You’ve taken to working late. Night is the only time the deluge of statements ceases, and therefore the only time you have to even ponder what you’ve heard. What you’ve seen. The burns on your snout are still fresh, the stinging pain a constant reminder of the Lightners that lurk down in the basement. Maybe it's simply a product of your overworked brain, but the longer you reflect the more certain you grow that the flames you saw had no earthly cause. As powerful and terrible as the Flameforger’s magic can be, it has always been a force for creation. But the flames that nearly killed you had nothing in them but destruction. They did not fertilize the soil, or bring forth new growth. They didn’t even cleanse.
You think you understand now why Zwicky and Maevy insisted the waters and plagues of their statements were not the works of their gods. But there is still no evidence for such a claim. Had it not been for the other Lightner, the one that devoured the breath from your lungs, you would dismiss it all as folly.
But it happened. So you keep looking.
It’s terribly late in the night when you hear the sound. A broken voice, choked as if with tears, muttering softly to itself. The noise is slightly muffled through the stone of the wall, but you’re certain the speaker is just in the next room as you hear their whispered words.
“I’m sorry,” they say. “I’m sorry. I just want to go home. Please.”
You suddenly recognize the speaker. It’s the head librarian, the guardian who has recently begun muttering at the walls.
“Please,” he says again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—“
His voice is cut off by a low, rumbling growl. It’s distant, but the librarian clearly hears it as well, and his words become strained with fear
“No! Please! Let me out!” he says, raising his voice to a yell. “Anyone—help, please!”
The growl sounds again, far more closely. This time you react, racing out of the room and turning the corner in order to aid him. And then you skid to a halt. The archives take up the entire wing—there is nothing but solid stone on the other side of the wall. You’ve always known this, and yet you could have sworn the sounds originated from some space behind them.
“Hello?” you call out “Where are you?”
“Please!” The voice is suddenly distant, coming somewhere from the rooms above. “Can anyone hear me? I’m sorry!”
“I’m here!” you try again, but suddenly the growling sound erupts around you, so close you could swear it comes from right besides you.
You leap into the air with a start, but as suddenly as the monstrous rumbling has begun it fades into the distance. For a moment all is silent. And then the terrible, tortured screams of the librarian ring out from the archives behind you.
Just as before, your instincts betray you. Instead of fleeing you leap back into the room, ready to face whatever awaits you, as you had when you chased the terrible flames. But the archives remain as empty as they were when you left. You can do nothing as the librarian's agonized roars fill your ears, sometimes distant, sometimes so close you can hear the sound of claw against the stone as he struggles against whatever enemy he faces. But the sounds go silent all too quickly. You hope desperately they have simply migrated beyond your hearing, but after a long moment you hear a choked, rattling breath and the distinctive slump of a body falling against stone. As if to confirm your worst fears, the growl sounds again, one last time.
It takes a minute for you to recover your senses enough to move. You stand, trembling, and head for the door, desperately hoping to find anyone who can help. But as you do so something catches your eye. Your desk has long been cluttered with papers and files, but you could have sworn there were only five boxes stacked besides it. Now there are six.
Something in you compels you to turn back, to see what the box contains. You cautiously pick your way towards the desk—and as you do so you see that the floor beneath you has been freshly gouged by a set of terrible claws. The lines are too close together to fit the profile of a guardian’s foot, and yet whatever has scored its mark here has managed to do so deep into solid marble. You swallow and continue to the box.
It looks like all the others, on the outside. There is no label upon it besides a hastily scrawled ?L” in what you somehow recognize as the librarian’s handwriting. Tentatively, you remove the lid and peer inside. Rulers, bits of string, tape measures—and underneath a pile of loose papers. You remove the measuring implements with confusion before you inspect the top paper of the stack.
Illustrated upon it is a floor plan of the building, which details the precise size and location of each and every room. It seems perfectly ordinary, save for the fact that the librarian has scrawled several numbers upon it. After a moment you realize they are measurements. After a longer moment you realize they disagree with the map. And finally, after staring at the numbers for what feels like forever, you realize they are utterly impossible. If the librarian’s measurements are to be trusted, the inside of the building is an entire quarter inch larger than the outside.
Your dread deepens. But surely it’s a simple mistake, a rounding error, a missed digit. You put the map down and reach for the next paper.
It’s a note from the librarian. In it he describes the contents of the pages below—a literary essay, written about a play that does not seem to exist. The librarian speculates that together the pages may comprise an as of yet unregistered Lightner. Your curiosity deepens, and you move to read next page.
It’s another note from the librarian, this time scrawled in messy red ink. A warning.
This is not for you.