delilah sighed rather dramatically, her huff reaching his hand and he cringed, doing what he could to keep himself together. It wasn’t much, but his heart had started to pick up and Magic didn’t need Delilah in his space when his nerves flared up more.

She muttered something to herself about reading, her voice trailing as she departed and Magic was glad to have his space and sanity ever so slightly restored until he heard the soft scraping of wood against carpet.

Delilah was dragging a chair in his direction—or, rather, trying to; the furniture was almost larger than herself and she struggled a good deal with pulling it over by the seat. She would’ve had more success if she’d pushed it, but Magic figured she’d learn that eventually. Or, if she didn’t, he’d tell her when she arrived. He had to give Delilah credit. She was persistent, reminding him a lot of how Mira was (even still) in her youth.

Once the chair was close enough, Magic took pity on Delilah and leaned over, dragging the chair over so that it was at a safe enough distance for her to be in his company and ask the questions that seemed to be making her restless. Even the act of sitting on the seat was a process and he could see her shaking with energy. She must have taken his request for space as some kind of reprimand for speaking, because Delilah stared at him intently, as if she were waiting for permission to speak. Her mouth was pursed into a thin line, hands drumming on her lap.

Magic kept quiet. He didn’t want to feel like he needed to give her the okay to speak. It just felt wrong, but the second he raised an eyebrow and nodded his head at her, Delilah’s face lit up like a lantern in the dark, eyes sparkling.

Stars, he thought, please let this end quickly.

“Where are you from?” she blurted out, leaning over the side of the chair. “Is it really different where you live?”

“West,” Magic replied, turning his attention back to the book, looking at Delilah only from the corner of his eye. He feared that, if he made direct eye contact with her, Delilah would take it as an invitation to have a conversation with him, and Magic had little desire for that as it was. It was a miracle that he’d lasted this long in her presence without feeling the overwhelming need to leave.

Children had a way of tiring out Magic in a bone-deep, sleeping-for-several-days kind of way. An exhaustion caused by energy that, seemingly, never expired—even when kids were tired they were active. Growing up and well into his late teen years, his least favorite customers to be around were always the parents who touted their children at the hip. Not because he hated them or because they had wrong him or his mother in some unfathomable way, but simply because the children were loud and overstimulating to be around. The high-pitched sound of laughing kids was grating to his ears and their lack of awareness always, always put them so irritatingly close to his and his mother’s space.

Not that Amelia minded. She’d always told him that it reminded her of when he was little and did the exact same things.

But Magic minded. Immensely.

And now, with Delilah so close yet distant, all he wanted was to satiate her curiosity and be done with it.

“Where west? Western District?”

“Droidell. Small town. You wouldn’t know it.”

The girl pouted, a challenge flaring like fire in her emerald eyes. “Sure I do!” Delilah stared at him long and hard, her forearms hinging on the arm of the chair as the top half of her torso swung forward. Magic was halfway to reminding her—again—that she needed to back up when she fell backwards onto the seat cushion and, with her arms up, loudly pronounced “Sombrail” as her answer.

Her voice echoed along the bookshelves. Magic was keenly aware of the fact that several patrons had turned to look in their direction—Vallian particularly hung his head as if in defeat—before slowly turning away to resume their business. If they were regulars, they were likely used to Delilah’s antics and, considering that not a single one came over to reprimand or at the very least shush her, Magic assumed they were.

Delilah’s certainty didn’t change the fact that she was wrong, though Magic was familiar with the town. Three villages down and a few days travel by horseback, Sombrail was a marine port town that traded goods with the Bossi Archipelago off the coast of Maribyss in the south and neighboring lands that Magic had never been to before.

Then again, Magic hadn’t been anywhere aside from Chrome his whole life—aside from the occasional medical visits in the neighboring town of Grimmshollow, but he hardly counted those.

“Not Sombrail,” Magic corrected her. “Chrome. Small town. South of the capital.”

Delilah cocked her head like a curious puppy. “But Sombrail is where Val is from.”

Interesting. Magic raised a brow. “That so?”

“Yeah. He said he wasn’t happy, so he came here.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Something didn’t add up. While Magic could never proclaim to know or understand someone else’s happiness or what they enjoyed out of life, the fact remained that Sombrail was one of the select western towns in Droidell which thrived off of the business it was known for: marine life and trade. Magic had seen more people scrounge up funds to leave for Sombrail rather than from it.

What could have possibly happened in Sombrail to force people out? There were no major disasters that he could recall. No striking incidents in the papers. Magic’s mind raced and he must have zoned out because a sudden blur of motion pulled him back into the present. It waved frantically in front of his face and Magic jumped in his seat, lightly swatting away what he realized to be Delilah’s hand. Even the small contact made his heart lurch.

“Back. Up,” he hissed through gritted teeth, watching and waiting until the girl was seated on her heels, facing him. “There are more towns in Droidell than Sombrail, Delilah,” he went on. “Just because you’ve never heard of them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

Delilah sat there in a stunned kind of silence, mouth open in a tiny, shocked ‘o’. as if Magic had just told her the most groundbreaking news. He watched the words settle like fine dust over a window as Delilah considered him, carefully, curiously, with a slow tilt of her head.

Then, to Magic’s horror, Delilah bounced in her seat, swiveled so that she was sitting on her knees, and faced him with those wide, green eyes of hers. The hunger for information returned in full force and Magic felt his stomach drop.

He’d never be free of the questions at this rate and they came at him in rapid succession.

“What is it like there? Do you guys like to sit outside in the sun? Val complains that he can’t do that here. But I don’t even know what the sun looks like; all Jovie shows me is pictures. Which is okay. Kind of. But I want to see it for real, for real. Like, with my eyes. I bet you see it all the time. Does that make it hot there? Oh! Wait! What animals do you have? Have you ever seen a bat befo—”

“Delilah Grace,” came a stern voice rapidly approaching from the maze of books. “You’re not pestering our guest, are you?”

“No!” insisted Delilah, at the same time Magic muttered, “Yes” under his breath, and Vallian tipped his head back, eyes squeezed shut with all the resignation of a tired guardian. It was such simple, adult exasperation that reminded Magic of his mother.

When the librarian got his bearings, he rummaged with the object behind his head—which Magic recognized now as a chain necklace. He caught the gold in the light as Vallian briefly lifted the back of it away from the nape of his neck.

Crouched in front of the girl, Vallian took a deep breath through his nose, eyes trained on the girl as he placed his hands on Delilah’s shoulders. “Del,” he said softly, “do you remember what your aunt and I talked to you about this morning?”

Delilah hung her head with a pout, eyes to the side to avoid contact. The purest look of guilt.

Magic watched Vallian crouch to be directly eye level with her and tip the girl’s chin up. The words he spoke were so soft, so gentle that Magic felt his chest tighten at the vaguely paternal note in Vallian’s voice.

“Delilah,” said the man, “you cannot just go around and do that to people you don’t know. I know you have a lot of questions in that noggin of yours”—he tapped the side of Delilah’s head, causing her to giggle softly—“but you have to try and be a bit more …”

“Calm?” murmured the girl.

Vallian gave her a tired smile. “Yeah. Exactly.” He tousled Delilah’s long black hair and she smiled as Vallian pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Now,” he went on, “I believe your services, little miss, are needed.”

“Who?”

“I left Miss Charlotte by the front desk just as you were causing trouble. She’s looking for the memoir section. Do you think you could help her find the one she’s looking for?”

The child brightened. Magic had barely the time to process her drastic shift before Delilah catapulted forward, shoving past Vallian with enough force to almost topple him over. She twirled on her toes, her sneakers lighting up in an array of colors, to face them, grinning so widely that Magic could see most of her teeth and the gaps where they’d fallen out.

“I can help Miss Charlotte!” she shouted, and Magic found a great deal of amusement in watching Vallian pantomime uselessly in an effort to make her lower her voice. “I know where they are! Jovie showed me! She showed me yesterday, Val!”

“Two days ago,” corrected Vallian under his breath, but Delilah was already several paces away, calling for a blonde-haired woman at the front desk. The lady gave Delilah a warm smile, mouth moving as she briefly crouched to greet the small girl before she took Delilah’s hand and walked with her towards the back of the library, disappearing in the maze of books.

Vallian groaned and pressed his forehead into the cushion of the chair Delilah had previously been sitting in. “Stars,” he muttered almost to himself, “she’s going to be the death of me.”

“Happen often?” Magic asked, wishing he’d grabbed a cup of tea or something to have with the show.

“Every. Day. Firecracker, that one. I can barely manage her energy on a good day to make sure she isn’t getting into trouble. You take your eyes away from her for five seconds and she’s gone and toppled something over.”

Magic was vividly reminded of his sister, whose similar tendencies growing up had caused him numerous grief and broken bones. “I know the feeling.”

“Lucky for me, Del’s got a good bit of charm to her, so people don’t usually have an issue keeping her entertained or asking her to help them.”

“She shows people around?”

“Wasn’t the initial plan. Jovie just wanted something that would help her build social skills.”

“Does she not go outside?”

Vallian shrugged, pushing against the seat to stand. Magic assumed he was going to stay there in one spot, but exhaustion must have eaten away at the librarian, because he practically fell into the seat, one hand lifted as if he’d had a drink in it. “It’s…complicated. I didn’t want her to leave the library. She’s the niece of Soma’s Vessel. That fact alone can put her in danger. I don’t want her exposed to that. She’s safer here.”

“What about the people coming in?” Magic asked. “You police them?”

Vallian waved a hand dismissively. “Loosely. There’s…a few people I don’t trust as much. But some of Jovie’s old medical friends who come in to say hello are the ones we typically allow Delilah to associate with.”

“Does she ever ask?” When Vallian squinted at him, white rims of his pupils undulating slightly in the light, Magic took a breath to steady the fear they instilled in him and continued. “Does she ask to leave the library, I mean.”

The librarian stared at him, the creases between his brows deepening. Magic shuffled around in his seat a little and adjusted his glasses just to give himself something to do. Was this how Mira felt whenever he stared at her like she was crazy for an idea she didn’t think through? Or when she’d done something he couldn’t grasp?

If it was, he was starting to hate being on the opposite end of it.

“She used to,” Vallian finally said. “But, once she realized that I wouldn’t budge on the matter, she started asking Jovie. Then I had Jovie pestering me of all people. ‘Why can’t we go on a small walk, the three of us?’ ‘What’s the harm in taking her to the park? She can talk to other kids her age.’” He shook his head with the slightest roll of his eyes. “I love Jovie, but she’s very shortsighted. I explained to her my thoughts on the matter and, when she finally saw reason, we came to a … loose agreement: Delila was to stay and help me here during the day for whatever job she wants—so long as she can do it. Then, on set weekends, Jovie takes her to the marketplace.”

It sat weird with Magic for someone so far removed from Delilah to be telling her what to do or restricting her ability to go elsewhere. Not even his mother did that from what he could remember, though he supposed maybe it wasn’t too far fetched of a request. Magic could recall a few times where Benji, Mira’s father, had asked him to do things or requested he stay behind for something and Magic obeyed obediently. And he didn’t have a lick of relation to the Arbesque family. Not a single drop of his blood.

It shouldn’t have bugged him, yet it did. Unless, there was more that Vallian wasn’t expressly stating.

Magic shuffled around on the couch, closing the book on his lap. “Are you…and Jovie—?”

“No.” The word was fast, sharp, a knife’s edge. Vallian shot a pointed glare in Magic’s direction and he fought to keep himself from shrinking. “Jovie and I are just very good friends. She helped me, I helped her. The cycle kind of repeated itself until we stopped counting debts. As for Delilah …” Vallian paused, reaching up to twirl an unkempt cowlick around one of his fingers. “I’ve known her since she was born,” he went on slowly, the words said with precision. “It’s not exactly like Delilah has a mother to take care of her, and Jovie has her own Vessel things to take care of with helping other Scepters or half-sights. Or anyone under suspicion, that is. I’m happy to help Jovie wrangle her niece—even if she’s grown to be…a bit of a handful.”

“What about her other family?” Magic asked.

Vallian took a quick glance around the front lobby. Magic couldn’t tell if he was looking for the child he was entrusted with caring for or if he was hoping there was no one around to hear the words coming out of his mouth. He looked more jumpy at the insinuation of the question—that Delilah was truly an orphan aside from the family she had in Jovie—than the question itself.

“No,” Vallian said again. The word was quiet this time. Gentle. Wistful. “There is no other family in the picture. Just Jovie. And me, but I hardly count. And before you ask me anything else,” Vallian added as he rose from the chair, a question rising to Magic’s lips and dying before it had the chance to live, “there’s nothing else to this conversation except for that. I’m not here to answer your questions. I’m just here to keep you in one spot until Jovie gets back with your friend.”

“My sister,” Magic corrected, biting into his tongue, but the librarian didn’t acknowledge him. He only fidgeted with the chain resting on the back of his neck, running his fingers along the individual loops in the metal.

He hated being disregarded. Probably even more than being ignored. When you were ignored, at least people had the decency to pretend as if you weren’t there at all. Being dismissed was a whole different beast entirely. Vallian was very well aware but made the active choice to ignore him. And Magic was sick and tired of being disregarded, of being pushed aside. “May as well run your laps to go and find Delilah, then,” he muttered, picking the book back up just in time to watch Val glance over his shoulder, every part of his posture stiff.

It gave Magic a vindictive sense of satisfaction to watch the librarian seethe.

And he would have savored it a little bit more had something not started faintly ringing in the distance, startling Magic enough for him to fumble with the book in his hands. It fumbled from his grip; he tried to reclaim it but the attempt only pushed it faster to the ground, thudding onto the carpet and jumpstarting his nerves. Magic pulled his arms up towards his ears, trying to force his muscles to relax.

Vallian caught sight of him and scoffed. “What?” he teased, “Scared of a phone?”

Not the phone, Magic thought, swallowing the words instead. Just the memories. Not my fucking fault, either.

He eyed the other man carefully and, as Vallian looked at the pager in his palm, his face slackened, the prideful smirk immediately wiped away for something more…fearful. Shocked. Magic couldn’t tell; there was a lot going on in Vallian’s expression that was hard for him to read but Magic knew one thing for certain. Whatever notification Vallian had gotten clearly wasn’t sitting well with him.

“Fuck,” muttered Vallian as he ran a hand back and forth through his hair. He was starting to pace and, slowly, Magic rose from his chair, forcing a kind of calm he wasn’t sure he was emulating well enough. Not that it mattered much. Vallian didn’t seem like he was in the headspace to make fun of Magic for it.

“Fucking hell, Jove,” hissed the librarian again, this time with far more urgency as he made a beeline for the front desk, grabbing something shiny from behind it. The motion was quick, almost imperceptible, but Magic heard the click of a primed pistol and felt a distinct amount of fear about being within shooting range of a person so vastly irritated and annoyed. “She should’ve fucking told me first,” Vallian went on. “Jovie should never have gone there.”

Something like a rock weighed Magic’s stomach into his gut. Wherever Jovie was, so was his sister. Which meant that if Jovie had run into danger, so had Mira. Again.

“Do me a favor,” said the man adjusting his brown jacket so that it covered the handle of the pistol at his hip. “Grab those two goats Alaric loaned you from the basement level. Meet me out back. I need Charlotte to watch Delilah for a little while longer.”

“Why?” Magic asked. “What do we—?”

“We,” Vallian cut in, “are going to have the wonderful pleasure of shooting at some birds.”