I return to the books, sorting through the numerous volumes. I’ve read nothing I didn’t already know or couldn’t have figured out with a notepad and pencil. I throw out all the ones I’ve read before, which is a large majority of the ones worth perusing. With each regurgitated passage and every attempt at scholarly insight, I feel bubbling heat rising in me. The lie I’ve been telling myself grows more thin by the minute. Here, I tell myself, I can begin doing something useful. Here, I will find a passion to distract the terrible beast raging within.
But what do I find? Words, words, words–saying nothing. Little in Jalseion’s library concerning magic could have caught me by surprise. Why did I hope to find some thread of untapped research in this uncouth city?
“Calea?”
“What?” I growl. Nyasha looks around. I don’t care who hears me. “Why are you still here?”
“Bron left me to–” She catches herself too late. She is distracted by something to let it slip so obviously.
“Did you find something?”
“Nothing helpful. There’s plenty I don’t understand.”
“Of course.” I wait. She has said nothing, and I will not tolerate being interrupted again.
“I just wanted to say, I know what you’re going through.”
I turn away, launching myself back to the book. I grit my teeth against incredible emotion. I couldn’t care less about her sympathy, but she rubs the wound with her careless words; and the wound is raw.
And yet, she continues: “When Bron found me, I had lost everything.”
“Yes, your parents are dead. We’ve been over this.”
“It doesn’t go away,” she says tightly. “No home, no family, no purpose. I get it. I do. Why do you think I forced myself into your and Bron’s company?”
“At least you’re honest about it now.”
Nyasha clambers over piles of books, trying to get in front of me, to make me see her. “Listen to me,” the bottled anger in her voice delights me. It meets the stronger, deeper hatred in my own soul and resonates. “Sometimes you’re a horrible person. But I don’t care. I don’t. Because I understand–I think I do. And when I had nothing, nothing, I had Bron. And I had you. And it’s enough. It really is. I want you to know that. It’s enough.”
I look her in the eye for a long moment. Her dark face is defiant. Honest. Very well.
“It is for you.”
I return to my book, scanning the pages with a swiftness born of years of practice.
* * *
Abruptly, I stand and make my way upstairs. Nyasha calls after weakly, still afraid of the rustling in the rooms around us.
“Where are you going?” she demands.
Why does she think I’ll answer?
Outwardly, I am coldly calm. Inwardly–I do not want to recognize my growing impotence, and so I ignore it. It will burst out soon. I will explode in an incredible display of heat and force, like a dying star.
That is where my mind is, in the astronomical realms, where my study has rarely brought me. For magic to leave the world, that is disaster on an unparalleled scale, a scale of planets and solar systems. I am grasping, but I desire as much to find some distraction as answers, and I will find neither in my area of expertise.
I pass right outside the room where men work. They are intent upon their labors and see nothing. Nyasha tries to take my hand to tug me faster. The touch ignites me and I react. She lands on the ground and I keep going. She has enough mind to muffle her pain so close to the workers.
I climb a second set of stairs, finding by instinct and the occasional dust-encrusted sign the section I desire. Here, the evening sky is visible through the broken ceiling. Bron will return soon. Another reason, I admit, for changing locations.
Nyasha is at my side again. Stubborn girl. “I was trying to help.”
“If I need help, I’ll ask for it.”
“No you won’t.”
“Fine. I won’t.”
We’re here. The entry to the room is half-collapsed and within I can see the floor paved with a disaster of bindings and pages.
“It’s not safe,” Nyasha says, standing in front of me. “Look.”
The wall is miraculously balanced; but it has remained in position over the last weeks. “It’ll hold.”
“Maybe. Let Bron look at it first.”
“I don’t need Bron to–”
“Stop it. You’re not even thinking.”
That’s the point, girl. “I’m going in.”
“And if it collapses?”
“You’ll be free of me.” I smile. It is a twisted, painful thing. “Move.”
She hesitates. She doesn’t care about me, but she cares what Bron will think if something happens to me. So, what will she do? Let me in? Fight me? I want her to resist. I wait for it.
A boom shudders through the building. Then, another. One after another, the explosions sound, nearby, maybe just outside. The sound hits us with the force of wind. The Library shifts imperceptibly. The walls creak. I see the reaction on Nyasha’s face as my mind works to understand. She is wide-eyed, open-mouthed.
“Move!” she says.
I try to turn, but I am unsteady. She grabs my arm, balances me, pushes me from behind. My legs start to respond, and though I am running, I do not understand why. My mind is designed for problems, not instant reaction. Another sound, closer. Nyasha shoves me. I land on my face, crack my head against the floor. For a moment, I see black.
I find my feet, shouting from the sudden pain in my skull. “You impertinent girl! What do you expect I can do on this makeshift leg you–”
She is not behind me. There is a pile of rubble higher than my head stretching across the hallway.
I stare. The thought–the black, terrible thought–waits for me. She’s dead.
No–there is a sound, a moan of pain beneath the steel and marble. How can she be alive? She is calling my name. “Calea!”
“I’m here,” I say, but softly. I don’t know if she hears me. I don’t repeat myself. I listen, trying to open my ears, waiting with dread at what comes next.
“I’m pinned,” she calls, muffled. “Calea, I’m pinned. Get me out. Please, get me out.” More than the words I hear the panic and tears she’s holding back. “I can’t move. Get me out of here. Hurry.”
I don’t move. I’m almost incapable of acting. The words come to me and sink into my soul. They ache, and I nurse the ache, the pain, with a terrifying fascination.
“Help me.” She’s screaming now, crying. “Please, help me.”
Suddenly, I am in motion again. I lunge at the broken marble, moving it awkwardly, only able to use one hand. It’s all I have. I scrabble against the smaller stuff, picking it out with my long fingers, scratching, cutting my tips. I get leverage and manage to dislodge a larger piece. The whole mound shifts. I stop, waiting.
“Nyasha?”
“It’s fine. I’m fine. A beam or a shelf or something is protecting me.” She is calmer now, but I still hear the rush of adrenaline in her voice. And the edge of pain beat down. “Just hurry.”
I struggle to remove the larger pieces. I cannot grip them, and when I can, I haven’t the strength or leverage I need. I have one arm, one leg, and two useless rods of metal. I pound against the chunks of masonry, screaming in frustration. “Move!”
I dig my fingers in, wrench with all my strength. I lean against the pile, steady myself, and heave at the rock. A few flecks spray into the air. Pebbles shift out of the way.
Nyasha is silent.
I can’t do it. I can’t. The most vital, immediate act a person can perform–to save a life–and I am impotent.
“Bron’s coming,” I hear Nyasha say. I don’t know if she means it for me or for herself. “He’ll help.”
Yes, Bron will help. In this world, strength is power. In this world, he is savior.
Slowly, so slowly, I turn away. I walk away. I walk like a ghost down the hallway, down the stairs. I think I hear Nyasha’s voice. I don’t know what she is saying. It doesn’t matter.
Not to me. Not anymore.
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