Page 4 of The Alien in the Archive

“Resisting?”

“The texts hold more than words, Dr. McRae,” she says. “Some books refuse to be opened. Some move on their own, vanishing and reappearing elsewhere. Others hum with psychic resonance—or worse. They’ve been known to repel scholars, locking themselves shut or sending them into…mild trances.”

“Mild?”

“Mostly mild,” she amends with a half-smile. “But nothing you can’t handle. Let’s focus on where you need to begin.”

I fight to keep my eagerness in check. “You read my application, right?”

“I did,” she says, inclining her head. “But remind me.”

I blow out a breath. She must have already read this a dozen times, but I know I need her approval—and, honestly, this is my favorite subject. If she wants to hear about it again, I’ll talk her ear off.

“My research focuses on the connections between humanity and the Skoll,” I say quickly, my words spilling out. “There’s evidence they arrived on Earth in the Bronze Age, but it’s scant enough for some to think it’s ridiculous.”

“The Lost Expeditions,” she says, her eyes gleaming withinterest. “I heard the stories as a child—the legend of Tor and Tove, and the offspring who formed the foundations of the Skoll rebellions. You know, until you started looking into this, we believed they were nothing more than myths.”

“So did we,” I reply, unable to hide my excitement. “We thought Avalon was just a legend, like Atlantis. But it wasn’t. I believe it was an Elixir wellspring. There’s evidence that early human cultures interacted with the Skoll—and that they thought of your people as gods. Shared symbols, rituals, myths…it’s all too much to be coincidence.”

“And you believe the answer is here, in the Archive?”

“I know it is,” I say, breathless. “Elixir shows up everywhere in human mythology: ambrosia, the mead of the Norse gods, the Fountain of Youth. These weren’t just stories—they were fragments of something real. I think ancient humans were able to use Elixir, the same way the Boreans did. If I can prove that…”

“You believe your people could perform magic,” Davina finishes for me, a hint of awe in her voice.

That’s refreshing—because when I told my human advisors back when I was an undergraduate, they nearly sent me packing.

“Yes,” I say. “If I can trace those rituals back to their source, it could change everything we know about human historyandSkoll history…and maybe even inform us on the first arrivals of the Boreans. Who knows? They could even have hidden texts there.”

Davina leans back in her chair. Her excitement ripples faintly through her thoughts, a spark of shared understanding—and I feel that intellectual high I get when I’m connecting with another academic, our ideas bouncing off each other.

But she hasn’t handed me my access yet.

“Here’s the problem,” I continue, my voice steady but insistent. “Every time I follow a lead, I hit a wall. The texts that should hold the answers—Skoll records, human histories—they’re empty. It’s like someone erased the truth and replaced it with bedtime stories. I pored through everything I could find back on Earth, in the extranet archives… That’s why I’m so eager to get started.”

Davina nods slowly, her gaze sharpening. “That’s the difficulty of studying ancient history, isn’t it? In my own work, I run up against Borean self-sabotage quite often; they destroyed not only their history, but the Skoll’s as well. But…maybe you’ll find something.” She extends her hand. “Your ID?”

Hell yes. I knew she would get it.

I pull the translucent card from my bag and hand it over. She flicks her fingers, summoning a golden hologram above the desk. It shimmers with Skoll runes as she slides my card into it, the hologram flickering faintly as she writes something in the air.

After a moment, she hands it back. A new sigil glows in the corner of the card, pulsing softly.

“This will grant you full access,” Davina says. “But it won’t open every door. The books sometimes…have a mind of their own. If they don’t want to let you in, it’s probably for a reason.”

A chill crawls up my spine, but I nod quickly. “Understood. I’ll be careful.”

“And try not to stay after dark,” Davina adds.

That catches me off guard. “Why?”

She smiles faintly. “It’s probably nothing, but some say the Archive is haunted.”

“Haunted?” I repeat, frowning.

“I’ve never seen anything myself,” she admits, standingand smoothing her robes. “But I only work in this particular archive occasionally. Regardless, you’re more likely to encounter temperamental texts than anything supernatural. I don’t believe ghosts are real, of course…but I wouldn’t test that theory in the Obscuary at night.”

I glance over my shoulder, back toward the black gate looming in the distance. The runes glimmer faintly in the shadows, and the statues seem to watch me.

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