The Library of Shadows, page 26
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.
Thirty-Two
Este definitely flunked her midterms.
“No, you didn’t,” Posy said, finally sick of her incessant complaints. It had been two weeks since she chewed through the bottom end of her pencil, scribbled down any archived factoid about the invention of cataloging conventions she could scrape off the recesses of her mind, and turned in every exam half-blank.
Now, Este wrapped her arm through Posy’s as they drifted through a fresh coat of powdery snow on their way toward the Lilith Radcliffe Memorial Library—new name pending. She wrinkled her nose, undoubtedly red from the cold. “I got a D-plus on my history test.”
“Exactly,” Posy said. “The plus makes all the difference.”
Frost glistened on the arched tree limbs bowing together overhead, a silver lining that led them straight to the heart of campus. November’s sun wasn’t strong enough to melt the icicles but it was just enough to make the snow sparkle.
A small crowd had already gathered on the steps of the Lilith, but Este could’ve spotted that head of ink-spill curls from a mile away. Mateo waved one mittened hand when he found her in the distance. Beneath her scarf and sweater, her heart hammered—she’d never get tired of seeing him in the sunlight.
“Has it started?” Este asked as she stepped into place next to him.
“No, not yet. Here,” he said, nudging a coffee into her hand. “Got this for good luck.”
The first sip spread heat down to her toes and quieted her chattering teeth. When she leaned into Mateo, he slid a hand into the back pocket of her jeans. That warmed her up, too.
“It’s like we don’t even exist,” Daveed said, and Luca’s birdsong laughter brought Este back to reality.
The ghosts—well, they weren’t really ghosts anymore—flocked around the Paranormal Investigators. Aoife’s nose was tucked deep inside a wrinkled paperback, as she tried to ignore Arthur’s stream of questions, letting Daveed answer. Luca’s hands were folded inside the new-to-her mink muff she’d found at the vintage store on Main Street during her first off-campus excursion in decades, and her eyes dragged toward Bryony any chance she had. Posy had slipped into the warmth of Shepherd’s arms.
When Mateo’s dormant heart thrummed back to life inside the spire, Este thought at first that she’d imagined it. A desperate hallucination. But then, it happened again and again, and a dusty breath shuddered out of his lungs.
Once the book was destroyed and Lilith fell from power, the trapped souls had been set free. What Este hadn’t anticipated was the tremendous effort it took for a soul to find its way home, but maybe she understood that best of all.
First Mateo, then Luca, Aoife, and Daveed all powered back on, souls reunited with their bodies as if they had never left. The Fade’s touch left silver scars along the dip of Este’s waist and a jagged line across her cheek, but otherwise, the five of them were perfectly whole.
The massive library doors swung open, and the crowd quieted at once. Dr. Kirk smiled as she addressed the crowd: “As the newly appointed head librarian at Radcliffe Prep, it is my honor to welcome you to the Dean Logano Heritage Library to announce the dean’s list for academic honors in our first quarter.”
A grin touched Este’s lips at the sound of her dad’s name, and Mateo moved his hand to her waist, hugging her closer. If her name was on that list, she could keep her job as an archival assistant and actually do what she’d come here for—and this time, she wouldn’t have to worry about the shadows breathing down her back.
Dr. Kirk’s sight landed on Este. “Radcliffe Prep is a place of prestige and powerful history, and while the school has spent the last century upholding its tradition of excellence, I want to encourage all of you to pave your own paths in this world. After all, it’s not about the legacies we are left with—it’s about what we do with them.”
From the pocket of her plaid coat, Dr. Kirk retrieved a tightly wound scroll. She peeled off a thin, red ribbon, and the parchment unfurled. Este couldn’t tell if her hands were shaking from the cold or the adrenaline. Archiving had always been her dad’s dream. She’d come this far—she didn’t want to let her dad down now.
“That being said, I’m pleased to announce Radcliffe Prep’s top performers.” Dr. Kirk taped the list onto the door and disappeared back into the amber warmth of the library.
The crowd didn’t wait.
A tidal surge of rare-books hopefuls flooded the stairs. The thin scratches of ink didn’t register at first, a blur between bobbing heads. Este elbowed to the front of the line and skimmed the list for a familiar four letters, down, down, down.
But when she reached the bottom of the page, she hadn’t found her name.
“Read it again,” Mateo said behind her. He was Velcroed to her back, sturdy in the sea of eager students, a hand firm against her side where her waist had stitched itself back together.
A few cheers went up, excited gasps as her classmates read their names. But it was a short list, and when Este raked through from top to bottom one last time, she wasn’t one of them.
The way she deflated could only be described as a leftover happy-birthday balloon trapped in a ceiling fan: slow, wheezing, and stuck. Life had moved on around it. She pushed out a long, swirling breath and turned back to Mateo, letting the floodgates break around her as others found their place in the program.
“I didn’t make it.”
At the beginning of the semester, that revelation would have sent her into a downward spiral, but she had found her own footing somewhere along the way. She’d waded past the quicksand, and there was solid ground for her to stand on.
“I’m so sorry,” Mateo said, brushing a strand of hair off her shoulder.
“It’s okay, I think,” she said, shaking her head, and she meant it. “I’ve seen enough of the archives for a while.”
“What will you do instead?”
Este chewed on the inside of her cheek. Honestly, she hadn’t considered the possibility of not being able to continue as an archival assistant. For starters: she already knew the job. But Ives had made her the exception, allowing her into the restricted area early—her intentions anything but altruistic in hindsight—and Dr. Kirk had inherited the head librarian position with no obligation to keep Ives’s promises after she vanished.
Reports had circulated about Ives’s sudden disappearance, like so many at Radcliffe before her, but Posy’s first big byline at Sheridan Oaks Daily as a student contributor broke the news on the head librarian’s departure from Radcliffe, claiming she left to reunite with her family.
“Maybe I’ll take an elective on library acquisitions instead. Get some new books on these shelves.” Dr. Kirk was right. It was time to start looking forward instead of back. She slipped her hand into his. On her tiptoes, she whispered, “Come with me.”
“Anywhere,” he said, and for once, it was true.
They darted down the stairs, ignoring the inquisitive looks on her friends’ faces—they’d find out soon enough that she hadn’t made the cut—and crossed the quiet copse of frostbitten trees until they stood outside the Hesper Theater and its fountain. Robin, with his hand outstretched, smiled down on them. The mosaic basin had been drained for winter, and its sculpted, stone tiers were dry, but the base glimmered with copper promises, and Este had one of her own to make.
“You know most people make wishes when the fountain’s turned on,” Mateo said with a laugh. “Did you bring any coins?”
She circled her arms around his waist, reeling him closer. They didn’t need pennies for the kind of wish she wanted. Este nudged her ear against his chest, listening to the steady drum like she had every morning for the last two weeks. He was there, he was whole, and, somehow, he was hers.
“Did you know a kiss at the Hesper Fountain is supposed to mean your love will last forever?” she asked, tilting her head back to meet his gaze.
He hummed. “And do you believe that?”
Este smiled when she said yes. She kissed him, warm and sweet and soft, and she’d keep kissing him until their hair grayed, until their skin wrinkled, until dust gathered on the bookshelves. Eventually, they’d become nothing more than sun-faded ink, a final line in her favorite story, one she was no longer afraid to write.
Acknowledgments
When I was a kid, I’d ask my mom to drop me off at the library so that I could spend all afternoon getting lost in the stacks, carrying around a pile of books half my size and daydreaming about seeing my name on those shelves. This is the book that makes that possible. So, thank you, Este and Mateo, for meeting me in the library.
Thank you to my agent, Claire Friedman, for not only enduring but encouraging even the wildest of my ideas. You make it feel like the sky’s the limit, and you’ve got the ladder. To everyone at InkWell Management who made this possible, thank you, thank you, thank you.
To my editor, Sara Schonfeld, you are a dream to work alongside. I’m fully convinced you have editorial superpowers like X-ray vision that lets you see straight to the bones of a story. And to the entire team at HarperTeen, I couldn’t have imagined I’d ever get so lucky. Thank you for every second spent transforming this book from something that lived inside my Word document into something I can hold with two hands.
To my writing soulmate and pseudo-sister, Kara Kennedy, thank you for always knowing exactly what I’m thinking because you have court-ordered custody of the other half of my brain. This is one hell of a sparkle. Mackenzie Reed, thank you for championing this story from the very first draft. You’re the best alpha pal a girl could have. Phoebe Rowen, you’re the softest place to land and the firmest stronghold in a storm. I can’t believe it’s time to break out those Sharpies. Taylor Gates, thank you for being one of the first people to explore Radcliffe with me. (RIP Ulrich’s gingerbread lattes.) Skyla Arndt and Maria Pawlak, thank you for introducing me to everything I didn’t know that I didn’t know when we started a writing group together in 2020. Without you and Hex Quills, I wouldn’t have known where to begin. To Abby, Alex, Brit, Cassie, Crystal, Darcy, Helena, Holly, Juju, Kahlan, Kalla, Kat, Lindsey, Marina, Olivia, Sam, Shay, and Wajudah: long live Starscream, the prophetic pigeon.
I’m so wordlessly grateful to have been selected for Author Mentor Match and for everything I learned and everyone I met because of it. Jo Fenning and Serena Kaylor, thank you for selecting me as your mentee and helping me peel back the layers so that I could get right to the heart of this story, à la artichoke. This book only exists as a rom-com (a real rom-com) because of you. Meredith Tate, thank you for cheering for this story every step of the way. Barb, Brittany, Brooke, Cat, Hannah, Kate, Kennedy, Kila, Libby, Lindsay, and Morgan, there is no one else I’d rather have in my corner—cheers, DGIAB!
To Kaleigh, who has unflinchingly supported every overly enthusiastic pursuit of my heart since the fifth grade, thank you for bribing me to write with celebratory milkshakes, for sharing in every win and loss like they were your own, and for a lifetime of laughter. And to Taylor, thank you for being my bookstore buddy, my favorite QDOBA date, and my loudest hype-man for the last twenty-three years.
Thank you to my parents, Trey and Linda, for believing in everything I’ve ever written—from picture books and poems to school papers to these pages of my debut novel. Mom, you’ve always been the Crystal to my China, the Connie to my Becca. I’d be lost without you. Dad, your faith in me means more than I can ever say. I promised I’d give it a Trey ending because I know I’ll never live down the Tristan & Isolde fiasco. To the brothers I look up to both figuratively and literally, thank you for being my built-in best friends. Tyler, thank you for letting me use your copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time when we were little so that I could play make-believe in Kokiri Forest. Alex, thank you for all the times you knew I was being ridiculous and didn’t stop me. I love you all more than I could ever describe (and that’s saying a lot, since writing’s kind of my whole schtick).
Of course, to Christopher, I owe a million thank-yous and I-love-yous. You’ve shown me the kind of joyful, selfless, unconditional love I used to think might only be fictional. Without your support and encouragement, it would have been all too easy to give up. If you’ve read this far, you’ll know what I mean when I say I’d kiss you at the Hesper Fountain, and if you skipped to the back to find your name, I’d kiss you anyway.
To everyone who’s no longer with us: yes, you are. I wrote this book on the heels of my grandmother’s passing, and every word is for her.
About the Author
Photo by Chris Ghazel
RACHEL MOORE is a content marketer and writer living in Nashville, Tennessee. She graduated from the University of Evansville with a degree in creative writing, and she has never met a rom-com she didn’t love. On the rare occasion she isn’t writing happy endings, you can find her collecting dictionaries, drinking entirely too much coffee, and drifting through library stacks.
