83: A Very Long Day

The library was exactly as I remembered it. The space was still small, there was still a shitty desk in one corner, and the books on the rickety shelves were categorised using a random number generator.

“There isn't even any space to put the scrolls,” Paisley muttered, moving out of the way so I could enter the room behind her.

In the cramped space, my hand accidentally brushed her hip, and we locked eyes. My heart stumbled through the next few beats of its rhythm, before I looked away.

“Let's just start putting scrolls into the remaining space on the shelves, and we'll see how much we have left after,” I suggested wearily, carefully scooching past her. This whole long, intense day with her had been great, but my nerves and my willpower were frayed, and I was so damn tired.

I felt her fingers briefly settle on my arm as I went past, but when I looked down they were gone, and she was busy pulling scrolls from her inventory. I suppressed a sigh. The fact that she kept touching me so tenderly didn't help how weary I felt.

There weren't a whole lot of spots where you could put things, especially if you didn't want them squished or otherwise damaged. It took us only a few minutes to run out, in fact.

Placing one last scroll in a little slot, I turned and looked at my friend. “And there, I think that's as many as we can fit.”

Paisley sighed, and we both stared at the absolutely packed shelves. What even were some of these books? An Introductory Guide to Geology, by—

A dull clicking sound echoed into the silence. Our heads snapped up, and we locked eyes. My friend shook her head, and so did I — neither of us made that sound. Which obviously raised the question, what had made that sound?

“Check the bookshelves, see if they move,” I said, reaching out to give one a shove. Mine didn't budge, but the one that Paisley tried — which was immediately opposite the main door — swayed outward, along with the wall behind it.

She gaped, then turned and looked back at me. “Holy shit.”

Joining her — tiredness retreating somewhat — I pushed on the bookcase further, and it swung out away from us with the barest squeal of hinges. Dusty, stagnant air wafted through the newly created doorway, through which we could see only darkness.

“Whisperwill was holding out on us,” I muttered, thinking back on my Spirit Forging book.

My brain seemed to hitch on their name, like I should be making some sort of connection, but I was too fascinated by the empty void in front of us. Oh! We needed light, and I knew that Paisley could cast a light spell, or that we could take out our lampstones, but I had a different idea.

“I'm going to free Wispy,” I said, warning Paisley.

Going into my character sheet, I flipped over to the pets tab and pressed the resummon button on my forgotten pet.

The little ball of fuzzy blue light faded into existence in my hands. It was warm, and felt so, so very soft. It was also angry.

A tiny ball of wispy rage flew up and bounced off my forehead once, twice, and then after a moment's thought, a third time for good measure. It didn't hurt, but I flinched away regardless and tried to shield my face from any more violence. “Hey, hey, stop that!”

It squeaked at me and vibrated angrily in midair, before finally calming down.

“I'm sorry— I'm sorry for leaving you in the box this whole time. Things have been really crazy recently, and I kinda… sorta, uh, forgot,” I said, wincing at my botched apology.

Paisley, for her part, was loving all of this. Her smile was so wide and expressive and cute. Gah, every time I saw her looking like that, it's like I couldn't tear my eyes off her. I felt a quiver run through me as I tried to avoid getting lost in her dark amber eyes. Thankfully, Wispy was now an unwitting chaperone, and hissed in frustration one last time.

“Hey, hey, I said I was sorry,” I told the irate little creature. “Look, we were stocking the library with more stuff, and when we filled it, this door opened. Can you… go see if there's any lamps or candles to light?”

The wisp seemed to notice the yawning dark passage for the first time, and tentatively, it floated through. Its light was enough for us to see a smaller room on the other side, and a hallway going deeper in. Actually, the room was more like two nooks on either side of the secret doorway. The bookcase that had served as a door was now sitting happily in the nook, along with two other empty shelves — one for each wall. The opposite nook was identical, except the door bookcase was replaced by an empty one.

“Well, we have a place to put the scrolls now,” Paisley remarked with a little giggle. “Come on, we should offload before we follow the deep, dark hallway.”

She was right, of course, so we filled the newly found shelves with the scrolls, and then stared at the deep hallway. Wispy was halfway down its length, having found an oil lamp to set alight… and then sit in like it was a cosy chair. I wished I had a cosy chair to sit in right about now.

The hallway wasn’t quite as long as I’d initially thought — the darkness had lengthened its ten or so metre length into fifty. It looked much the same as the rest of our old house had been — wooden walls, covered in plaster, with dark hardwood pillars and roof supports every so often.

I turned to Paisley and shrugged. “Well, here goes.”

After our encounter with the vicious fae trap room, I was hesitant as we pressed forward down the hallway, but nothing happened, and soon we'd arrived at the ironbound wooden door at the other end.

“Okay, I'm too tired for traps. If there's a trap behind this door, I'm going to cry and it won't be pretty,” said Paisley, apprehension tugging at her vocal chords.

“Even if it misses us again?” I asked, reaching out to place a comforting hand on her back.

Immediately, she leaned into it, allowing my hand to take a small portion of her weight. “Especially if it misses us. I cannot do frights right now.”

“I can open the door while you stand back?” I suggested sympathetically.

I was honestly feeling a little of the same emotions as her. I was so damned tired — today really had been a long one.

Paisley gave me a concerned, embarrassed expression and murmured, “Watching you suddenly d— get sent to a respawn, it would make it so much worse. If there's a trap, I'd rather it just killed us both.”

“Wow,” I said, and surprised myself with a soft giggle. “Okay. I guess we can die together…”

She nodded, sharing my amusement, and so I took that as my cue to reach out and twist the cold iron handle. It turned easily, despite having stolen a small amount of warmth from my hand. Metal doorhandles were mean like that — little tax collectors, but for hand warmth.

Wispy danced past me, the moment the gap was big enough for it to fit through. By the time the door was completely open, the little magic fluffball had begun to light various lamps around the large room.

It was about as large as the taproom of our inn, but three times as tall. Two upper galleries filled that height, and each was accessed from the ground floor by carpeted stairs. Every available inch of floor space was taken up by lanes of bookshelves. There were no reading nooks, no study tables, not even a central thoroughfare.

“This isn't a library,” Paisley observed, keeping her voice low, as if some sort of deranged monster librarian might leap out at us.

Her statement confused me to no end, and I gave her a look that said as much. I mean… it was very clearly a library — there were books, and bookshelves, and all that.

“It's not a library, it's book storage,” she elaborated. “There's nowhere to read. Libraries are more welcoming than this place. The only thing that indicates comfort is the carpet.”

I clicked my finger a few times and nodded. “Yeah, I was getting that vibe. Like, where's the cosy reading nooks and shit? I want a big armchair that swallows me whole while I read.”

Gesturing to an empty bookshelf, she added, “And this place isn't even close to full.”

Watching her hand move to encompass the barely used not-library, I got distracted. She was wearing a loose black shirt over a tight-fitting undyed linen tank, and billowy black pants that were tucked into moccasins. All around her wrists, arms, neck, and hips, were strings with various occult paraphernalia hanging from them. There were little bones, glassbeads, actual gemstones, odd metal coins with scary symbols — it was the works.

Her shoulder-length hair was wild, wavy, and free as usual, except down the back, where she'd braided it up with coloured string woven through. Her face was, obviously, extraordinary attractive to me, with her wide inquisitive eyes and her full, rosy cheeks.

I'd been dealing with how fucking gorgeous she looked all day, but given how tired I was, in that moment, watching her broke my weakened resolve entirely. I stepped up to her, and ignoring her surprised confusion, hugged her. Immediately, I was hit with the smell of cinnamon and cloves, and my whole nervous system melted into a puddle.

“Keiko?” She asked tentatively, arms coming up to wrap around me regardless of her confusion.

“I…” I said, faltering before I even got two words out. Nuzzling my face into her shoulder, I took a deep breath and felt my whole body relax. “Long day. So full of you. I know we said lots of stuff about not… I just need this.”

How had this even happened — my feelings for her? We were friends for ages before this whole Keiko thing started. I liked her back then, as a friend. She was a delight to be around, and always so kind… but that platonic affection was like a single ailing bonfire beside the sun. My whole being seemed calibrated towards her now.

The answer to what I felt was obvious… of course — I was falling for her. I was falling for her in the same way that ancient tragic poets described it.

“Yup. My battery has run out, too. So… we can take some time here,” she whispered, her lips brushing my ear. “Not too long, though. Dinner and sleep are calling us. We can bring everyone else in here tomorrow and explore properly.”