Where The Library Hides: A Novel Novels & Stories

The power of older women remains one of civilization’s least adequately studied forces. I escaped to the library because I needed a room that admitted silence without trying to interpret it. The lamps were low. Fire steady. Snow at the windows. Books everywhere, all of them pretending people came to houses like this for learning instead of concealment. The war room lay behind the hidden panel, and the hidden panel lay behind the library wall, and I could feel its existence the way one feels a bruise through clothing. I stood by the mantel and let the quiet reach me.

Do not move, do not react, stay still when he comes towards you. Station Gamma Thorne outside the meeting, blade ready. Nova swallowed. Numb. Behind her Jax stopped breathing. His whole body rejected the instruction. Stay still. While someone tried to kill her. No. He would be in that tent and she would not be. His body was locked in place but every part of him was already at war. There are four books hidden behind a hidden door in the library. When you pry it open, an arrow, poisoned with old black, will fly.

I just ran, blindly, down the hallway, away from the cafeteria, away from the eyes, away from *him*. I didn’t stop until I reached the library. Bursting through the heavy doors, I stumbled into the hushed, book-scented sanctuary. Mrs. Gable, the librarian, looked up from her desk, her kind eyes widening in surprise at my tear-streaked face and frantic breathing. “Novah? Dear, are you alright?” I shook my head violently, unable to speak. I just pointed a trembling hand towards the back, towards the ancient, secluded study carrels hidden amongst the towering stacks. My refuge. My only possible hiding place.

Rows and rows of books towered around me, dark mahogany and the faint smell of dust and leather wrapping around me. Who would believe that they would have a library here with so many books? I wasn’t here for the books, the books were a decoy for what I came for. What was hidden here? I was here for the door behind a shelf. The one I’d seen Nico disappear into earlier. I had followed Nico into the library and he decided right before my eyes. All I had to do was find the door he walked out from. A hidden room. Possibly an exit. Or at least something they didn’t want me to see.

Seeing no one she hurried down the hall. “Now to get to the library without being seen…” she said to herself. Hearing footsteps, she hid behind a pillar as two guards walked by. This was going to be a long night she thought. Little did she know it would be a lot more eventful than she could have predicted, because at that very moment, in the shadows at the back of the library a young man stood in the shadows, waiting for the library to empty for the night…

I needed walls, quiet, anywhere I didn’t have to pretend. The library was on the second floor, tucked at the end of a forgotten hallway. I slipped inside and shut the door, leaning against it for a long moment while the smell of old paper and leather wrapped around me like a blanket. Sunlight slanted through high, dusty windows, painting gold on rows of shelves. I wandered until I found a worn armchair in the very back corner, hidden between two towering bookcases. I pulled a random book, something about ancient pack laws, thick and boring, and curled into the chair, knees to chest, trying to disappear.

The moment I pushed it open, a strange familiarity washed over me. My chest tightened as I stepped inside and realized why. The library. The same library where I had hidden from Fenric during the full moon. The same one where he had hunted me through the shelves before finding me in the dark. I flinched and instinctively stepped back, ready to close the door and leave the memory behind. I didn’t want to relive that night. But then my gaze drifted to the shelves. Books. Far more than the small collection in my chambers. I could take a few—maybe several—and bring them upstairs. Enough to keep me occupied for days.

I didn’t go to my room directly because I knew that guards would be swooning all over the place and I wasn’t ready for that, instead, I went to the library. It was a place I could escape from everything, my head would be in the books and I wouldn’t have to think of the mess my life had become. The moment I walked in, the librarian immediately hid three history books before I could reach the shelves, he probably didn’t think I would see him but I did. He looked pale when he realized that I had noticed what he had done then he threw an awkward smile at me. Hmn. “Why can’t I read those?” I deadpanned. “Move.”

Especially not Tristan. He trusted me without question. He would never understand the things I was prepared to do to protect the life we had built together. I took the longer path to the library, weaving through the western wing of the manor where few people passed this early in the morning. When I slipped through the side door into the room, the familiar scent of old paper and leather greeted me. The fire hadn’t been lit yet, so the room was cool and dim. Perfect. I crossed to the far wall, stopping in front of the narrow shelf no one ever touched. I pressed the hidden latch behind the volume of old pack treaties, and the panel slid back with a soft click.