25

“Sweet Magnus…” I murmur while I behold the sight in front of me.

The library is easily the largest room I’ve seen at Alcove so far, which says a lot if you’ve seen the magically changing dining hall. And to stress how vast and big it is, Acolytes have to take enchanted staircases to access different levels, as taking normal stairs would probably take all day to climb.

I rotate slowly, gaping at the walls of shelves towering to the ceiling, stretching further than the eye can see. It’s impossible to count how many levels there are to this place, but each one is marked by multi-coloured soundproof barriers that indicate what books you’ll find there. Red for fire magic, blue for water, green for earth, grey for air, gold for healing, and so forth.

The upside of the library’s size is that the Acolytes are spread far and wide in their pursuit of knowledge and research. Meaning the chances of me crossing paths with someone is slim. The downside, however…is that I’m here to serve my undeserved detention. And if the punishment is stacking shelves, then I’m screwed.

“You the new student?”

I turn to see an old woman approaching me. She walks crookedly, wears a pair of oval spectacles, and smell harshly of lavender and book dust. Definitely the librarian.

“Yeah,” I reply. “I’m Sylvi—”

“You’re late.” She sniffs and starts waddling down an aisle that leads to a door. “Hope ya had dinner, ‘cos ya gonna be here awhile.”

I follow her through the door into a room that resembles a storage closet – a massive one of that. The shelves here are rickety and wooden, covered with dust and draped with cobwebs. Boxes and crates clutter the space, and the books on the shelves are faded and old, smelling murky and ancient.

The librarian snaps her old fingers, and a few dim lights flicker on, drowning the room in eerie, yellow light. “We’re expecting new tomes to arrive this week, books on modern magic and stuff,” she explains as we move, and gestures at a shelf of books. “But we ain’t got no space in the library no more, so I’m gonna need ya to empty up some of these shelves so we can stack some old stuff on ‘em.”

My stomach drops when I crane my neck to see where the shelves end. Now I see what she meant by saying that I’m going to be here for a while. That’s a lot of books and a lot of stacking to do.

Swallowing dryly, I manage to ask, “What should I do with the books after emptying the shelves?”

“I dunno, read ‘em, eat ‘em, burn ‘em. As long as they’re gone by mornin’. There’s a reason they’re collectin’ dust in storage, girl. They’re old, outdated. And most of ‘em are student textbooks and stuff those cretins left in the library. They know the rule here – don’t leave it unless ya wanna keep it.”

Well, at least that makes disposing of them easier, seeing as I don’t have to move them to other shelves or stack them in boxes.

“Now get to work,” the woman orders and waddle back whence we came. “And lock up when you’re done, will ya? Don’t need no cretins snoopin’ where they shouldn’t.”

I wait until she’s gone before unleashing the behemoth breath I was holding the whole time, sighing miserably at the task at hand. Even Siri rears her head back when she peeks out of my blazer.

“Tell me about it,” I mutter and drop my bag at the door. “Guess I should get started if I want to catch any sleep tonight.”

Siri slithers up to my head when I remove my blazer, making herself comfortable on my hair. What a joy to be a snake, especially one with her benefits.

Rolling up my sleeves, I flick my wrist and summon the wheeled ladder towards me. I figure it’s best to start at the top and work my way to the bottom, seeing as most of the junk have been moved up over the years.

It takes no shortage of balance and concentration to reach the top shelf, and the ladder keeps wobbling whenever I add too much weight on my left foot. And to make matters worse, I get a nose full of dust the moment I inhale, resulting in a coughing fit that sends the spiders scattering for safety. Even a rat scampers out from behind the books, and Siri wastes no time going after it.

“Screw it,” I say to myself, remembering my abilities. No one said I wasn’t allowed to use magic to speed things up, although it does beat the point of serving detention. Oh well, what Kaz and the librarian don’t know, won’t kill them.

Waving my hand, I summon the entire section of books off their shelf and send them floating downward, revealing Siri gulping down the rat she just caught. Good for her. I do the same with the second and third top shelves, watching in satisfaction as the books magically find their way to the floor – I’ll figure out what to do with them later.

But just as I repeat the motion with a fourth shelf, I feel a tether between my magic and one of the books. In a beat, I freeze them midair, using another spell to summon them closer. Curious about the subtle pull, I work my way through the books until…

“What’s this?” I frown at the leather-bound tome in my hand. But upon closer inspection, I realize it’s a journal – a very old one it seems.

Twisting my body on the ladder, I perch atop one of the steps, fully intended to figure out why my magic reacted to this book. Its cover is worn and faded, all that keeps it in place is an enchanted lock. I’m on my way to rake my thoughts for an unlocking spell when, out of the blue, the lock clicks open when my fingers tapped against it.

I’m vaguely aware of Siri slithering up my arm to perch on my head once more as I open the journal…and pause. There, in faded ink and cursive letters, the owner’s name is scribbled on the yellowed paper.

*Alida Kemp.*

“Mom?” My throat thickens just by thinking about her. This journal was hers. How on earth did it end up here?

Siri flicks her tongue.

“Oh, of course.” I sniffle, recalling what the librarian said about Acolytes leaving their things in the library and how she keeps them. “Mom probably forgot it when she attended Alcove. I’m curious what she journalled about.”

Flipping the pages, I scan everything she wrote. Mostly things about her first few days at the Academy and how she, too, struggled to fit in. She mentioned meeting Dad and how it was love at first sight but how she worried how he’d react when he found out about her magic.

“Her magic?” My heart misses a beat. Did my mother…

No, she couldn’t. Gran would’ve told me if my mom was like me, an Anomaly. She always told me that wild magic skips generations, and I always thought my mother was normal.

I find the answer when I flip the page to the next entry.

‘*Charles knows. He caught me wielding wild magic when I thought I was alone. The look on his face, the betrayal in his eyes…it was too much. I think I’ve ruined it. I expect to be called to the Dean’s office any day now. There is no telling what to expect. For the first time since I came here, I admit, I am terrified*.’

Siri flicks her tongue.

“No, I don’t think my dad told on her. Otherwise, they would’ve never gotten married and had me.”

I flip a few pages to the middle of the journal where a diagram catches my eye. It only takes a moment to realize that my mother was conducting research on wild magic, and how to disguise its usage to appear like the standard magic the Academy teaches its Acolytes.

“Holy Magnus and magpies, is this what I think it is?” Baffled, I stare at the pages, studying every note Mom scribbled in the margins, tracing the symbols with my finger, and reading every passage and paragraph.

Tears well in my eyes when it starts to sink in. My mom was like me, and she attended this school the exact same way: dreading the day that someone catches her wielding wild magic and oppress her for it. But unlike the average Magian, she didn’t let fear dictate her life. She researched her abilities, recorded her findings, and in the end, survived her years at Alcove.

However, I doubt she would’ve ever anticipated that her journal would someday find its way to me when I needed it the most.

Siri tilts her head when a tear rolls down my cheek.

“Don’t worry, those aren’t sad tears.” I sniffle and lightly pat her head.” Although, I think my mom just saved my life.”