AND SHE WAS NOT AN ADVENTURE I FLYNN CARSEN

Through The Looking Glass

Through The Looking Glass

Clara's heels clicked across the floor in a way that was becoming uncomfortably familiar to Flynn. She'd been living in the Library for around three weeks now, the two of them falling into an uneasy routine, with an even more uneasy rapport springing up between them. They largely left each other alone, Clara completing the menial tasks Flynn laid out for her, a list that usually involved cleaning the display cases or dusting the bookshelves, interspersed with random bouts of filing and typing that didn't really fill any purpose beyond keeping Clara occupied.

But Flynn kept up the pretence Clara was contributing towards her keep, because it kept her happy and out of his hair, leaving him to get on with his duties as the Librarian. The Library was lending to the lie, creating enough dust and disorder to ensure Clara didn't have the time to cause any more trouble. The Library cleaned itself, it didn't require Clara's help, but while she was here, it let its standards slip a little. In return, it provided her with all the necessary facilities needed for the average female, Flynn haphazardly providing the rest.

As Clara ran a cloth along the lowest bookshelf, Flynn set down the tome he'd been perusing, his brow furrowing slightly as he watched her work. She seemed content enough, adapting to the bizarre turn her life had taken with apparent ease, but he knew that appearances were deceptive. Clara's character might have been of a pragmatic, practical bent, but whenever he checked in on her during the night, he would hear her crying, her sobs echoing around his office. Sometimes when she thought he couldn't see, she'd lean her forehead against a bookshelf, or her eyes would widen at something he'd say or do, her face taking on a shellshocked expression that she'd swiftly try to conceal.

Sensing his stare, Clara glanced up, her eye catching his. To his surprise, she smiled at him, a small, uncertain smile, but a smile nonetheless. But Flynn didn't smile back, and Clara's smile faded, her lower lip trembling slightly. She turned her back on him, pretending to be engrossed in wiping a mark off the oak wood. Flynn picked up his book again, trying and failing to focus on the page in front of him, the words dancing wildly before his eyes.

"She still here?" Charlene boomed as she strode through the doors, making Flynn start violently.

"Yes, I'm still here," Clara snapped over her shoulder.

"Hello, Clara," Charlene said coldly.

Clara just smiled sarcastically at Charlene before turning her attention back to the bookshelf.

"I didn't know you needed a housemaid," Charlene said to Flynn, nodding at Judson who bowed in his mirror to her.

"I don't need anyone," Flynn retorted, slamming his book down on the desk, ignoring its loud Ow! "But until I work out why the Serpent Brotherhood want to kill Hartley, she has to stay here. It's not safe for her to leave the Library until I do so, and I'm no nearer to working out the answer to that particular puzzle than I was three weeks ago."

"Have they gone to ground?" Charlene asked.

"I think so," Flynn said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb, "whatever it is they're doing, I don't think they intended for me to stumble across their sordid little scheme."

Clara glanced up at Flynn, her jaw tightening slightly. After a lot of emotional blackmail, Flynn had explained a very little about the woman with the dagger; that her name was Lamia and she was connected to an organization called the Serpent Brotherhood. The old Clara would have laughed in his face at this, but not now, not after what had happened, what she had seen.

Other than that, he'd refused to tell her anything else, stating the less she knew, the better. But both of them knew that Clara couldn't live in a state of ignorance forever, cleaning shelves and making cups of tea; that sooner or later reality would return to claim her. Yet she had nowhere else to go. No matter where she went, she wouldn't be safe. She was a marked woman.