I pick up both the books… Oh, smut. I didn’t realize we—I just recognized two smut novels by their titles alone.
I’m fucked.
Anyway, I do manage toeventuallystop gawking and bring the books with me into the back. Which is locked. And I don’t actually enter. And I knock at the door until she comes and helps me out from the situation.
“You’re still here?” The same aged woman appears from the door, her eyes set on my books. “That’ll help with figuring out your patron.”
“Wha—No! I’m returning them! I’m not…” My cheeks disobediently turn a warm red.
Oh, Great Ring. She’s going to set me up with a Ringborn.Sexually,to gain their patronization. I didn’t even think about that part of the employment. I haven’t really began to think I would actually do magic, especially with how tenuously she even let’s me exist here.
“Don’t flare up, yet. The embarrassing questions won’t start for a week.” She shuts the hallway door and takes over the front desk. “Come here.”
A little unspoken compliance.
She throws out two keys from her pocket. “For the backroom and the hallway, given that you’re apparently staying.”
“Was I not, before?”
Sheignores me. “Checking in is easy. Open it up, record the date returned, and sign it.”
I guess it feels easy.
“Now, we have a paper log for each book in order.” She pulls out a file cabinet full of papers. “Organized the exact same as the shelves. Fill those out too.”
I swear that I used to have muscle tone. It was just in me. And clearly, I’m working something as I search through a thousand papers, but they still feel like a wet noodley pasta. Such as noodles, I guess. They’re not really, like, fragile. Just sedated from the stress.
It’s starting to dawn on me.
Every day for the rest of my employment.
This is not an exceptional moment. My reaction, maybe, but not the action. I’ll repeat this a thousand times if things go my way. And I guess that’s fine. I’ll find my way into liking it.
I survived eighteen years living in the Silkflats, and things were never this easy there.
“Okay, good. Sit down and take a moment to breathe.”
I already was, quite loudly. But sitting down isn’t going to make it worse.
“Really, please, just… You’re very overwhelming with how you express your stress.”
“I am? Sorry. I meant—“
“Shut it,” she grinds. “It’s…tiring,and not the best for you either. Just sit.”
“I’m sorry.” I straighten up and stay still.
Just some forty minutes now, and I’ll have some food. A couple slices of waffles and I’ll be up for the day! Enjoyable. Human.
The passing of time feels… hollow, here. It is a parlour for necromancers, so I guess it makes sense, but eternity feels almost grabbable—just eternity, not change. Change is slower than all of infinite time can give.
“Did the spiderweb grow?” I ask with a mild terror.
That gaze like I’m an idiot…
The door’s opened to a mess of teenage giggling.
“Sad place,” Lucia waxes with a crescent smile and glimmering, golden eyes. Her dress is laced with jewelry as dough is laced with flour. A disco effect of waving reflections follows on the floor wherever she moves.
