Forgotten

The boarded up windows of the library should have served as a warning to Merrin, but Zane had been so desperate to get in that he was willing to look past whatever atrocities may have been hiding within. It wasn’t uncommon for Zane to ask Merrin to ‘procure’ certain things for him; there was always a list available if Merrin got bored. What was uncommon was Zane pleading to come along for the journey.
Merrin would always extend the invitation for Zane to join the less daunting jobs he would go on solo. A trip down to the cave when there were no guards on patrol. A sneak into the storerooms between shifts. A small nosy around the nicer houses when their owners were away. Each one was kindly declined but followed by a small question as to whether Merrin could still get him something from wherever it was he ended up.
But today was different.
Ashenport’s library had been closed for a while. The fire had damaged the west wing enough to create structural issues, but not enough to bring any part of it down. Some of the tomes within had reacted to the heat, the protection runes dotted around faltering under the sudden influx of magic.
‘Unsafe’ was the word Drax used when speaking to Clovara about it just a week after the fire. He’d tried to keep his voice down to avoid questions from Merrin and Zane who were busy stealing bites of sweet cinnamon pastries and drinking their warm milk, but Zane had heard despite the effort.
After all, the library was Zane’s favourite place, even more so than sneaking into their parents’ study.
Drax hadn’t seemed certain of it. Sure, the fire had devastated a quarter of the town, the repercussions weren’t something they could ignore, but the library had safeguards in place. All of the runes and magic flowing through the building kept it the perfect environment for the books, including ones that could cool a room if a fire was to break out. Zane had been told by the librarian that there was even a fail-safe to suffocate the flames, sapping the rooms of any and all oxygen if all of the other protections didn’t work. Though none of them really knew enough about magic at the time to question the decision.
The official proclamation was that the library would be condemned. The mixture of magic inside was far too potent for anyone to withstand, even those with an innate magic far above the usual. There was hushed talk amongst the adults about getting someone in to actually look at it, see if and when they’ll ever be able to re-open it.
Twenty years on the library remained closed up.
Heavy chains crossed the door, and all the windows had thick planks nailed across them. There weren’t any guards stationed outside of the library specifically, but there were enough patrolling the area that it was one of the harder places to sneak in to. Merrin had scoped it out before, remembering that the library not only held books, but scrolls and artefacts that were kept locked away in display cases and behind the heavy iron door to the basement.
The only thing that had stopped him before was the magic. It hung in the air, the static crawling up his skin and digging its way into his body to pulsate through his veins. Unlike the other magic he’d come across, this wasn’t something he could just brush off, it stayed with him for days after, his vision swimming whenever he got too close to the building.
He’d told Zane as much the last time he tried, and Merrin had never seen him so hungry for anything before.
‘Are you sure this is safe?’ Merrin asked as he leant against the corner of the building opposite the library.
‘That magic isn’t dangerous,’ Zane said, eyes so wide with excitement that it made Merrin just about ready to throw himself into whatever trap was almost certainly beyond the library’s battered oak door. ‘It’s the protection magic warring with your natural magic. The problem is that there are so many different kinds of protection magic going off at once that it’s struggling to decipher whether your friend or foe. We should be glad we don’t have natural heat like Matthias otherwise it would assume we are a threat.’
‘How do you know this?’ Merrin asked.
‘One of the people who comes into the apothecary is a magi from one of the mainland’s universities. He asked what happened to the library and when I told him he came to check it out, see if those in charge had come to the correct conclusion,’ Zane explained. ‘Then the next time he came in, he told me that if it was really as dangerous as they believed, some simple wooden planks wouldn’t be able to keep the magic contained and we would have another destroyed quarter to deal with. Or not deal with based on their track record.’
‘So, we won’t be pulverised immediately?’
‘It’s unlikely.’ Zane shrugged. ‘Just don’t piss off any tomes to be safe.’
‘How the fuck would I?’ Merrin asked, but Zane just gave him a short smile and nodded to the library in silent question. ‘Okay, yes, we can go in.’
Merrin pushed himself off of the wall and double-checked to make sure there weren’t any guards before crossing the street. The front of the library was off-limits, the guards would immediately be able to tell if someone had been tampering with the planks or chains, but the alleyway down the right side had a small window that Merrin had broken the glass on a few nights ago. No planks had been nailed across it and the glass remained in shards on the floor.
The tingling on his skin was uncomfortable, but not painful, and he made sure Zane was right behind him before hauling himself up onto the window ledge and slipping through the narrow gap. Once inside, he held out a hand to Zane to pull him up.
Despite laying abandoned for twenty years, the library still had the exact same smell as it had the last time Merrin was there. Thick with dust and parchment, the woody ink lingering long after the last words were written.
A soft glow of magic hung in the air, swirling around in sparkling strands as Merrin found his way to the main section of the library. Rows and rows of bookshelves towered up to the ceiling, spanning across the three floors with nothing to separate them. If memory served him right, there was once a ladder that could be rolled across the iron railings in order to reach the higher books. Where that ladder was no was a mystery, likely hidden beneath thickets of webs and dust, never to be seen again.
‘Remind me again what we’re looking for?’ Merrin asked, already knowing that he was only here to scope out potential money-makers and hope Zane could tell him what would instantly kill him.
‘Oh, I have a list,’ Zane said, because of course he had a list.
He rummaged in the bag at his waist before pulling out a tightly rolled piece of paper. Pulling off the blue ribbon, he began unravelling the list. And unravelling. And unravelling. How one piece of paper could go on for so long, Merrin had no fucking idea, and he watched in awe as the paper hit the floor, only to continue going.
‘So, anything on here, really,’ Zane said in the same way he would ask Merrin for groceries. ‘I remember seeing most of them at some point. It’s a mix of novels, spell tomes, scrolls, potion recipes, alchemy books, you know, the usual.’
‘Right, and we’re getting these back home how exactly?’ Merrin asked and took the list to skim over.
‘I was hoping those muscles of yours weren’t just for show,’ Zane said and turned to the closest bookshelf.
Merrin could feel the smile on Zane’s face despite not seeing it and sighed. He really should have expected this.
‘Bitch,’ Merrin said but scanned the shelves for any easy grabs.
It didn’t take him long to find one, the glowing titles against the drab wood made reading the peeling spines easier. Unfortunately for him the mystery of the missing ladder would have been ideal to have solved. Five shelves up, too far away from the second-floor balcony to help him up.
Climbing it was.
Merrin kicked off his boots and began to haul himself up. The shelves creaked beneath his weight perched at the edge, but he put his faith in whichever carpenter made them and continued to climb. Not once did Zane question it, he didn’t even turn from the shelves, far too engrossed in reading each and every spine for something interesting.
Cobwebs clung to Merrin’s fingers as he grabbed onto unseen shelves, the dust so thick that it had become greasy against his fingertips. No amount of washing would remove the feeling, and Merrin began thinking of all the ways Zane could pay him back for this. The first being with one of those blackberry tarts from the tearoom opposite the apothecary.