The Library

Theo walked along a paved cobblestone pathway. His destination, the stairs that led downwards in the middle of the courtyard.

The well-lit staircase stuck out like a sore thumb amongst all the greenery. There were a lot of people heading in the same direction. Most were alone, but there were a few groups.

Those who weren't already in a group kept to themselves. While even those in groups kept their voices hushed, barely even whispering as they entered the tunnel.

Theo entered the stairs and started walking deeper into the ground. The farther he got, the quieter everything turned.

The rustling of leaves turned into a few quiet murmurs at first, before even they disappeared. All that was left was the rhythmic thumping of feet on stone.

It was the first place in the Academy that Theo had seen the normal stone he was used to.

The light the torches provided grew dimmer with every step. The bright flame now barely a flicker that only illuminated the steps ahead of him, leaving the space above him shrouded in darkness.

Theo glanced at the girl walking beside him. Her eyes were solemn, and her gaze was strictly locked onto the steps in front of her.

He looked backwards, only to be surprised that there was no light at the end of the tunnel. It was as if the entrance had been blocked by something.

He continued moving forward while looking back. The expected stone step that should have appeared beneath his feet wasn't there.

'Oh shit…' He managed to grab the side of the wall and stabilize himself just in time. 'Note to self, when walking downstairs, look ahead.'

But even that was getting harder as the surroundings grew even darker. He followed the example of the girl and focused his eyes intently on the steps in front of him.

Theo must have been walking for five minutes already, and there was no end in sight. The lights had almost completely disappeared, forcing him to slow down his pace.

There was an end, though. The person who had shown him around yesterday had said as much. The bastard just hadn't been kind enough to tell him that it would be this annoying and time consuming to reach it.

Another ten minutes passed by, and multiple sources of light appeared in front of him.

It was another torch, but it wasn't normal. The flame wasn't red, instead it was a translucent gold. It didn't flicker like a fire would, it was stationary.

It also provided much more light than a normal flame would.

It illuminated the grey, stone hall he had descended into. The darkness that had hung over his head the entire way down was dispelled, revealing the massive height of the place.

The peculiar torches also cast a halo around the massive dark stone doors that sat at the end of the hall.

'How far underground am I?' Theo wondered to himself as he started walking towards the singular, wooden desk next to the doors.

There were a few students before him, so he had to wait for his turn. It didn't take long, though.

There was an older man manning the desk, alone. His robes weren't a shade of blue, but purple. His white hair was a long, straight mass that reached over the wooden chair he was sitting on.

Though, there was a conspicuous lack of facial hair. That made the stress lines and wrinkles on his face all the more apparent.

The man looked at Theo up and down.

"First time?" He asked with a gravelly voice.

Theo nodded.

"Do you know the rules?" He asked.

"I do not."

The man sighed. "Do not take anything from the library. That's the most important rule, you can ask the others for the rest."

Theo nodded.

"Sign your name." The old man pushed a slab of stone forward.

He looked at it confusedly for a second, it was a solid piece of stone. He didn't have a chisel or anything to carve it with.

"How am I supposed to do that?" He asked and looked the man.

The old man sighed. "With your aether."

It wasn't at all as obvious as the old man seemed to think it was. How was he supposed to know that? Though, in hindsight it did seem obvious.

Theo took ahold of his aether and pulled a small stream away from it, before directing it onto the pathway. The moment it manifested, he pushed it against the stone and started writing as if though he was holding a quill.

Looking at it like this, it really did look like the aether was ink.

A few moments later, he had etched his full name onto the slab. It glowed with a dim white light, before the name was seemingly swallowed by the stone.

There was no trace of what he had just etched onto it.

"Go on, now. There's a bunch of you coming in today. Just lay your hand onto the door." The old man pulled the stone back and shooed him away.

Theo looked back and noticed that there was quite a line already gathered behind him. He turned and nodded towards the old man before starting to walk towards the giant stone doors.

They were huge. Easily over twenty meters tall. It looked plain from afar, but the closer he got, the more he noticed—there were small names carved on them.

It looked like they were arranged alphabetically, the first one starting from the bottom and continuing upwards. It was strange. He wasn't able to see the names above the ten meter mark, but he could still read them.

It must have been some type of spell, or just something the doors themselves provided.

Curious, he browsed through the names. There must have been thousands of them, but he quickly found his own glowing amongst them. Did they record the name of everyone who visited the library here?

Then, was his mother's name there?

There were a few names with the surname Hall, but none were his mother. Theo must have looked for a while, before he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

His mother had married his father years after graduating the academy, so she must have been using her original surname while she was still a student.

A moment passed as he started looking for a new name, before he found his mother's. Anna Ballard. It sat amongst a bunch of unknow names. It wasn't glowing.

'I'm finally going to see what you bragged about all those years.' Theo smiled to himself as he stepped up against the stone gate.

Before setting his hand against it, though. He looked through all the names with the Manning surname. There were quite a lot. Easily numbering in the hundreds. Most were devoid of light, but many still glowed. Easily over fifty Arcanists.

Seeing all of them was like a douse of cold water. What good mood seeing his mother's name had brought was now gone.

'Just you wait…' He thought as he raised his hand and was about to touch the door. Moments before his hand touched it, he thought about another name.

There was no chance it was there, but it wouldn't hurt to check.

There was a surprising amount of people with the surname of Reed, but it didn't seem like he was here. A sigh escaped his lips as he moved his hand onto the door, but still continued to look through the names.

The moment his hand touched the door, it was like the tower all over again. A sudden flip of gravity and an intense feeling of vertigo.

But even that wasn't enough to distract him from the last name on the list of Reeds—Zeke Reed. He was here.

Theo gripped his head and didn't even bother looking around him as gravity normalized and the residual vertigo slowly started to bleed out. His thoughts were focused solely inwards.

He was here. Zeke was here.

How long had Zeke already been here? A year? Two?

The longer he had already been studying, the worse it was for Theo. It would be harder to kill him. Not to mention that if they fought against each other while still in the Academy, they would both be expelled.

He couldn't afford that, not yet—he still had to get stronger to kill the Mannings. Zeke didn't have that problem.

"Are you okay?" A worried voice cut into his thoughts.

Theo took a deep breath and slipped the mask back into place. He glanced at the older girl who was looking at him.

She was wearing a robe that was of a deeper color than his. Her black hair was short, barely reaching past her ears and her deep brown eyes were creased with concern.

"I'm fine, that just surprised me." Theo smiled at her and looked around.

He was standing in a corridor that seemed to go on for about twenty meters before bookcases appeared and then continued on for what seemed like forever. The lighting was provided by the same golden flamed torches.

The pair of giant stone doors were behind him. It looked like he had been teleported through it. The library sure had tight security.

"It's your first time, right?" The older girl asked him, the worry disappearing from her face as she noticed him looking around. "Follow me."

She turned and began walking towards an open doorway on the left side of the corridor. Theo followed her.

There were a few wooden desks there, some had people in them, while others were empty. The girl led him to one of those empty desks and sat on the chair before directing for him to sit down as well.

She smiled at him. "I'll be your tour guide today, but first I need to tell you about the rules."

"First of all, never take a book outside the library. If you somehow manage to smuggle one out, the best case scenario is getting expelled, but the Archivist will probably just kill you instead."

That wasn't good, now was it? Wasn't it a little over the top?

"Just… don't do it, and you'll be fine."

"Now, the second rule is to handle the books, scrolls or tablets with the same care you would have with a small child. If you damage anything, the Archivist might kill you."

"Does every rule in this place have the death penalty for breaking them?" Theo asked incredulously. His mother had told the place was strict, but holy fuck.

"Anything that has to do with the books, yes. But he doesn't care about any of the other rules, they're just there to help us organize and manage all the people." She sighed. "It would actually be helpful if he added that punishment to those too, though."

"Who's this Archivist you keep talking about?" Theo asked curiously. "It sounds like he's quite important."

The girl nodded excitedly. "He's amazing. He's the last founding father that remains. But he's also a little crazy." The last part was whispered. "Don't tell him I said that." She giggled as she started speaking about the rules regarding the training facilities and the study lounges scattered about the edges of the library.

To be honest, Theo was hardly listening to her after the tenth rule she rattled off. He still maintained an attentive smile on his face and looked as though he was interested.

In reality, his thoughts were focused on his current predicament. Zeke was here. Did that mean that he knew that he might one day appear here?

It was possible. Back then, Zeke had no intention of coming here.

"Did you get all that?" The girl finally finished listing off all the rules.

Theo nodded.

"Good, then let's go. I'll show you around." She beamed at him and stood up; Theo made to follow but froze as a voice rang out from behind him.

"Sorry, Vera, but can I be the one to show him around? I've been waiting for him for quite a while." The voice was familiar, and it filled him with dread.

How was his luck this bad? Had he really been waiting here of all places for him to appear?

"Ah. But you just came back... and it's my turn." Vera hesitated but sat back down after a moment. "Fine, but you'll have to help me with that spell the next time I ask."

"Sure, I just want to show him around and chat with him a little bit." Theo could hear the smirk on his face. "It's been such a long time since we've seen each other. Hasn't it, Theo?"

Theo stood up and turned to face him.

"Sure has." He tried to keep his face neutral even as the mask slipped away. "Been burning any friends lately? A girlfriend or two, maybe?"

The hate filled snarl that appeared on Zeke's face was almost cathartic, but the snarky comment had just added unnecessary fuel to the fire.

The short black hair that was slicked back accentuated that snarl. He was tall, and much more muscular than he had been two years ago. His blood red eyes were filled with so much hate.

Damn his temper, Theo thought that he had squashed it long ago. But against Zeke? It was well deserved. And he wasn't about to reign it back. It didn't matter what he did, it wouldn't change Zeke's opinion of him.

After all, Zeke wanted to kill him just as much as he wanted to kill Zeke.

He recovered quickly enough, though. The snarl being there for a second before it was replaced by a fake smile.

"Ever the jester, aren't you?" Zeke said. "You'll have to be careful not to bewitch another man's wife, again."

His nails bit into his palm as he glared at Zeke. It was hard. It was so hard not to lunge forward.

"Let's go." Zeke turned around and beckoned for him to follow. "We can chat while looking around, right?"

Theo followed after him with gritted teeth. If only he'd had a knife, it would have been so easy to plunge it into his back right now.

But that would only fulfill one of his goals, the other one wouldn't ever be achieved. Killing another student meant that you would be executed. There were too many witnesses around.

No, he needed to bide his time.

However, as he looked at the back of Zeke walking in front of him, he wasn't sure that the sentiment was shared.