Page 20 of Legends and Librarians
“You...you..,” Roan’s words were sluggish, “demon!”
I winced. Not his best insult, but it would have to do. Cerbie snuggled under the covers with me, heads resting on my lap. He was so adorable I couldn’t help petting him, but I really didn’t like the feel of all these eyes on me. Had the story spirits been watching us sleep?
One of the knights bowed to me. “Good morning, Lady Nyssa.”
“Good morning,” I said slowly. “Mind telling me what you’re all doing here?”
The demon pushed off the wall. “I’m here to see what you’re capable of, librarian. And they’re here to escort you or something gallant like that.”
He waved at the knights, who were bowing with a bit of a wobble because of the soft bed.
“Leave her alone,” Roan said, shaking off the last of the sleep spell. “And don’t use magic on me again.”
Cerbie whined, heads looking between me and the demon.
“It’s okay, Cerbie,” I said, glaring at the frustrating demon. “We’re all good, right? But if you’re going to wake us up, you should at least tell us your name.”
“Demon Lord is fine.” His eyes hardened like I’d hit a nerve, so I wasn’t going to ask about that Lord part. He sighed, petting Cerbie abruptly before turning to leave. “Follow me. You’ve got work to do.”
Right, of course! I was supposed to be pulling all the patching down from the windows and roof to prepare for the contractors. They’d fit me in on short notice for a good cause, but I had to do as much as I could before they got here in a few days. They said they’d send over temporary sealant too.
“You’re such a good boy,” I said, petting Cerbie one last time before getting out of bed, trying not to jostle the knights. “Even the Demon Lord can’t resist him.”
Saying that felt so weird, like we were talking about a King. What story had he come out of? And were there more demons around?
“I’m sure he could resist if he wanted to.” Roan stared after the Demon Lord, not moving to follow him. “I shouldn’t have let them get past me. I’m sorry.”
So much chaos and I’d only been awake a few minutes. I stretched my hands up toward the ceiling, then patted him on the shoulder. “It’s fine. They were probably just curious about us. I’m sure they didn’t mean any harm.”
He frowned, scratching the back of his head. “I don’t know about that. Why’d the demon spell me then?”
“They did say they’d had troubles with adventurers before,” I said. “So maybe that has something to do with it?”
Recognition flickered in Roan’s eyes and his lips parted slightly, like he’d just put something together. “That makes sense. I’ll do better from now on.”
Apparently, he wasn’t going to share whatever he’d learned with me. It probably had to do with the rumors about this being a haunted library, but I knew those were false, so I let it go for the moment.
“Let me just get cleaned up quick and then we’ll head downstairs,” I said.
“Remember not to wash your clothes.”
I clamped my lips together, resisting the urge to laugh at the image of him stuck in the bath covered in giant bubbles. That had been unexpectedly fun. “I’ve got extra outfits in the cart downstairs.”
“I’ll go grab them.” Roan shooed the knights and Cerbie out the door ahead of him. “Be right back.”
I hurried to get ready, gratefully accepting my bags when Roan came back, and then headed downstairs to start working. We had so much to get done, and I wanted to start off strong.
The library was already bursting with liveliness as the story spirits chatted and wandered around. Roan’s back tensed, as if he was getting ready to go into battle. Ever since we woke up, he’d been on guard, like he didn’t want to get caught unaware again. His dedication was admirable and it did make me feel safer, just in case something strange happened.
“Let’s start with the windows,” I said.
Wooden planks covered the damaged windows from the inside, but they weren’t nailed on like I expected. I wedged my finger between them and the window, tugging to see if they’d come off easily, but the wood just creaked. It was like they’d grown out of the library’s wall and looped over the window.
Libraries often repaired themselves, but not like this. This patch was sloppy, thrown on top of the library instead of blending in. Something else did this, probably because the library was too low on magic to heal, but figuring that out wasn’t really important right now. We just needed to fix it and move on to the next item on the list.
“We’re going to have to saw these off,” I said. “Without damaging the walls too much, hopefully.”
Roan nodded, sawing away at the planks while I held them steady. In no time at all, he had all the wood off the window and the sun was shining through brilliantly. I knocked out the broken panes of glass as well, making sure they landed safely outside to collect later, and put up a temporary seal on the window.
