Book Arc Novels & Stories

By noon, the porcelain cracked with a sharp snap when she moved it. Aria muttered, "What the hell…" She cleaned it up slowly, deliberately. Anything to keep her hands moving. To keep her from thinking about how it felt like the whole bookstore was… holding its breath. She wandered into the back aisles. The mythology section was a mess — again. Probably some college kid hunting for ancient conspiracies to turn into a thesis. Her fingers skimmed the titles. Worn, faded, some crumbling at the spine. One caught her eye. Legends of the End Times.

she breathed, quickly closing the book. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. “What is that?” She held the book closer to her chest. “It is nothing important. Just an old ledger I found while cleaning the library.” I walked closer, my footsteps heavy on the wooden floor. “Do not lie to me, Aria. I know that book. I have been looking for it for weeks. Give it to me.” She hesitated, her fingers tightening around the cover. “It is only old accounts. Numbers and shipments. Nothing you need to worry about right now.”

“You don’t know that yet either.” He didn’t argue that one. We kept searching in silence after that, the only sound the scrape of old spines against old wood and the occasional cough from disturbed dust, until my hand landed on one bound in cracked white leather, thinner than the rest, tucked sideways behind books twice its size like someone had wanted it hidden rather than shelved. “Alaric.” He crossed the room before I finished saying his name. The cover bore no title, only a wolf stamped into the white leather, its edges worn smooth by generations of hands. I opened it on the small reading table between us, and the first page nearly stopped my heart.

I nodded at her and grabbed the book. Venturing towards Micha’s room, I noted the aftermath—chaos and debris lingered everywhere. The arch-demon’s might have exceeded all my expectations. I stepped inside; Micha was sitting up, eagerness radiating from him. We placed the book on the bed, and it opened like a flower at dawn. Golden script illuminated the pages. “Hearts heavy with concern, I sense the questions brewing in your minds.” “I hold no strategies, merely stories of past events. As a book, I cannot think for you. However, I can share some insights that may help your quest.”

After a few moments of uncomfortable scrutinizing, the staff members finally returned but without Master Arcade. They carried the book he had borrowed from the library, and stack of letters as well. He frowned at the letters. There were a lot of them, but he couldn’t remember who they were from. "His story aligns," one of them said. "We found this book under his bed and it is as he says. Wolfsbane and medicinal herbs.” The other one held up the letters. "We found these too.” Mrs. Doris took the letters, examining it closely. She opened one and read it. Her eyebrow went up again.

The sound escaped before she could stop it. "I've never seen anything like this." "I know." There was something wonderfully pleased in Arkael's voice, as though her delight was exactly the reaction he'd been hoping for. He led her another few steps. A glass cabinet stood against the wall, its shelves filled with manuscripts unlike any she had ever imagined. Their pages glowed softly beneath the lantern light. Gold leaf wound itself around enormous painted letters at the beginning of every chapter. Tiny painted knights no taller than her fingernail rode along the margins chasing dragons whose tails curled into the next page. Flowers blossomed from the corners of the parchment, their vines wea

I said, "the moment Pascal arrives?" Nala looked at me for a moment. Then she said, "Yes." I nodded and looked down at the table and sat with the particular quiet that came from receiving information you couldn't do anything with yet but couldn't set down either. Hale reached across the table and pushed a book toward me. I looked at the cover. It was one of the old human archives. The title was long and the font was small and it looked like exactly the kind of thing I'd been trying to avoid.

I demanded, eyeing the mysterious device untrustingly. Indigo didn’t try to hand it to me though, he merely unwound a string of leather from around it and flipped it open, revealing more and more pieces of parchment inside, hundreds of them, bound together and fanning up from the center between two thicker outer shells to make an arch. Captivated as all the parchment settled again, I watched in awe when Indigo pressed his hand down on it. “This,” he told me, “is called a book.” “A book,” I repeated reverently, easing cautiously closer. “Is it dangerous?”

Kennedy POV. The weather was bad, but I needed to get that new book, it's Robert birthday gift, who'd knew a grown up man would kill for the newest werewolf love book. I got into my car, drove carefully toward the local book store, they had the new book reserved for me. It was supposed to one quick drive, until I walked into the library. A girl was sitting on a bean bag, her blond hair was covering her eyes with overgrown bangs, she tried to huff them away from her face but to no use. She looked young, maybe she's just here with her parents, looking down at the book she had in her hands it was a kids story. Does she read for the local kids? Or is it just for her?

And somewhere in the restricted archives, the Archivist turned a page in a book she had been reading for centuries, and the story that had not finished producing surprises produced another one. End of Chapter 52