The Library of Shadows

The first time Este saw the spire, it had been a sparkling wonderland, shimmering in moonlight and fragrant with a million night-sweet blooms. Now, the magic had vanished. The spire was a carcass—book spines, limbs of rivean ivy, stone-cold flesh gone stiff with rigor mortis.

Shelf after shelf, Este and Mateo breezed past the antiques and artifacts toward the bookcase near the heart of the spire. Her frantic thoughts were drowned out by the din of rain against the windows. As they rounded the last corner, a pit formed in her stomach.

She splayed her hand against the glass, no concern for the fingerprint smudges she’d leave behind. The shelf where The Book of Fades should’ve been proudly situated was completely and totally empty. Este’s hand twinged toward the pages in her pocket, their one chance at redemption rendered useless.

“I believe I have what you’re looking for,” Ives said behind them.

The head librarian leaned against one of the shelves, a hand slipped in her pocket and hips cocked in a stance so much like Mateo’s that Este couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen the resemblance sooner. In her other arm, Ives cradled the gilded tome that should’ve rested on the empty shelf.

“The matching outfits were a bit of a dead giveaway, don’t you think?” Ives asked, words toxic behind a saccharine smile. “And Este, there are debts to be paid. You of all people ought to know why.”

Their plan hadn’t worked. Somehow, Ives had managed to shake off Arthur and Bryony and hightail it up the spire staircase to cut them off. Este felt a twist in her chest, hoping they weren’t hurt.

“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?” Este clenched the papers in her pocket to remind herself they were real. That she’d made it this far, and she’d do whatever it took to make this right without anyone else getting hurt. “That’s why you offered me a full-ride scholarship to Radcliffe Prep. So that I’d come back, and you could skin me alive like you did all the others.”

“Like I’ve always said, you have a legacy to fulfill.” Ives tossed a look over her shoulder, eyes glinting. She strutted through the stacks, heading toward the center of the spire, and Este and Mateo followed. They skidded to a stop at the carpet dais leading to the high-backed chair.

“Enough, Lilith,” Mateo said. His voice had gone deep, serious. In different circumstances, it would admittedly be kind of hot. “You have to end this. You can’t live like this forever.”

Ives sank into the black tufted chair at the middle of it all. Her rightful place as Heir. As she flipped through the pages of The Book of Fades, shadows congregated in the corners of the ceiling and sank to the floors. She ran a painted nail along the vellum page, tapping the ink. With a smile as sharp as a silver dagger, Ives said, “Certainly I can, and certainly I will.”

The temperature plummeted, raising the hair on Este’s arms. The Fades’ song broke through the shadows first. Este pinched her palm to keep her grounded as their hypnotic lullaby swirled through the spire. All three of their grotesque bodies shifted into view behind a layer of black clouds.

The Fades were supposed to be downstairs, preoccupied with the ghosts, but their forms reappeared in the shadows at the edges of the room. Este thought they would lunge for her, wrap their bony hands around her throat and finish the job once and for all. Instead, they flitted through the bookcases, reprising their tired tune.

“This isn’t a game. Lives are at stake.” Mateo’s jaw clenched, mouth set firm.

“Believe me, I know.” Ives swirled Lilith’s sapphire ring around her finger. Her sapphire ring. “You think I don’t remember watching Mother and Father grow ill while you promenaded around campus? I had to care for them, and you only cared for yourself.”

Mateo’s throat bobbed. “I know I didn’t show it, but losing them was difficult for me, too.”

Ives feigned a yawn. “I’m sure you think so. I watched the light fade from their eyes, and I swore I would never let what happened to them happen to me.” She kicked her legs over the arm of her chair, eyes locked on Este’s. “Let’s make this easy. I’m doing you a favor. You wanted to work in the library so badly, and now you’ll have the next millennium to study the archives. Isn’t this fantastic news?”

“You know they invented Botox, right? Maybe give that a try instead of sacrificing people,” Este snapped.

“Simmer down. You’ve done well. You returned The Book of Fades before midterms like I asked. The only problem is that it’s missing a few important pages. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Why would I tell you?” Este sneered.

Ives tapped her nails impatiently against her chin, groaning. “I really didn’t want to have to do this.”

Waves of black swelled as the Fades inched closer. The air evaporated from Este’s lungs. Plumes of ink spun through the spire, as smothering as smoke in a wildfire, but a frozen bodice tightened around Este’s chest.

There was more to the fire of October 1917 than Este had realized, more that her dad had pieced together, that his clues were trying to tell her. He’d been pointing her to it the way the statue of Robin Radcliffe pointed to the evening star. When her dad had discovered the truth about Ives, he’d vanished from campus before she could add him to the library’s collection of souls. But before he’d left, he scribbled a passage from The Book of Fades on the back of a newspaper headline describing the blaze. It wasn’t a coincidence.

What burned, come dawn, will not be lost. What buried roots will grow,

and when the ink fades, we will see what only love returns.

“Of course,” Este whispered, punctuated with a breathy laugh. And then, louder, she said, “Ives, wait. You’re right. I do know something about the missing pages.”

In her periphery, Mateo’s mouth was fixed in a fine line. Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head. A warning she couldn’t afford to heed.

Ives spared a petty laugh. “Convenient timing. Do share.”

“After three decades, the Fades returned this fall. But it didn’t have anything to do with me.” She forced her chin high, her words steady, no matter how much her hands shook as she pulled the timeworn pages from her pocket. Shadows crawled up her legs, a layer of darkness along the floorboards emanating from the Fades. Reaching for the pages. “My dad stole a chapter from The Book of Fades, and I brought it back. That’s why the Fades are here. You said you needed the book in one piece. Without these, they’re nothing, and so are you.”

Fury lit behind Ives’s eyes. She pointed a single, stiff finger toward Este’s chest, and the Fades roared, piercing notes like banshee screams rising to the rafters. She snarled, “Hand those over immediately.”

The Fades’ vicious snarls didn’t give Este a moment to hesitate. She crumpled the pages into a ball and tossed them toward the stacks. Ives launched out of her chair and dove to the floorboards, spreading the damp paper out, smoothing them flat with her palms.

“You once told me to destroy The Book of Fades with hellfire and brimstone,” Este said to Mateo, loud enough that Ives, even as she rushed to puzzle-piece the final pages back into The Book of Fades, was certainly listening. “I wish I’d listened to you then.”

Unlacing their fingers, she dipped into the silk inlay of his pocket until she found a small rectangle, five smooth sides and one sandpaper. Matches. Exactly where he always carried them.

Este pressed her lips to his ear. “Do you trust me?”

She pulled away enough to see the cut of his eyes, diamond sharp and just as dazzling. Rimmed with heavy lashes, his irises webbed with navy. She smelled cedar smoke and fresh ink and felt the touch of his fingers on the pulse point of her wrist when he whispered, “Explicitly.”

God, she hoped this worked.

“It’s all connected. The book, the pages, the ghosts you’ve created,” Este said to Ives. “Tell me, what good is a story without a last page?”

She struck the match, a seed of light blooming. With her other hand, Este dragged one final folded page from her pocket. She lifted her sights to Ives—she wanted to see the look on Lilith Radcliffe’s face when she realized her tutelage had come to an end.

“Este Logano, I assure you that you will not live to see tomorrow.” Ives stood now, flanked by the Fades.

Este raised a brow, a smirk ghosting over her lips. She was as good as dead anyway. “I’m afraid your loan is long overdue, Lilith, and it’s time you pay the fines.”

All she needed was one ember.

Fire licked along the bottom edge, smoking against the damp parchment. Este floated the flame beneath the page, praying for it to light. Her heart buried itself behind her navel, sinking, sinking with every passing second it didn’t catch.

The paper was soaked from the thunderstorm. No matter where she held the spitting flame, it sputtered. The match burned out before the last page could spark. The page slipped out of Este’s fingertips.

There were more—more matches to strike, more chances to burn—but there wasn’t more time to spare. Ives plucked the page from the ground, wearing a grin like a scythe. The Fades gravitated around Ives’s makeshift throne like worker bees to their queen. The Book of Fades was whole again. Ives’s power restored.

With a flick of her hand, Ives once again had the Fades obeying her every command. She pointed a manicured finger straight toward Este’s beating heart and said, “Do your worst, ladies.”

Este fumbled for another light but she slid the box open too quickly and spilled matchsticks over the floor. They disappeared behind the Fades’ veil of darkness and skittered across the stones. She dove after them, hands pressed blindly to the cobbles, each breath coming more ragged than the last.

“Este, dear.” Mateo crouched to the floor next to her, but she didn’t look up. This couldn’t be how it ended—a fade-to-black credits roll overlaid with the Fades’ sweeping melody, calling her into an eternal rest.

“Este, Este. Stop.” Mateo’s hands wrapped around hers, cutting her search short. He folded them together, an anchor in the writhing sea of shade.

She saw it in his eyes, the same quiet concession Aoife must have worn when she chose to take the night shift. Mateo looked at her, calm and composed amidst a maelstrom, like they were the only two people in the world, or at least the only two who mattered.

“They’re too damp, but I-I’ll make it work.” Frantic, hurried breaths heaved her chest, but Mateo was steady.

“I’m so glad I got to meet you,” he said, smoothing a strand of hair behind her ear. “More than you know, and more than I deserve.”

The Fades in their Juicy Couture tracksuits and their sweet pea body spray and their a cappella theme song closed in, one 4/4 measure at a time. Mateo’s thumb swiped a gentle path along her jawline, and his lips brushed against the crease between her brows. “You’re the most exquisite girl I’ve ever met.”

“Mateo, I—” Her lips parted, primed to say the one thing that mattered most, but it was cut off with a shriek as a scarred hand wrapped around the collar of her coveralls, dragging her off the floor.

Este kicked against the Fade’s exposed midriff and her eternal belly button ring. It did nothing to deter the spirit who raised Este to eye level, forcing her to peer into the black caverns of empty sockets, an infinite, swirling darkness like cemetery soil on a closed casket.

The Fade dragged a skeletal finger down her cheek. The touch seared through her skin, white-hot pain flashing behind her eyes as a scream wretched from her lungs. As if the Fade wrapped her hand around Este’s throat, her airway blocked. Panic bubbled inside her chest, but there was no oxygen left.

The Fade was going to siphon her soul like she’d done all the others.

Then, something sparked in Este’s periphery.

Across the spire, Mateo pinched a match between his fingers, a lit orb of orange. In the other, he dangled the corner of The Book of Fades’s borrowing card over the flame. He must have stripped it from the back of the book while Ives was preoccupied with the missing chapter. It was dry. It would burn. But if he torched the tie that bound him to the Fades, what would it mean for his soul?

“Mateo!” Este screamed. It didn’t stop him.

First, there was smoke. Gunmetal rivulets that rose to the rafters. Then, the fire caught. Cinders dripped from Mateo’s fingers as the page disintegrated.

Mateo’s figure blurred in her vision as the Fade tugged and tugged at the very threads of her. But him, she wouldn’t let him out of her sight. Wouldn’t lose him. He smiled at her, a coy thing on his lips that sent her heart rate soaring. The Book of Fades would never be complete again.

“What have you done?” Ives shrilled.

But she wasn’t looking at Mateo. The pages underneath her hands curled at the edges as flames skittered over the parchment. She couldn’t stamp them out, trying and failing to smother them with her feet. The fire burned wild, wicked. The match in Mateo’s hand had fizzled out, but the pages acted like he’d taken the spark straight to them.

The Fade holding Este hostage hissed. Her grip loosened enough that Este wriggled out, dropping to the stone floors in an aching pile, gasping for air. Everything tasted like smoke. The Fades’ familiar haunting song faded into minor scale runs, and they retreated toward Ives.

Flickering red coals clawed up the hem of their velour pants as the same flames eating away at the pages burned right through them. Fire lapped at their waistbands, their sleeves, their collars, soot swirling around them, until all that remained of the Fades was a pile of crematory ash.

Este and Ives dove toward The Book of Fades at the same time. Before they reached it, a beveled flame appeared at the center of the book. Its tendrils spread. The pages smoldered, the binding incinerating. It went up in a blaze, sputtering vile ink-black smoke.

Ives fell to her knees and cupped the ashes in her palms like a prayer. When she looked at Este, her eyes were blades, sharpened and merciless. “I should’ve never let another Logano walk these halls.”

“You should’ve never lived this long in the first place.” Este squared her shoulders, a boxer in a ring. Ives was powerless without the Fades by her side.

Mateo sidled up next to Este, and his hand fit inside hers. He squeezed. “It’s over, Lilith.”

“If I’m dead, so are you.” Ives’s mouth twisted into a cruel smirk. She stalked toward one of the glass cases. From within, she unsheathed a stripe of silver, a pointed dagger.

Of all the ways Este thought she’d die this quarter, she hadn’t truly considered the possibility of getting shanked by the head librarian.

“You should’ve been mine,” Ives said, a manic laugh lifting the edges of her words. She clutched the dagger in her fist. It was all a little too Psycho (1960) if you asked Este. “The Fades had you in their grasp and you escaped, just like your worthless father.”

Ives couldn’t touch Este while she was stuck between life and death, but the dagger could. Ives aimed the silver edge at the soft of Este’s throat.

Then, a wrinkle daubed Ives’s forehead. A fine line between her brows. Crow’s-feet webs crawled from the corners of her eyes. Her hair paled, deep black dissolving into cool gray. The flesh at her chin sagged, and then her cheeks. Worry lines etched into valleys, deepening like tectonic plates shifted across her skin. Every breath aged her.

The dagger fell, her grasp weak. Hoarse, Ives asked, “What is happening to me?”

“It was only ever a loan,” Este said.

Ives’s paper-thin skin heeded to rot and ruin. Two slits where her nose was. Lips and gums sank away, leaving only teeth behind. She shriveled, burned. Este held her breath as an inky wisp of smoke, all that was left of Lilith Radcliffe, dissipated.

Este smiled so widely it ached. “Mateo! We did it!”

But when she turned to Mateo, the ghost staggered backward. He slid down the length of the shelf, head lolling weightless on his shoulders.

“No! What’s happening?” Este asked, a half-choked plea. “What do we do?”

His eyes glazed over, losing focus with every passing second. The edges of his body feathered into nothingness. Where he’d been whole to her minutes before, now he flickered in and out. A light bulb with a loose connection. As if it took all his effort, he raised a slow hand to the back of her neck. The soft pad of his thumb smoothed away a stray tear.

“Este Logano,” he said, eyes dimming. Her name, both a promise and a threat. The last thing he said before his eyes closed.

Este made an ugly, splintered noise like a nail in a coffin. She fell to the stones next to him, pressing her palms against his face, his hands, his chest. He was still dead, and she was still dying. She barely registered the heat flaring at her side as rapid breaths inflated her lungs. It didn’t feel like she was getting any air.

“You were supposed to stay,” she sobbed, cradling his head. “What only love returns. It was right there in the book. Come back to me. Please, come back.”

Her side seared, heat lashing the broken skin. Pain throbbed, too blinding to ignore. As if the flames that consumed the book were tearing through her skin, the mark of the Fades burned and burned, a brushfire blaze. She grasped at her bandages, splaying her palms flat to smother any stray flames, but it did nothing. The fire burned from within.

Each inhale was sharp, stinging. Her lungs couldn’t expand as the skin on her side tightened.

“Wake up,” she whispered. “Please, please.”

With a gentle hand, she brushed a curl away from Mateo’s forehead.

“I don’t care if I have to love you in this life or the next,” she said, planting her hands firmly against his chest to hide the way they shook. “I need you to know that I love you.”

Este wrapped her arms around Mateo, sinking into the shape of him.

“I love you,” she said, as she laid her head against the empty cavern of his chest. “I love you.” As if the words would echo inside his rib cage atrium like a hallelujah chorus in a cathedral nave. “I love you.” Even if it always had to end like this.

The spire quieted as the rain pelting the window retreated and rivean ivy halted its trek across the cobbled floor, searching for light in the darkness. Everything stilled, everything silenced.

And then, Mateo’s heart beat.