Lenora looked forward to seeing the Library again, with its vast and dazzling towers, endless stacks of books, giant windows with infinite vistas beyond, and blimps and tubes and talking whales and whatever other marvels the Library might toss her way.
But this did not happen.
The tunnel ended in the most depressing, low-ceilinged room, cramped with completely empty bookshelves shoved together haphazardly, with horrid neon bulbs flickering dismally above. The floor was dirty tile and all the whitish walls were bare.
Lenora took a deep breath, steadying herself. This was nothing like the dreams she’d been having of her magnificent return to the Library. She had all the information she needed to know that something was Terribly Wrong.
Then she felt a fluttering on her chest, right in front of her heart. She looked down to see that a badge had appeared there, and the badge said
LENORA
SECOND APPRENTICE LIBRARIAN
This was unimaginably reassuring. Despite things being Terribly Wrong, she had her badge back, she was still a librarian, and she had a job to do. And judging from her new title, she’d even gotten a promotion from Third Apprentice, her final title when she had last been in the Library. She hoped that meant she wouldn’t be fired somehow, like Aaliyah had been. Steeling herself for whatever was to come, she looked around for an exit—for she knew the first thing she had to do was locate Chief Answerer Malachi and find out what was going on.
She wandered through the shelves, noting that none of them were the least bit dusty, and so must have been emptied recently. At last she came to a door, which she pushed open to find a long hallway lined with more doors, and more dirty tile and flickering lights. It all looked like a scene from those television shows about adults who hate their jobs, and Lenora was beginning to wonder if she was actually in the Library at all.
She was disappointed to see no sign of a Tube station, the tubes being the main means of travel through the vast Library, whooshing librarians along in glass tubes that could take them almost anywhere. But then she remembered she no longer had a Tube key, and so she could not use the system even if she wanted to.
There was nowhere to go but forward, so forward she went.
As she passed, she could see all the doors were open, and beyond each was a small office with nothing in it but a beat-up desk and chair. After about ten or twelve of these, Lenora jumped a little when she passed one with a woman sitting in it. The woman was sitting at the desk with hands folded, staring at the wall. She was wearing a red raincoat on which was a badge that said LIBRARIAN with no name. She turned her head slowly to look at Lenora. Something behind her eyes flickered. And beneath that raincoat, a snake-like something slithered over her shoulder.
Goose bumps rose on Lenora’s arms, and she knew. The Forces of Darkness. The flickering and slithering told her, but somehow, she knew that she would have recognized this creature for what it was even without those things. Perhaps she would think about that later, because the woman had already stood and was stalking toward her.
Lenora was a girl of action. She had learned to venture forth boldly and rely on her wits and valor. But somehow, she could not move. Her feet felt bolted to the floor. Sweat broke out all over her and she began to shake. In the most dangerous moments, Lenora had always kept her head. But now she was simply terrified. She felt, rising within her, a scream.
The woman came close and leaned over, studying Lenora’s eyes. “Who are you?” she asked in a voice that sent more waves of terror through Lenora. Run! her mind begged. But she could not.
“I—I’m a librarian,” Lenora squeaked, humiliated at the sound of her own voice.
“How nice,” the woman said. Something wriggled beneath her coat. “But I have not seen you before. Perhaps you do not know that librarians are not so welcome here these days. You may choose to quit, be fired, or cooperate. If you do none of those things, we will, of course, eat you. Choose. Now.”
Lenora had heard such a threat before. I say we eat her now and get it over with, a monster like this woman had once said about Lenora. She closed her eyes, remembering that moment, and what Malachi had told her afterward: Knowledge Is a Light, Lenora. Everything Malachi had said at the time was forever etched in Lenora’s mind, as though chiseled in stone: Throughout history, that light has at times burned very dimly, and nearly even gone out, while in other times it has blazed up gloriously.
As she remembered those words, she was surprised to hear a sudden hiss. She opened her eyes, and was shocked to see the woman flinching back, away from Lenora. For the briefest moment, she looked down at her hands. Was she glowing, as she had glowed once before? There seemed to be something, barely visible under the harsh light … but there was no time to think about it. All her fear had vanished, and she could move again. But already the woman in the raincoat was recovering.
Lenora wasted no time in breaking into a full run. In her career the Forces had made any number of attempts to squish or eat or attack her with swords, and she wasn’t about to wait around to find out what this one, who was more terrifying than all the rest put together, would do.
Suddenly, she found herself at an intersection of eight hallways going in all directions, all of them seemingly endless and identical to the one Lenora had come down. She whirled to see if the woman in the red raincoat was chasing her, but no one was there.
Then a door burst open a few yards down another corridor, and a man rushed out, his arms full of books. He looked in both directions, then ran toward the intersection. He seemed quite out of breath, with a flushed face and drips of sweat running down his temples. And he had a badge that Lenora could make out as he came closer:
PAOLO
ASSISTANT TO THE ASSISTANT ANSWERER
Lenora knew that this was a real librarian. She could tell with a glance, though she still didn’t know how. Perhaps it came with her promotion. At any rate, she quickly surmised that if Paolo was the Assistant to the Assistant Answerer, then he could tell her where the Assistant Answerer was, and that person could tell her where the Chief Answerer, Malachi, was. And so even though Paolo was about to run right past her, she put out a hand and cried “Wait!”
Paolo stopped instantly, nearly dropping all his books, which were really too many for one person to try to carry at a run.
Lenora could tell he was in a hurry (who couldn’t?), so she spoke quickly. “Where is the Assistant Answerer?”
The man’s eyes widened in alarm. He looked up at the ceiling, then in all eight directions, before looking back at Lenora and, awkwardly, putting one finger to his lips. Lenora caught two of his books as they fell.
Paolo pointed down one of the hallways, then reached for the books. Lenora handed them back silently. She wanted to offer to help him with whatever was wrong, but he had indicated silence, and so she said nothing. Once he had the books, he took off running in another direction.
Lenora went down the hallway she’d been pointed toward. She walked past one door after another, until she reached one with a placard that read ASSISTANT ANSWERER. The door was closed. She raised one hand to knock, but before she could, a voice spoke from behind the door.
“Come in, Lenora.”
The voice was Malachi’s.