I made straight for the portion of the endless bookshelf that had the manuscripts on the gods. My finger ran down the spine of my chosen book, sliding it off of the shelf. I studied the cover as I had many times before. There must have been an answer to explicitly explain why Blythe chose me. Out of everyone in our world, why did I have the characteristics she wanted fulfilled to grant her gift? I must be missing something.
“What are you doing here so late?”
I jumped, dropping the book from my hands at the sound of Sebastian's voice behind me.
I turned to face him, adrenaline coursing through me. “On the gods, you just scared the life out of me.”
He bent down to pick up my book then passed it back to me. “Sorry.”
When I got a good look at him, my head cocked to the side and my body tensed. He wore a pair of brown, square-framed glasses that somehow made him look even hotter. “You wear glasses?”
“Shit, uh yeah.” He reached up to take them off, but I caught his wrist, guiding his hand back down.
“I didn't know you had glasses.” I smirked, releasing my grip and accepting my book from his outstretched hand.
“Just for reading. Even then, I usually only wear them if I'm going to be studying for a while.”
“Is that whyyou'rehere so late? Studying?”
The corner of his lip tugged up. “Not particularly. Just reading.” He turned, walking back to where he had been sitting, and I followed him.
His reading material laid open on the chair. The book was small, and the pages looked handwritten.
“More obscene literature?” I teased, thinking back to the romance novel I caught him reading when we first met.
His cheeks flushed as if I embarrassed him, but he smiled. “Once again, it’s not obscene,” he argued.
I peered over, trying to get a better look, but he grabbed the book and hurriedly shoved it away into his rucksack, taking a new book out to replace it.
“Now why are you here?” he asked while lowering himself into his chair. “Without a guard, I should add.”
“I couldn't sleep.” I shrugged, choosing not to tell him about my dream. Or my vision? Hallucination? Whatever it was, I refrained in the fear of sounding crazy.
He glared at me through the tops of his glasses. “Why not?”
I took a deep breath in, releasing it and then sealing my lips tightly shut. I didn’t want to relive that nightmare again.
“Got it. I won’t keep asking.”
I gave him a half grin and sat in the chair next to him, turning my attention to the reason I was really here. The pages of my book skimmed my fingertips as I looked for something to solve the mystery that'd been consuming so much space in my brain.
Sebastian and I sat in silence while we read, simply enjoying each other's presence. About an hour in, I became too frustrated to continue and slammed my book shut with a groan of annoyance.
Sebastian looked up from his novel. “What’s wrong?”
“This book is useless. I’ve read it time and time again, and there’s no indication on what the sacrifice is,” I complained.
“Maybe it’s not meant to be solved until it comes true.”
“Maybe…”
He stared at me, knowing that I was not done.
“How is it that no one seems to know about the prophecy?”
“This archive in particular holds centuries worth of manuscripts, many of which just get lost in time. Forgotten about. There’s also never really been a reason to study Blythe until you.”
“I’m going to go see if there’s anything else in that section that might be useful before I leave,” I said as I climbed from my chair.
