Bereft: Demise

57 | Of Fallen Autumn Leaves

I couldn't help the dejected sigh that escaped me as I found myself once more in the library of blank books.

Perhaps it was my own defeatism or a sense of pure desperation that drove me there and had me perusing those long, desolate shelves in the early morning hours before the rest of the manor was awake. My fingers thumped over the empty spines as I selected volumes on a whim.

All were empty. Useless.

The Cassandra's voice filled my head as I walked and listened to the thump of my fingers and the silent shift of the floor beneath my shoed feet. You hold everything you need to save your contemptible little creature.

"That's hardly helpful," I grumbled to nothing, wiping my dusty hands off on my pants. The sleeves of my overlarge sweater sagged past my elbows again and I pushed them up with an agitated shove. "Honestly, I'm relieved I've seen so little of that confusing woman."

I returned to the table I'd claimed as my own and began dismantling the book pyramid I'd built in my boredom. Darius had been back in the manor for three days now, and I'd yet to make any progress in finding the solution to our problem.

Like a bike in the mud, I kept throwing my weight forward and spinning my wheels, but I was getting nowhere. I begged for traction from whatever King or cosmic force would listen—but I was granted nothing. All I saw were fractions of Peroth's haunting memories and the echo of so many voices trying to tell me so many things.

Once broken, you can never truly be whole again.

It's a beautiful thing, really. They make each other strong, they make each other...something else.

You cannot remake what was broken. You must begin anew.

Anew.

"Stupid," I muttered as I slammed a book down atop another, then splayed a hand over the cover as if apologizing. "I'm stupid, and this whole manor is stupid. What, by all that is, is the point of a library without any words?"

Heat spilled across my skin as Darius appeared at my back, his breath scalding against my neck as he spoke into my ear. "To remind you that you know nothing."

"What the hell!" I yelped as I spun and furiously rubbed my neck to dispel the chills. I glared at Darius as the Sin peered down at me, something close to a smirk tilting his lips. "That scared me!"

"I know." He tapped an indolent finger against his breastbone. "I felt it."

I almost mocked him simply because my heart was still racing, but I recalled to whom I was speaking and stifled the urge. Ignoring the heat in my face, I turned my back and resumed collecting the books.

Darius reached past me to snatch one from my grip. I tried to take it back, but he casually tossed it open upon the table.

The pages were filled with words.

Mute, I stared at the printed script of an ancient typewriter and the careful borders inscribed by the writer. "How?" was my solitary, frustrated question.

"You have to ask very nicely." Darius's wry amusement only served to further annoy me as he shut the book and shoved it into my hands. I opened it, and it was empty.

The Sin began walking toward the far end of the library. Abandoning the tomes on the table, I followed him.

"I've read every book stored on these shelves," Darius said with a bored gesture toward the rows we passed. Each aisle was crammed with volumes from floor to ceiling, but Darius spoke with indifference, not exultation, as if he regretted every hour he spent drudging through this trove of words during his long, long life. "Trust me when I say there is nothing here that would help me kill him."