“Whoa, this place is huge,” said Alex. “There are miles of books.”
“It’s so beautiful,” said Ren.
Alex looked over and thought, not unkindly, Nerd.
A guard near the entrance looked at them skeptically and asked to see their university IDs.
“Dr. Alshuff sent us!” proclaimed Ren, standing on tiptoes so that more than her head was visible above the top of the man’s tall desk.
But the guard’s interest in their credentials had already vanished — the moment Todtman had wrapped his hand around his amulet. “We are visiting scholars,” he said. That seemed true enough to Alex. He and Ren, for example, were in middle school. “And we are expected.” That seemed true enough, too: Alex just hoped it wasn’t by The Order.
“Of course,” said the man, as if talking in his sleep.
They headed toward the information desk.
“I am a professor from Berlin,” Todtman said to the young lady behind the desk. He left his amulet out of it this time, but made his normally faint accent almost comically thick. “I need to see the dissertation and notes of one of my colleagues.”
The graduate student looked up at Todtman and then down at Alex and Ren. “Yes,” she said. “Professor Alshuff told me to expect you. You are looking for an older file, I believe. Those files are in the archives now. Please follow me.” She stood up. “My name is Hasnaa, by the way.”
Hasnaa led them to the elevator bank and pressed DOWN. She moved with calm confidence, completely at home here. Like so many things, it reminded Alex of his mom. He wondered if she’d also worked in the library when she was studying here.
Everyone else was going up, so they were the only ones who got in when the door dinged open with the down arrow lit up above it. Hasnaa pulled out a key chain and flipped it around until she was holding a very small key. Alex had one just like it for the elevators at the Met. She put the key in its slot at the bottom of the panel, turned it, and then pressed the button that read BASEMENT ARCHIVES: STAFF ONLY.
It lit up in red and they began to descend.
“Uh, are there any other exits?” said Alex, not sure how much of the sinking feeling in his gut was coming from the elevator. “In case of, like” — an Order ambush — “a fire?”
Hasnaa gave him a curious look. “There are stairs, of course,” she said. The elevator bumped to a stop and the doors slid open. Hasnaa stayed inside as the others got out.
“Here you are,” she said. “But please, no fires.”
“Are you sure?” said Alex, leaning in to look over her shoulder.
“Now you’re in my light,” she protested. “But yes, I’m sure.”
She’d been given the job of checking not because she was diligent and detail-oriented, although she was both, but because her small stature and nimble fingers were perfect for searching the overstuffed bottom shelf. She flipped through the files one more time to be sure: BATTAR, BATTEN … And then straight to BAVALAQUA.
“No Bauer,” she confirmed. “But there is something odd …”
“What?” said Alex, leaning in and casting everything into shadow again.
Ren sighed deeply.
“Oh, right,” said Alex, stepping back.
Ren eyed the little gap in the files. It seemed strange, considering how jammed the rest of these shelves were. Old, yellowing paper and dry manila folders spilled out like overgrown plants. She touched the gap with her finger. No dust. Then she reached in with both hands and pushed Batten’s file away from Bavalaqua’s. She peered into the space beyond. It was dark back there, so she raised her amulet, not to ask it questions or offer more inscrutable images but just for …
A flash of brilliant white light lit the space — and told Ren what she needed to know. Boxes of additional material were stacked behind the archaeology department dissertations. Notes, fieldwork, maybe the occasional bone fragment or piece of pottery … She wasn’t sure, exactly, but she could see the spot where a large box had been plucked out like a bad tooth.
“The file’s gone,” she said. “Someone took it.”
She stood up and brushed her dusty hands on her shorts. “I guess Alshuff told The Order first,” said Ren. “And now they have it.”
She looked over at Alex and Todtman. They both looked like they’d just been slapped. “I never thought Alshuff would betray us,” muttered Todtman. “Even fearing for his life …”
“Betrayed,” mumbled Alex. “But I thought …” He let his voice trail off, and then Ren saw him shake his head hard, like he did sometimes. “There’s got to be something else. It really seemed like he was trying to tell us something.”
“Yeah,” said Ren. “He was telling us to go to the library — but the file is gone.”
Alex looked down at the floor, “We must be missing something …”
Ren decided to ignore him this time. It was a dead end, and they needed to let it go. Determination without information just got them into trouble. But his hangdog expression bothered her — and now that she thought about it, Alshuff had said something else. She remembered, because the comment had made her slightly jealous.
“Well,” she said, sighing, “he did say that weird thing about you having a spot down here someday.”
Todtman stared at her.
“What?” she said.
“Not someday,” he said. “Now.”
Ren searched her memory banks for the exact words: “He said, I wouldn’t be surprised if you found a space already set aside for you.”
“Yeah,” said Alex. “A spot set aside for me. That’s what he wanted us to find. I knew it!”
Ren looked at him, goggle-eyed. “You knew it?”
Alex shrugged. “Okay, you knew it — but I suspected!”
A spot set aside for Alex Sennefer … Ren headed straight for the shelf that held the S’s. Unfortunately for her, it was the top shelf this time. Maybe if I stand on my tiptoes … Todtman brushed past. “I think perhaps I should handle this one,” he said.
“Fine.” She sighed. Everyone told her she was due for a growth spurt, and all she had to say to that was WHEN? She was getting pretty sick of coming up short.
She squinted up at the faded labels.
“I see a B!” whooped Todtman. “Yes, here it is!”
He reached in to pull out several thick folders.
“Hold this,” he said, shoving them behind him.
Alex grabby-handed them away from Ren. “Let me see,” he said.
Ren leaned in for a look of her own.
“You’re in my light!” he chirped.
Meanwhile, Todtman was staring up at the top of the bookcase. The boxes of notes and supporting materials for the files on the upper shelves were piled on top of the case. Ren began to scan the names on the boxes: old black marker on old brown cardboard. “There!” she said, pointing.
And there it was, the name of the woman everyone was looking for, hidden in plain sight behind a simple veil of alphabetical misdirection.
“Prima!” exclaimed Todtman. Awesome.
A moment later, his hand closed around his falcon amulet, and the chunky old box floated free and drifted feather-like to the floor.