But my destination was clear.
My future waited in a small library on the east coast of America.
2
ARTEMIS
I washed my hands and dried them thoroughly before I keyed into the rare books like I was entering a place of worship.
The temperature dropped five degrees the moment the door sealed behind me. My nervous system unclenched like it had been waiting all day for permission.
I preferred this room, because the air here was lighter and the humidity controlled. The light was diffused in just the right way, and there was minimal noise. In this room, no one expected me to make eye contact or small talk. No one expected me to soften my voice or make myself smaller.
They expected competence.
And competence, I could fucking provide.
Tonight’s task rested on the padded table under museum-grade lighting: an early ritual manuscript. It was of Greek origin and had marginal notes in two different hands.Binding fatigued along the spine. Ink thinning at the corners, like it had been exhaling for centuries.
This manuscript had survived war, migration, translation errors, and at least one incompetent idiot with a fountain pen.
I respected perseverance.
I leaned in, adjusting the cradle supports. The stitching told a story before the text did. Tension at the headband. Uneven pressure along the hinge. Someone careless had opened this aggressively.
“Of course you did,” I murmured to the long-dead scholar who’d added half the margin notes in cramped, self-righteous handwriting. “You’re arguing with the text instead of listening to it, you pedantic little dickweed.”
I scanned a line. Paused.
“Oh, absolutely the fuck not.”
The margin translation was wrong. Legible, but confidently incorrect.
I shifted closer, reading under my breath. The cadence settled into me like muscle memory. I didn’t even realize I’d switched languages until I answered him back in Greek.
“You’re forcing the accusative,” I said quietly. “It’s locative. The emphasis is spatial, not moral, you sanctimonious walnut.”
I read the line again, slower this time, savoring the correction.
Centuries dead and still wrong.
“Also, your handwritingis abhorrent."
God, I loved this.
Outside, thunder rolled over the Hudson. The sound vibrated faintly through the old building. In here, it felt distant and irrelevant.
Except my body didn’t get the memo.
The lights flickered once. My shoulders jumped before I could stop them. My pulse kicked up hard and fast, like I had been caught doing something wrong instead of reinforcing a manuscript older than most governments. The hum of the climate control sharpened. The seam in the parchment blurred for half a second as my focus tried to scatter in six directions at once.
Too loud. Too bright.
I adjusted the page weight and continued, deliberately slower. The ritual of it helped. Hand to linen. Linen to edge. Edge to margin. Order. Sequence. Most of all, control.
A familiar line rose in my head before I could stop it, and I spoke it out loud. “So I spoke, and the heart within me grew steady.”
The words settled into the room like an extra brace under a weak beam. Saying it felt like pressing a palm to my sternum. My hands stopped trembling, and my breathing evened out.The Odysseynever failed me.
