Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
A bell jingled overhead as Pax swept open the door, and he stood aside for me to enter ahead of him.
Inside, it felt more like a used bookstore than a library. Racks of shelves stretched out from every wall, signs tacked to their ends indicating genres. Books bound in every color lined the shelves—old, cloth-covered hardbacks and worn, dingy paperbacks. There were random couches and seating areas scattered about, and a woman was working the checkout desk in front.
I guessed she was probably in her sixties, and she wore her black hair streaked with gray cropped close to her head.
She recoiled when she lifted her attention from the person she was checking out, so startled she took two steps back and banged into the shelf behind her. I wondered if those reactions would ever cease to sting.
Pax tugged at my elbow, urging me to move. “This way.”
We followed the signs that guided us through the library to the stairs at the far back. They led to a large open loft that overlooked the main floor below. We ascended, and there, the walls were lined with shelves. But in the middle was a bunch of long tables, and against the far wall was a group of four dated computers.
As far as I could tell, there wasn’t anyone else up there. A slow quiet clung to the air, the only sound the distant shuffle and the murmured voices below.
Pax went directly for the back wall. He pulled up an extra chair in front of a computer, and we both sat.
“Do you think these things still actually work?” He seemed more than skeptical when he poked at a key. The screen bloomed to life, though, and he didn’t hesitate to click onto the internet.
One second later, we were looking at a search bar.
We both just stared as uncertainty bristled around us.
“I don’t even know where to start. How to put it into words,” I whispered. How did you give voice to the inconceivable?
“Think the only thing we can do is just go for it,” he responded.
Pax leaned forward and typed in the one word that I’d never had the courage to even speak.
Faydor.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Pax
Disappointment sank like stones to the pit of my stomach.
It was a bunch of fucking gibberish.
Misspellings.
A couple of people with the name.
“Damn it,” I grumbled, and Aria peeked over at me before she reached out and typed Laven.
A bunch of names populated that time. Lots of last names bearing the same title.
My spirit twisted in a bid of hopelessness because, God, I was trying so hard, but I had the sinking sense that we might be grasping for something that wasn’t there.
Determined to find a solution in the middle of obscurity. We’d been sworn to never speak of our time while asleep, but still, we were humans during the day, and I wasn’t sure how, in all of time, those oaths had been kept.
Couldn’t believe that one person hadn’t dished, even though they’d likely have been labeled the same way as Aria had been.
Unstable.
Still, there had to be something.
An answer.
I had to find one.
Aria’s survival was riding on it.
Frustration heaved from her on a weighted exhalation before she deliberated, then leaned in again and let her delicate fingers move over the keys.
Tearsith.
We both were holding our breath as the screen switched, and our eyes quickly scanned the results.
More misspellings leading to other entries. Some board game. A couple of random people.
Not much.
Except there was one tiny image that populated at the bottom of the page. One that stopped both of us in our tracks. The oxygen hitched in our throats, and our hearts picked up a reckless rhythm of disbelief.
Aria glanced at me in a second of stunned wariness before she maneuvered the mouse and clicked on it.
“Oh my God.” A whispered gasp rushed from her, and the air was punching from my lungs.
It was a painting.
A painting of the place we knew. Our sanctuary. A meadow with a stream running through.
People were there, sitting on the green bank among the vingas, wearing the same brown clothing as us when we showed up in Tearsith every night, though it was obvious from their hairstyles the image was dated.
“I can’t believe it.” Aria stretched out a trembling hand and brushed her fingertips across the screen as if she could reach it.
Our truth.
And, for the first time, we had confirmation that it was someone else’s truth, too.
And fuck, I wasn’t sure that this life had ever felt more real than right then. Sitting beside my Nol and seeing this.
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure we were still alone.
“Who’s the artist?” I asked when I turned back, my voice craggy with urgency.
Aria scrolled through the painting’s description.
“Tearsith is a nineteenth-century painting by Abigail Watkins.”
The name was hyperlinked, and Aria clicked on it.