J. Mitchell - Midnight City

Holt sighed next to her. “What is it with you? Just because he has four legs doesn’t mean he’s a horse.”

“The Max can carry me, he’s strong!”

“I don’t think it’s the best idea right now, Zoey,” Mira replied. “Besides, there aren’t any stairs. We use the lifts.”

Zoey pouted, but didn’t complain further as they all started moving for the opposite end of the cavern, where the platform sat, as well as the work and study area. There was still no sign of movement there, no indication anyone was nearby; there was only the light from a few dozen glimmering candles and lanterns. Still, someone had to have lit them.

“Old man?” Mira yelled as they approached, her voice echoing back and forth amid the stalactites that hung over their heads. There was no response.

“Is that the best idea?” Holt asked.

“The Librarian knew we were here the moment we passed the Shrine,” Mira said. She looked ahead of them and yelled again, “Old man?” They all listened to her voice as it echoed between the walls, unsettlingly loud. But after it died away there was nothing, only silence.

“Amelia said the Librarian protects the Vault,” Holt said, taking in the big, empty cavern with trepidation.

“He’s a teacher, too—he taught me everything I know,” she answered darkly. It was true; she had learned a great deal from him, but there had been a price to pay for that knowledge.

Mira kept moving, growing more uncertain with each step. Did he not recognize her? Or had her reputation in Midnight City tarnished even this relationship, her oldest one in the city? She wasn’t sure, but—

Mira stopped when she heard something. A crackling in the air around her. It was distinctive, metallic and thin, like someone was crinkling giant wads of tinfoil next to them. And because of its distinctiveness, she knew what it was almost immediately. “Get back!” Mira shouted in alarm, trying to drag them back, but it was too late.

The air flashed around them as the Restrictor took effect. Mira felt her limbs, her muscles, her extremities, even her hair, all exponentially increase in weight, and as they did so, her movement gradually slowed down. She struggled against the force building around her, but it was no use. She watched as Holt, Zoey, and even Max froze solid in place, bit by bit, unable to move—even their eyes wouldn’t blink.

Mira had been caught in a Restrictor only one other time, and that had felt like her body was transforming into dense, unyielding stone, until she finally froze completely. It was the same now, but the reality was altogether different. A Restrictor was an artifact combination that continually reversed the force of inertia. The longer it stayed on, the more difficult it became to move, until you just couldn’t move at all. With a strong enough Restrictor, you could probably freeze a Spider walker in place.

They were all trapped now, unable to move, their eyes glued to where they had last been looking before the artifact was activated.

In front of Mira, the air shimmered suddenly and parted like a curtain. A silhouette stepped through and revealed itself, and in a world where youth reigned supreme by virtue of complicated circumstances, the sight of the figure before them was shocking, even for Mira, who had seen him countless times growing up.

She’d never had the gall to ask the Librarian how old he really was, but she was positive it was more than seventy years. His appearance was beyond disheveled. His clothes were a patchwork of pieces from all manner of garments, some of them having been sewn into places that were the opposite of what they came from. Pieces of jeans for shirtsleeves, and coat arms pieced together to make leggings. A pair of eyeglasses hung from his neck by red twine, half from one pair, the other half from another, and taped together to form a complete set. Despite his chaotic appearance, the man had neatly and meticulously trimmed his beard, and it hung down half the length of his wrinkled neck. And, of course, there were his eyes: clear of the Tone. The hazel of his irises sparkled in the candlelight that filled this part of the cavern.

Leather straps like belts crisscrossed his body, and attached to them were a dozen amazingly intricate and beautiful artifact combinations of his own creation. The lights of one of them, near his left shoulder, glowed and flashed in different colors, and Mira guessed it was probably the Restrictor that was holding all of them.

The old man examined each of the four trespassers one at a time without emotion, and then his eyes finally settled on Mira. When they did, his brow furrowed deeply and he fixed her with an irritable gaze.

“If anyone should not be here in this place, Mira Toombs, it is you,” he said in an annoyed voice that sounded like he had swallowed a mouthful of gravel and cut glass. “Explain why I shouldn’t hand you over to your old faction right now. It would be a fitting punishment, the way I see it.”

The Librarian tapped the glowing artifact on his shoulder, and some of the lights on the combination—a mixture of magnets, vials of black metallic shavings, a circuit board, and a strand of interlocking paper clips, all held together by spun silver and gold chain—wavered and died away.

With a groan, Mira collapsed to the ground in a heap, and her entire body ached. It was a normal side effect from being restrained in a Restrictor’s field, and she painfully looked up… and was shocked to see the others—Holt, Zoey, and Max—still frozen in place.

A typical Restrictor simply emitted a single field that slowed down everything it touched. The Librarian, however, had managed to construct a combination that could selectively apply a Restrictor’s effect to multiple and separate targets. It was an amazing achievement, a testament to the Librarian’s reputation as the greatest crafter of artifacts in the world, and her head spun as she tried to figure out the complicated combination of Essences and Focuses necessary to—

“You were asked a question, Mira Toombs,” the Librarian stated with unveiled displeasure. He was not used to being ignored, and it made her face redden the way he spoke to her as if she were still a little girl. “By coming here, you have violated the sanctity of something I long ago taught you to revere.”

“I do revere this place, old man,” Mira said. “Just not the city that holds it.”

The Librarian gazed down at her curiously. “Not a completely uninspired response, to be sure, and one that echoes sentiments I also hold, but it fails to answer the question, doesn’t it? Why are you here ?”

Mira swallowed, thinking through her words carefully. “I need something from the Vault,” she said. “Something that doesn’t belong to me.”

The Librarian frowned. “You aren’t making a very good argument, little one. Why would I allow you to steal from my Vault? Why would I break the oaths I have taken?”

Mira made herself look up at the Librarian forcefully. “You’ve broken them before—don’t pretend you haven’t. It’s me you’re talking to, old man, not some silly acolyte.” She spoke with as much strength as she could muster, and hoped it was enough.

The Librarian stared back evenly… and then smiled. Or at least as much as he could. The only indication Mira had ever attributed to a smile from him was a slight wrinkling of the beard around his cheeks, and that was what he gave her now. “I didn’t say I had never broken them, only that I wanted to know the reasons why I might do so again. Is this about that wretched little creation of yours? The one I warned you against?”

“Yes,” Mira said with shame. “I’m trying to undo that mistake.”

“If you had listened to me in the first place, you wouldn’t have anything to undo, would you?” he said with contempt. “You’re all the same, once you leave here. Arrogant and sure of yourselves. It’s a wonder any of you survive that place.”