Page 109 of The Alien in the Archive

She ignores me, her mind racing as fast as her steps. The psychic connection between us hums with her frantic energy, a jumble of fear and self-recrimination. I want to reach through the bond, to still her panic, but I can’t.

Page isn’t someone who calms down when told to breathe. She’s someone who fights harder.

“I’m almost there,” she says, her breath hitching as she practically sprints through the entrance of the Grand Library. “Just…just do what I said. Please.”

I stop pacing. “I can’t stop you, can I?”

“No,” she says. “You can’t.”

I start grabbing everything that’s most important: my chronicle, more pens and paper, the book on Borean dissent. I even grab a few of the romance novels—because suddenly I’m wondering what I need to prioritize, and I find that these are part of my connection to Page. Ashlan sits on the table, tail flicking as he watches me, and it occurs to me that this creature is easily the most important thing in the room.

I gesture at my bag. “Get in,” I mutter, pointing.

He cocks his head.

“I’ll give you jerky,” I mutter.

He hops in.

As I step out of the alcove, the Obscuary’s Labyrinth stretches before me, dark and unyielding. The path to the reading nook is long and winding, but I know it well after too few perfect days spent there with Page. I hurry toward it, keeping track of Page’s location as well—seeing her walk through the gate, hurry through the Archive without paying any mind to the scant other researchers.

Our paths collide about twenty paces from the entrance to the reading nook. Page is flushed with exertion, breathheavy from running, and her grey eyes dart immediately to me. Relief floods through her and I feel it through the bond, a brief, dizzying wave.

She doesn’t slow, closing the distance between us and flinging her arms around me.

She’s changed her mind about coming clean to Davina; she wants to leave. It’s obvious from the way she feels, frantic and urgent. She doesn’t care about Riley, about Thalara…the threat to me is enough to leave it all behind.

But she doesn’t give me a chance to say anything. We keep going, slipping into the reading nook. Page turns around and flings her hand out, and one of the sofas slides in front of the exit, blocking the only way in from the Obscuary.

I look at her, mystified.

Her powers have intensified dramatically in the past few hours.

“Blocking the door?” I ask.

She whips around, nodding at me as if I’m an idiot. “Of course I am. There’s another exit to the Labyrinth here, right? We need to leave, we need time…just for a while.”

I step toward her, steadying my voice. It’s hard not to fly off the handle myself, when her emotions are so, so strong. “Page, we’re not leaving.”

“We don’t have a choice,” she says, her voice cracking. “We’ll go. And if we have to go for good…so be it.

“Think about this?—”

“Iamthinking about it!” she shouts. Her hands clench at her sides, but even so, a few of the books we’ve stacked around the cushions in the middle of the room hover off the floor. “You didn’t see their faces, Thorne. Lyn and Orin are going to tell someone. It’s over. We don’t have time to wait?—”

“You don’t know that,” I argue. “What about Riley?Thalara? Are you willing to abandon them because of whatmighthappen?”

She freezes. I feel the words hit her through the bond, like a sudden drop in temperature.

“I don’t want to leave them,” she says, her voice breaking. “But you…Thorne, I cannot lose you.”

“You’re not going to lose me,” I murmur, putting my hands on her shoulders.

Her breathing stutters as she looks up at me, grey eyes wide and filled with tears she’s fighting to hold back. I feel every tremor of her fear through the bond, raw and sharp.

“We don’t know what Lyn and Orin are going to do,” I say, keeping my grip on her. “Running now won’t solve anything. We decided we weren’t going to hide anymore.”

She swallows hard, her pulse racing. “But?—”

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