Robots vs. Fairies(19)

That was troubling. Emily marched up the steps to the guards and poked one in the chest plate. He looked at her and frowned, his long, narrow face transforming from bored beauty to cruel sneer. “Begone, mortal. Your kind has no place here.”

“Mellifera hired me personally to oversee the most valuable part of the library—”

“There is no more library. Just a building that will soon be empty of books. Be gone.” He grabbed her shoulder, spun her around, and shoved her—

—and she stumbled out of her closet, into the hallway in her apartment. Her phone buzzed with a text from her former roommate and current best friend, CeCe. Emily had hired CeCe to help modernize the library, and CeCe had put in computer terminals and started an ambitious project to scan and digitize the rare volumes. The text read, Tried to go to work and couldn’t find a path, just walked in circles. What’s up?

Not sure, Emily texted back. Looking into it.

Emily walked through the house, calling, “Llyfyr!” There was no sign of her girlfriend in the bedroom or the living room, though she found a volume of poetry on the living room floor, pages splayed open. That was odd. Llyfyr was usually gentle with books. Emily tried not to worry. Sometimes Llyfyr took on a more human-looking guise and went on walks, but she usually left a note (her handwriting was exactly the same as the typeface that filled her in book form). She’d probably expected to be back before Emily got home, that was all, but—

“Are you Emily Yuan?”

Emily spun around. The armchair in the corner was occupied by a woman—no, she was Folk, her ears pointed and her smile revealing sharp teeth—dressed in black. Her long dark hair seemed to sparkle, as if stars were caught in the shadowy waves. She looked like a theatrical pirate, right down to the cutlass resting across her knees.

Emily resisted the urge to back up a step. As a rule, the Folk scorned the fearful. “Who are you?”

“I’m Sela. We have a mutual friend who needs our help. Mellifera?”

“I’m . . . not sure she’s my friend.”

Sela chuckled. “Nor mine, really, but we’ve known each other for a long time. Mellifera recruited you, though, to run her library?”

“I don’t know what you’re doing here—”

“I’m here to help you get your precious library back, but if you’d rather return to your mortal life—” She began to rise.

Emily held up her hands. “Fine, yes, Mellifera hired me. Over two years ago now.”

“Why did she pick you?”

“I’d just been fired from my job at a university library because of budget cuts, and I was in the train station with a box of all my personal items from work, waiting to go home, when I saw a woman sitting on the edge of the platform, her legs dangling over the tracks. She seemed upset, so I asked her if she was all right, and shared a chocolate bar I’d had in my desk. That was Mellifera. The next day I got a job offer . . . and found out magic was real.”

Sela nodded. “If you show one of the Folk kindness without motive, you will receive kindness in return.”

Emily bristled. “I didn’t get the job just because I was nice. I’m qualified, and I’ve totally transformed the collection. It’s almost entirely catalogued. We’re digitizing and preserving—”

“Peace, mortal. I never meant to impugn your skills. Mellifera is practical, and I’m sure you’re good at your job. I was just curious how a mortal came to hold such a position, and, I confess, I hoped that she’d hired you because you had some deep knowledge of magic.”

“I mean, I know what I’ve read, and been told. . . .”

“Yes. Well. Mellifera is in danger, Emily—”

“Mellifera is the danger! The library was closed by her order.” Mellifera had always been aloof and superior, and was terrible to behold in anger, but she’d always shown Emily a measure of respect and even distant affection. To take away Emily’s job, what she’d expected to be her life’s work, without even a conversation, was immeasurably cruel.

Sela shook her head. “Not of her own free will. Mellifera is not herself, but you might be able to help me fix that, even if you aren’t a sorcerer. I understand that as librarian you have been granted certain powers? That you can summon books?”

Emily nodded. “Yes. The archive is vast, and as part of the cataloguing magic, I can call any volume in the collection to my hand.” She touched the necklace around her throat, where an enchanted pewter charm in the shape of a book dangled.

“Excellent. I need you to call up a volume of poetry called Murmured Under the Moon.”

“Who’s the author?”

“Mellifera.”

“Really?” Emily closed her eyes, murmured the incantation, and held out her hands. No book appeared.

“A shame.” Sela stood, sheathing her cutlass at her belt. “Mellifera’s soldier must have disenchanted your necklace before he shoved you off the island.”

“Wait!” Emily thought of a book at random—one of the volumes from the Subterranean Warfare section, Under Hill and Kill and Kill, a firsthand account of something called the Battle of Fallen Barrow. The hardbound book appeared in the air and dropped a few inches into her waiting hands, and she brandished it. “See? The magic works. I couldn’t call that other book because it was never part of the collection. I’ve never heard of a book like that. I had no idea Mellifera was a writer. I only have a score of books authored by your kind.”