Page 31 of Mortal Shift
“You look lost. Again.”
I turned to see Ling’s smirking face, and shared an easy smile with her.
“Lost would imply I had some idea of where I wanted to be,” I said. Although, now that there was actually someone I could ask, there was something I wanted to find. “Instructor Nyra said something about a library round here someplace. Don’t suppose you happen to know where it is?”
“That’s a great idea. It’ll really help you get up to speed. This way.”
She took a sharp right and I fell into step beside her, glad that once again my friendly tour guide had shown up exactly when I needed her. I glanced at the food in my hands, wondering if I should find some place to stop and eat it before I got near the books, but on balance I figured a place that did seem to care whether its students lived or died probably wasn’t going to get too hung up on library rules.
I pushed open the single door Ling led us to, and found myself in my own slice of heaven. I spun in a slow circle, a smile spreading over my face as I let out a low whistle. The library was huge, forming a vast circle around me of stone and wood, lined from floor to ceiling with towering bookcases, each loaded with tomes. Daylight flooded the entire room, and I tilted my head back to see the oculus that covered almost the entire ceiling. I might be standing in a supernatural academy, but this was the first place that had truly felt magical.
“This is…” I shook my head. I didn’t have the words to describe it.
“It’s something else, huh?” Ling said, and I nodded.
“You can say that again.”
There was just one problem. We were utterly alone in here—which in itself was great—but no librarian meant I had less than no idea where to start. And these books… Well, you could spend a lifetime trying and not get through them all.
I didn’t think the rest of the academy were prepared to hold off for a lifetime before going back to giving me a hard time.
I set my sandwich on one of the empty tables scattered throughout the room, unwilling to risk ruining any of the books despite my earlier bravado. We might not have had much when I was growing up, thanks to my mom’s steadily worsening mental state, but we always took good care of what we had. Some of my most treasured possessions had been books. There was something sacred about opening a book and finding a whole universe inside, filled with people so real I could feel them. Understand them. Miss them when they were gone. People who, fictional or not, mattered to me. Made my life better.
No matter how hard the day, no matter how shitty my life got, I could pull a book down from a shelf, and step into a new world. A better world. And inside those pages, my problems would melt away and cease to exist, one sentence at a time.
So I wasn’t about to risk a sandwich fucking one up. I’d been raised better than that.
It was with something close to reverence that I trailed my fingers across the leather-bound spines of books that looked hundreds of years old…and half of whose titles were written in a language I couldn’t even guess at.
Looked like this was going to be harder than I’d thought.
I plucked the first book I came across with an English-sounding title from the shelf and flipped it open midway.
‘The intricacies of inter-species unsustainability and anti-ideological interpretations of Sandringhampton’s Edict of Terminal Hyper-Hybridism are inherently…”
Well, so much for English. I mean, sure, it wastechnicallyEnglish…just not my English. I snapped it shut and slotted it carefully back into its place on the shelf.
“How about this one?”
I yelped and spun round to find myself face to face with Ling, who was gesturing to a book over my shoulder.
“Damn, girl. Make some noise when you move. Scared the hell out of me.”
She arched a brow. “You’re in Darkveil Academy, andI’mthe one who scares you?”
Well, yeah, that was a fair point. I swatted at her anyway, and she grinned as she ducked aside.
“Here, look,” she said, pointing to the book again. I followed the direction of her gesture and found a spine markedSupernatural Races: An Introductory History.
“Nice.” I pulled it down, and almost dropped it to the floor. Damn, that was heavy. I staggered back to our spot and dumped it on the desk, almost annihilating my sandwich, and stared at it in dismay.
“Introductory?” I said, raising a skeptical eyebrow. The book was huge—as thick as the width of my palm and the height of a trashcan. I slumped into my seat. “Guess I’d best get reading.”
I wasn’t sure how long I had for lunch, but I figured Ling would know when we were due back to lessons, so I flipped the book over and got started. The book, helpfully, began with a list of the various supernatural races.
“Good find,” I murmured appreciatively to Ling as I scanned my eyes down the list.
Banshee, Harpy, Lamia, Naga, Omi, Phouka, Satyr…
