Page 39 of Creatures of Chaos

I stand in front of the spired building that houses everything from novelty items for tourist to centuries-old artifacts. My parents often purchase items from the owner and our family friend, Mr. Brone, a shifter who sources some of his more valuable objects from estate sales and overseas brokers. He came into town about five or six years ago, taking over the Emporium from the previous owner. Rather than being competitors, he and my parents frequently send business back and forth. It’s common for him to reach out to Mom and Dad to get appraisals on items or offer to sell things to them at a discount. I wouldn’t consider him a super close family friend, but he’s certainly been a steady fixture in my life for several years.

I’m here today because I don’t know another place in Everton that has as well stocked of a collector’s library as he does. Ours is probably second best, but since I couldn’t find what I’m looking for in our book collection, I’m hoping Mr. Brone can help me out.

The giant wood doors squeak loudly as I push through them. Mr. Brone is sitting behind the front counter when I enter, hissalt and pepper hair slicked back, and his black-rimmed glasses are perched on the end of his nose as he inspects some papers. Mr. Brone is a hawk shifter, and I always thought his nose reminded me of a sharp beak. He lifts his head and spots me, his dark eyes brightening as his mouth stretches into a smile.

“Locklyn,” he says, and then rounds his desk to greet me. “To what do I owe this surprise visit? Are you here for something for your parents?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m not here for my parents. I was actually hoping you might let me have a look around your library.”

He cocks his head, his eyebrows rising over the rims of his dark frames. “Is that so? It’s been some time since you’ve last lost yourself in the dusty depths of my library.”

He’s not wrong. I used to spend countless hours up there reading through some of the weathered leather-bound books. My favorites were fairy tales that took me far away from my reality. But when I got old enough to help my parents with the store, at some point I realized life wasn’t and would never be a fairy tale, and so reading them just made me sad.

“I know. I’m sorry I haven’t visited more. I need to do some research for school,” I lie, instantly feeling horrible about it.

He waves me off. “No worries about that. I remember what it’s like to be young. The world is fresh and exciting. Enjoy these years. They’ll be some of the best of your life.”

If these years are supposed to be the best of my life, I’m in serious trouble. Rather than contradict Mr. Brone, I smile politely.

“You know the way up to the library. My knees aren’t what they used to be, so I hope you don’t fault me for not walking you up.”

Mr. Brone is only a few years older than my parents and relatively fit. I’d wager money that he could zip up and downthose stairs with no problem, and even if he couldn’t, he could shift and fly up there. But I don’t blame him for not wanting to make the six-flight trek up to the top of the Emporium.

“Of course not. Thanks, Mr. Brone,” I say with a half-smile as he moves back behind the desk and grabs a key.

“Oh please, we’ve known each other too long for you not to call me Kerrim,” he says as he hands me the keys.

I nod and thank him, and then turn toward the stairs. As I make my way up to the library my thoughts shift from Becks to Shadow Striker. The “what-ifs” haunt me, sticking to me like wet sand. Irritating and impossible to get rid of.

The door to the Emporium library is unassuming and small. If I were an average sized creature I’d have to duck as I walk through the frame, but as I’m on the shorter side I don’t need to worry about bumping my head. The entrance, however, is completely at odds with the cavernous room beyond it.

I slide the key in the lock, open the door, and immediately suck in a large breath of dust-filled air, relishing the smell of leather and parchment. A feeling of familiarity, home, settles over me as I take in the two-story room of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A stained-glass window on the opposite side of the space lets in rose and purple tinted light, and sconces of white faelight ring the space.

After setting my backpack down on one of the two long rectangular tables in the center of the room, I walk to a familiar shelf to trail my fingers over some of my old favorites:The Tale of Twin Foxes,The Ogre and the Princess,The Saga of the Doomed Siren Pirate. All fairy tales I’d escaped into. And I didn’t just read the stories, I devoured them, becoming part of them the same as they became part of me. For the short time I immersed myself in their tales I didn’t just read about the princess who fell in love with an ogre who turned out to be a cursed fae prince, Ibecameher. I sailed crystalline seaswith siren pirates and rescued a merman from certain death. I became a cunning fox shifter and fooled a greedy dragon king out of his riches. I lived a hundred different lives in this library and wished each time that I’d magically fall into a story and never escape.

But that’s not how life works, and every time I closed a cracked and aged spine I had to return to reality and a life where I was spurned and shunned for my lack of magic, judged based not on who I was but on what I couldn’t do. Some days life felt unbearable, and even though I’m blessed to have parents who love me and two good friends who stand by my side, there are days that still just doesn’t feel like enough, days where I’d give anything to be someone else, to walk in different shoes. But books could only take me so far, and eventually reading the tales of adventures I would never live started to make me depressed. And so I stopped.

I haven’t been to the Emporium library to read for pleasure in over two years. A twinge of nostalgia spikes in my chest at the smell of the parchment and papyrus of the aged books in Mr. Brone’s collection, and along with it comes the urge to search the fiction section for what new books he’s acquired. But that’s not why I’m here today, so I turn away from the temptation and travel farther into the room, where I know he keeps his oldest and most rare tomes.

Three hours later, the light coming in from the stained-glass windows has almost completely disappeared and I have to squint to read the faded page in front of me. My neck aches and my butt has gone numb from the harsh wooden chair. Worst of all, I’ve come up completely empty and feel utterly defeated.

What if Shadow Striker doesn’t hold any power and I entered Chaos for no reason? My stomach bottoms out, because if that’s true, not only will I remain powerless, it means I have no idea how to help Becks.

Frustrated, I shut the book, a first century edition of the Ancients that should probably be in a museum rather than the Emporium’s unkempt library, and slouch back into the uncomfortable wooden chair. I would have preferred to sit in one of the padded armchairs sprinkled throughout the room, but for my research the single table in the middle of the space was best.

I shove away from the table to get some feeling back into my butt and legs when my gaze snags on a volume in the legal section of the library. I can confidently say it’s a small bookshelf I’ve never given more than a cursory glance, but the gold lettering against the black leather binding that spells outDragon Shifter Lawgets my heart pumping a little faster.

From the condition of the binding and crisp white pages I can tell immediately it’s not an old book. It was probably printed sometime in the last twenty years. It seems like an odd edition to have here. It’s true that different creature species, and dragon shifters in particular, have their own set of rules and laws for their clans, but because of the secretive nature of the content not much is available for public consumption. It’s considered proprietary information, and truth be told I’m not even sure it’s legal for Mr. Brone to have this book. Perhaps a desperate dragon shifter traded it to Mr. Brone for extra money? If the local dragon shifter clan knew it was here, they’d surely demand its return.

I shouldn’t even be looking at it, but after pulling it from the shelf I flip it open to the table of contents, scanning until I land on “Mating Rules and Rituals.” With shaky hands, I turn to the pages, skimming quickly.

At first it only talks about how each shifter has to go before the council to get approval before declaring a mate. That’s common knowledge and for the most part just a formality. I’ve never heard of a mating being rejected, but as I keep looking Ifinally come across what I’m searching for, the section on the dragon heir.

I only get through the first sentence before the door creaks open. I slam the book shut, sliding it across the table toward the piles of other books I’d already searched for information on Shadow Striker.

“Ah, Locklyn dear, you are still here,” Mr. Brone says as he walks toward me. “I closed the Emporium fifteen minutes ago.”

“It’s that late already?” I ask, digging for my phone in my bag.

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