Page 12 of Enchantment of Silver and Sea
I opened the packet and skimmed over the first page.Enforcerswho had ventured Outside on reconnaissance had encountered what they described as a “wind” or “breeze.” They had thought nothing of it at first. But, in what they estimated was about thirty seconds after the encounter, one of the men had gone mad. Screaming, clawing at his face, lunging at the others…I felt increasingly sick to my stomach as my eyes traveled down the page.
“Not too much for you, I hope?”
When I looked up, Cato was studying me carefully. “Not at all,” I assured him. “Gruesome, but…hey, I asked for something more intriguing, right?”
In the silence that followed, Cato crossed his arms and regarded me with a furrowed brow. “Maila,” he said after a moment. In my ten years working in the Library, I had rarely heard such a serious tone from him. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, of course,” I said quickly. “Why do you ask?”
“You just seem off today. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see you enthusiastic about your work.” When I gave him a puzzled look, he clarified, “You always do a great job. You know this Library like the back of your hand. But you tend to keep your head down and do what you’re asked. You’ve handled plenty of projects that had meat to them, but only when I assigned them to you. You’ve never taken the initiative to ask for one.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. Whatwasup with me lately? And not in the sense that Cato was referring to, but in the fact that everyone kept questioning me about my feelings. Was I suddenly wearing every emotion on my face?
“I’m not sure,” I finally replied. When the crease in his brow deepened, I added, “I’d like to keep learning as much as I can and make myself as valuable to The Council as possible. Maybe hold a position like yours one day.”
Once again, I wove some truth into the lie. There wasn’t much left that I hoped for in life, but I figured if I still had many years ahead of me and time to fill, becoming the Mentor of the Knowledge Center after Cato was an admirable goal.
He shut the drawer and relocked it, then moved around the desk to make for the door. I turned to follow and almost ran into him as he spun to face me.
“If you ever need someone to talk to, about anything, I’m here. You know that, don’t you?”
The sincerity in his voice made my chest tighten. “I do. Thank you, Cato.”
He grinned. His teeth were perfectly straight and so white that they almost glowed. He pulled his keyring out of his pocket, slidthe key to the basement off of it, and tossed it to me. I almost dropped the packet I was holding to catch it.
“Good! Now get to work.”
You would think that the section of the Library that contained our most crucial—and often most frightening—findings on magic would have an air of importance about it. Something that signified its potential to cause mass hysteria in Cyllene if the specifics of what existed just outside the walls was ever released to everyday citizens.
The books on marsh wolves on the sixth floor? Those struck fear in citizens, which reinforced that they should never disobey the law regarding leaving the walls. But they also satisfied some of their curiosity about what lies Outside.
Books on an evil wind that makes you go insane before you even know what’s happened? According to The Council, that was the terrifying shit that everyday people didn’t need to know.
But considering the gravity of its contents, the basement level was nothing special to look at. Through an unassuming beige door, down a flight of concrete stairs, at the end of an equally bland concrete hallway, was the entrance.
Which, unsurprisingly, was another unassuming beige door.
When I stepped inside, the familiar musty smell filled my nostrils. It was the scent of an obscene amount of paper crammed into a room with limited air flow. And mixed in with that, the damp, earthy scent of mold.
Even without the lantern in my hand, I could have followed the path to the other lanterns, placed strategically around the room, by memory. I clicked on each one and watched as the room began to fill with light.
Much like Cato’s office, the basement was encased in wall-to-wall books, except with no window to break it up. The door had the appearance of being crammed in the middle of it all. In the center of the room were four sets of wooden tables and chairs, arranged in a square. On top of each table was a lantern and scrap paper for scribbling notes.
Despite the smell, it was an effective room for perfectly quiet, focused research. Nothing contained in it was archival quality, but we made do with what we had. Those with the expertise to design something on that level for us, with conditions perfect for long-term preservation, had likely all perished since The Awakening. A perfect example, as Cato would say, of why our task to preserve any and all Pre-Awakening knowledge was so crucial.
On the table to the left, in the row closest to the door, sat a massive black binder. So heavy that in a crisis, you could probably use it as a weapon. Inside was an ever-growing index that Cato had created. It acted as a guide to the many shelves, which contained notes, compilations, guides, and drawings. Most of which were compiled in notebooks or stapled together by hand.
A couple books of actual published content could be found in the mix, but they were few and far between. Those had been released by a few fast-acting universities and research groups when The Awakening first hit. Studies that contained initial observations about the strange creatures and phenomena—everyone hadresorted to simply calling them “magic” at that point, having no other rational way to explain them—that suddenly appeared in the world seventy years ago.
Magic-wielding beings, seemingly magical occurrences, and magic-ripe locations…despite how drastically the world had changed since The Awakening began, and the countless limitations that cities like Cyllene had to navigate, we had managed to expand on many of those initial observations over the years. Mainly thanks to the Enforcers, since they were the only citizens whose work assignments required them to venture beyond the walls.
And thus—the collection of spiral-bound notebooks and hand-assembled guides.
I sat down and began flipping through Cato’s giant index, looking for terms that seemed relevant to the project in my hand. Terms like “wind.” When I couldn’t find “madness” in the index, I ran through a mental list of synonyms.
I checked again, and was pleased to find an entry for “psychosis.”
Once I had a list of ten or so items that referenced those terms, I began scanning the shelves and gathering the corresponding books. Then I plopped back down in the chair, flipped my braid over my shoulder, and got to work.
