Slinking between the bookshelves, I tuck my long hair away and out of my face, so as not to impede my eyesight further, and walk toward the end of the shelves. As I advance, mice continue to pour from the corner of the room, squeaking on the ground along the back wall. They practically march in single file, further proof that I am, in fact, losing my mind. Güthric must’ve hit my skull harder than I thought…
I reach the end of the bookcases. At my feet, the mice still march, twenty or more, and I swear, every one of them looks my way—looks me directly in the eyes—before they pass.
I look around me, confirm that I am not standing in Blighted territory and therefore this is not a trick of a fiend. That would almost be better than going mad…but something tells me that’s not what this is.
I need proof, something to show me that what I’m seeing is really happening. Slowly, I squat to the ground, steadying my hand as I reach out to graze the soft fur atop one of the mice’s heads.
The contact, though expected, makes me jerk back. Real, then; the mice are real.
“What in the Eyve is happening…” I gasp, cradling my hand to my chest like it’s just been burned.
My eyes skirt the edge of the bookshelf, looking to see where the mice are headed. Part of me wishes Dimitri were here. If he were, surely, he’d have enough common sense to convince me to find mine, to encourage us to turn back, flee the library, and find the first Crusader we can to report this bizarre occurrence.
But I know these animals mean me no harm. If anything, dare I think that they’re actually trying to help me.
The marching mice continue down, row after row, and I have no choice but to follow them. I have to see where they’re going, have to know where all of this leads.
I take a wide step over them so as not to frighten any of them and then walk along the back wall beside them. At first, I walk slow, caution holding me back as I consider just how unusual this all is. But soon, my steps become wide, until I am practically bounding beside my new furry friends without a single hesitation in the world. My entire life, I’ve felt drawn to the animals around me, like I am connected to them in some deep and profound way.
I feel that same draw with these mice, like they are here solely for me, like they want to help me.
Up ahead, there’s a tapping. I can tell before I even reach it that it’s coming from the window, a small sound, hollow and clean. Uneasy, I slow my pace, shifting back to the other side of the mice so as to put some distance between me and whatever I will find on the other side of that window.
I slink closer, heart thumping in my chest in time with each tapping sound.
Tap-tap-thump-thump.
Tap-tap-thump-thump.
Tap-tap-thump-thump.
Finally, the old window comes into view. It’s one of those paned windows that can’t actually open, the ones typically found in cathedrals and is more decorative than purposeful.
A bird presses itself on the ledge just outside. Every few moments, it looks away from the window, back out over the hills, and then it returns with a sharp snap of its head and two rapid taps.
Tap-tap-thump-thump.
Not just any bird, I realize. Its feathers are as dark and glistening as ink, even in the fading sunlight. Its beak is made from onyx, curved slightly near the end, but otherwise impeccably smooth and straight. Its eyes are like someone trapped the midnight sky into the two smallest, blinking holes they could find, where it could never escape.
A raven.
Dimly, I wonder if it’s the same one that followed us all the way from Gravenburg here, but then I shake the notion from my mind. I may be ready to follow mysterious mice to what I hope are the answers I’ve been searching for, but I’m not ready to accept that a raven has for some reason become undyingly loyal to me. It’s probably one of the castle’s messenger birds, or perhaps it’s wild, and when it saw the mice inside, it wanted to hunt them for itself.
I turn my back to the window—to the raven—and follow the mice down the aisle.
But the floor seems to plummet beneath me when I find the mice huddled in a bundle of skittering limbs and wiry tails, at the base of one of the bookshelves. A few of them stand on their hind legs, reaching up the dust jackets and vellum, while the rest of the little army scurries around them.
My gait slows again, like I’m suddenly afraid I might disturb them and make them scatter. They’ve brought me here for a reason, I just know they have, and I have every intention of finding out why.
I inch closer on the softest parts of my shoes, as light as I can make myself become, until I’m standing before the bookshelf, before the place where they have congregated. I scan the spines of the books, searching for a title or phrase or word that will stand out to me. The Primordials: A Complete History, Magic Is the Land, The Development of Shadowsteel, Enslaved: How Arcathainians Reclaimed History. But nothing seems to even hint at human impersonation, complex illusions, or anything I could be searching for.
Then my eyes skim another title: The Druids of Arcathain.
There is no reason this book should stand out more than any of the others. It bears the same tattered, leather spine and faded ink inscription as all of the others, but when I see it, it’s like I suddenly can see nothing else. I lean closer, hand reaching out toward it. I’ve never heard the term druid before, which strikes me as odd, since the title clearly seems to imply that a druid is also Arcathainian.
But just as my fingers touch the top of the spine, just before I can pull the book out and hungrily devour its pages, a gasp sounds from the end of the bookshelf.
Secrets
Library, Castle of Nigh, Arcathain
I jump so far back that my back slams into the bookshelf behind me. The sturdy thing is so heavy with volumes that it barely even wobbles. The mice at my feet are just as skittish. The moment they notice someone else is among us, they scatter, clambering between some of the loosely packed books, skittering into the holes beneath the shelves, and rushing back the way we came from along the west-facing wall.
I’m so terrified of who I will have to face that my mouth has all but dried up. Even if I needed to explain myself, I don’t know I’d be able to; there is no saliva left on my tongue, no air in my lungs.
Quick as a whip, I snap my attention toward the gasp, toward the center of the library.
A whoosh of air escapes me when I see Fox’s red hair and wide eyes.
“Piss on a mage!” she exclaims, trying to whisper. “Did you see that? Those mice! They just—they were all together, like—like—”
In my head, I tell her not to say the word she’s thinking, the word I’ve tried not associating with myself my whole life.
“Like magic,” she says, breathless and mystified.
Worry releases its hold on my tight chest, a moment of relief wrapping itself around me that even she could not bring herself to say it. The moment passes quickly though.
I shake my head, hands stretched out toward her as I rush to her side. “No. It’s not like that. I’m not a—”
To my surprise she doesn’t recoil. Instead, she wraps her hands around my own, her wide eyes peering into mine.
“It’s okay. I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“There’s nothing for you to tell,” I insist. “I’m not a mage.”