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“Are you okay?”
I just nod, bury my face in his shoulder, and try to fight back the tears.
“She’s dead,” I hear a voice say, and I look up. A man is crouching beside Max, checking for a pulse.
“Is the creature still here?” Mr. Collins asks me and Kate. “Miss Alvarez told us you were attacked by a snake-like key spirit. It must have belonged to a Noctu. Did you see them?”
I shake my head, and Mr. Collins just nods.
He turns to the hunters. “Search everywhere. I want every available hunter on this. We need to track down that Noctu and find out how they managed to get in here. After the security upgrades, I don’t see how this could have happened.” He issues a few more instructions and then comes to me. “Do you need help? Are you or Miss Williams injured?”
I shake my head.
“You’re sure?”
“I’ll take care of them,” Ayden promises. “You focus on organizing the hunters.”
His father nods and looks at me and Kate again. “Do you want to go to the infirmary and get checked out?”
“No need,” I reply, forcing back the tears.
“Okay, then why don’t go with your friend to her room. Take some time. You’re both excused from classes for the rest of the day – and the next few days if you’d like. A pastoral counselor will be made available to you.” His expression is earnest, and there’s no sign of any resentment he still harbors for me. “I’ll inform the Fabricis. Stay here for now. You can return home later this evening.” He nods to his son and then turns to one of the men. “Please take the girl away. And you, Miss Alvarez,” he says, full of sympathy for Lucia, who’s still crying and shaking all over, “come with me. I’ll take you to the infirmary.”
We watch them until they disappear, then Ayden puts his arm around my waist and looks at Kate.
“Come on, let’s go.”
I’m glad he doesn’t ask any questions. I wouldn’t know how to answer them right now. Did all that really just happen? Out of the corner of my eye I glance at Kate, who’s walking beside us with very upright posture. She doesn’t look at me or Ayden. And she pays no attention to her surroundings. Her features look relaxed – neither thoughtful nor concerned. Like a vacant mask. An outsider might assume she was in shock, but I don’t think so.
Kate unlocks her door, goes inside, and sits on the bed.
“Do you want to talk to a counselor?” Ayden asks.
He tries to catch Kate’s attention, and she looks at him with big eyes and says, “I’ll be alright.” Gray rests his head in her lap, and she pets him absent-mindedly.
Ayden raises his eyebrows doubtfully and looks at me. He whispers, “Is she okay?”
I don’t know what to say. I look at my friend. Is she still my friend? Is there anything of my Kate still in there? Or is there nothing left but this omniscient library devoid of emotions or empathy for the people around her?
“It’s still her body, her blood, her bones, her memories,” she says, as if she’s reading my thoughts. “Only they’ve lost their significance, and her soul is gone.”
I swallow hard, and the tears well up in my eyes. “What do you mean, only? Isn’t that everything that makes a person who they are?
Kate shrugs. “Some decisions are difficult and yet so momentous that they have to be made. Kate knew what she was doing. She saw what I saw. It was right. The process couldn’t be stopped. You had already found too many pieces of the past, and there was knowledge in each of them. As each time you found a piece of the puzzle and decoded it, that knowledge was transferred to Kate. But it also cost her a piece of her past each time. That’s what happens to the person who accepts this role.”
The horrifying realization hits me so suddenly that I flinch. It’s all my fault! I set this in motion. The process was started by me finding the objects. And the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It was after I found the comb and solved its puzzle that Kate began to experience memory lapses.
“All the objects you found once belonged to a person who embodied the library for a time. Knowledge was contained within them. And the final object belonged to the library-to-be.”
I think of Kate’s mom and the letter, the flute, the comb. And finally, the music box. Why did I begin this search? Why did I let Patricia use me like that? I knew that the goddesses only ever had sinister intentions. And this proves it again. I set something terrible in motion.
“Are you going to explain to me what you guys are talking about?” Ayden asks.
I turn to him, but I have no clue how I’m supposed to explain it all to him. My mouth feels dry, as if the words have frozen in it. I can’t. If I say it out loud, it becomes reality. I’m not ready to face the fact that I’ve lost my best friend forever.
“I’m the library of the goddesses,” Kate says without any trace of emotion. “Teresa was destined to follow the signs and make sure I gradually came into my power so that I could finally take the last step myself.”
Stunned, Ayden looks first at Kate, then at me. I can read the mute question in his eyes: is it true?
