From her huddled position on the ground, Alex raised her eyebrows. “And that rule is?”
“Never question my training methods,” he told her. “Everything I do is for a reason, whether you comprehend that reason or not. I will suffer no demands for explanations. You either follow my instructions without comment, or we’re finished.”
Well. That was about as black and white as he could make it. No room for ambiguity there.
“So,” Alex said, “what you’re saying is, it’s your way or the highway?”
Predictably, he didn’t respond. Until he did.
“That, Alexandra, sounds very much like you questioning me.”
Crap.
“I—”
“But since we have not officially begun your training, I’ll allow you a grace period—for today only.”
Alex swallowed. “Uh. Thanks. And, um, sorry. Habit, and all that.”
“A habit that you’ll want to break swiftly if you plan on spending any time with me.”
Nodding, she muttered, “Duly noted.”
The man stood. “You’ve had enough for now.”
With his words, the armchair disappeared, as did the fireplace and the rug, along with the nothingness of the rest of the space around them. Instead, Alex found herself still curled in a ball but now sitting on the rocky ground in a familiar underground cavern divided by a narrow river—the place where she’d first discovered she could step back through to Freya.
“Your curfew is ten pm,” the man said. “You will therefore meet me here every evening promptly at nine. How long we train each night will depend on how quickly you complete the tasks I set you, but the Library will ensure that, while you are with me, time will not pass for the rest of the world.”
Alex opened her mouth to point out a problem, but he beat her to it.
“On Tuesdays and Thursdays when you have your Stealth and Subterfuge class until nine-thirty, you will come here directly from there. Tardiness on any other day will be considered unacceptable.”
This guy was something else.
“Do we have an agreement?”
Like I have much of a choice, Alex thought. Either she put up with a grumpy, monotonous taskmaster, or she didn’t. But since the latter would doom the entire world, her answer required little consideration.
“Yes, we have an agreement,” Alex said, uncurling from her ball and rising to her feet. “Do you have a name? Or should I just keep calling you Mr. Mystery Man?”
“If you do turn up for your first lesson tomorrow night, I shall give you a name. In the meantime, I suggest you get some rest—and some medical attention. You must be prepared to work tomorrow, and work hard.”
With those sombre words of warning, he disappeared, leaving Alex alone in the cavern with a thousand questions and the knowledge that, thanks to his rules, she couldn’t ask any of them.
Nine
When Alex finally hobbled her way out of the Library, it was well past dinnertime and fast approaching curfew. This, however, was not a result of her nearly eleven-hour trek across the lake, since time had indeed paused while she’d laboured through her tasks. Instead it was because, after returning to the foyer of the Library with the intention of heading straight to Fletcher, hunting down some food and sleeping for the next twelve hours, Alex’s plans were derailed—all thanks to the prickly librarian.
The moment his owlish eyes had spotted her through his comically thick glasses, he’d wagged a finger until she’d limped her weary, injured body to his desk.
Barely peering up from the mess of papers in front of him, the librarian had made the obnoxious assumption that she’d had nothing better to do, and he’d insisted she help him clean the frames of the paintings that hung on the walls.
Glancing apprehensively around the sizable foyer, Alex had known the task would be much more involved than it seemed, since the entire history of Medora was revealed through the paintings. As such, they were constantly self-updating, appearing and disappearing through the walls as they were swapped out and shuffled around by some invisible Library power. It could take years for them all to be cleaned—if not longer.
Stammering out an excuse hadn’t helped Alex, not even when she’d pointed to her blood-soaked jeans and said she needed to visit the Medical Ward. The librarian had simply flicked his goggling eyes to her bandaged leg for the briefest of seconds before turning back to his papers and saying, “It’s still attached. I’ll consider allowing you to leave if that changes.”
Gaping at him, Alex had squeaked out, “Are you… Is that a joke?”
His only response had been to sniff and turn his nose up while answering, “Dismemberment is no laughing matter. Really, Alexandra. Your sense of humour is sickening.”
Alex hadn’t had any spare energy left to argue with him. She’d been cognisant enough to recognise he was lashing out irrationally, pinning his frustrations about the Meyarin situation and all it might lead to on her. So instead of fighting back, she’d taken the cleaning supplies he’d shoved towards her and dragged her failing body to the nearest wall.
Her only break had come when the librarian had left his desk to assist a younger student who couldn’t remember the name of the book she was after. In the scant minutes he was gone, Alex had remembered to pull out her ComTCD—belatedly grateful that it was waterproof—and called Jordan. All she’d been able to offer was a quick assurance that she was back safe but stuck in the clutches of the unrelenting librarian—to which he’d been sympathetic but also amused—and promised she’d catch up with him and the others later.
Later ended up being much, much later than anticipated. But finally the librarian was now satisfied with her cleaning enough to release her, saying that if she was ever bored again, there was always plenty of work he could find for her.
Dead on her feet, Alex had neither the mental nor physical strength to respond. Instead, she stumbled out into the night, gritting her teeth through the pain she’d endured for the last seemingly endless hours.
Just when she thought her unnaturally lengthened day couldn’t get any worse, she finally staggered into the Med Ward—only to find it empty.
“Seriously?” Alex groaned as she looked around.
Having no idea where Fletcher was or when he would return, Alex decided that if she wasn’t going to receive pain relief anytime soon, then she needed to at least be in the comfort of her own bed. So she called upon the last reserves of her Meyarin blood—since she was way past the limits of her mortal body—and hobbled back out of the Gen-Sec building, painstakingly making her way to her dorm.
By the time she arrived in her darkened room, D.C. was already fast asleep. Not wanting to wake her, Alex didn’t turn the light on, she just blindly stumbled her way forward.
With her eyes still adjusting to the darkness, Alex let out a startled yelp when she collapsed onto her bed only to discover it wasn’t cushiony like it should have been.