The room is split in two.
One side drenched in green, deep and verdant, pulsing slow like a heartbeat. Shelves glow emerald. Books breathe with her light.
The other side burning in purple, crackling, hungry, burning. Flames that aren't flames lick at the wood. Shadows twist and scream.
Between them, Amilla and the half-fuel man stand motionless. Smoke rises from her veil. Just a wisp. Just enough. While his chest heaves. Purple essence drips from his fingers like sweat.
They've been at this for... she's lost count. Rooms have passed beneath them. Shelves have burned and regrown and burned again. The fight moved through walls, through levels, through the infinite maze, but now they have stopped. Only for a moment they have stopped. Here. In this room. In this moment.
"You're good." He laughs wet and broken. "Really good. But there are more of us coming. Dozens. Maybe hundreds." He tilts his head. "You can't handle all of them."
Amilla says nothing.
Her green light doesn't flicker. Doesn't waver.
He waits for a response. For fear. For anything.
She gives him nothing.
Then, quiet and certain, "They won't pass."
He blinks, tilting his head mockingly as he asks, "Oh, and why'd you delude yourself into believing that?"
Her veil lifts just slightly. Just enough for him to see the green burning beneath.
"Because I exist."
The light explodes outward.
Across infinite rooms, through shelves and shadows. In the darkest side of a large room, a golden glow flickers.
The library holds its breath. All that remains is the glow and the silence between the two.
Then a breath. A decision.
Kayden looks at Margo. Through the glasses that are hers and also his. Through the glow. Through everything.
"You won't…" the words come out quiet and uncertain. "…become something unrecognizable, Margo."
His voice doesn't waver, but something behind it does. Something in his grey eyes, in the slight tension at the corner of his mouth, in the way his hands stay perfectly still at his sides.
He's not sure and Margo reads as it's written everywhere on that empty face that isn't giving off emptiness, but uncertainty. The first real uncertainty she's seen in him.
Her lips part. A question. A response. Something tries to come out but the whisperer wiggles and she looks down.
It squirms in her arms, tiny body twisting, wings fluttering against her sleeve. Before she can react, it slips free before slowly drifting upward on unsteady wings, crossing the inches between them.
It lands on Kayden's shoulder.
Settles there like it belongs. Points one tiny hand toward the dark ahead.
Kayden turns, following the gesture. He takes a step. Then another before pausing and looking back.
Margo hasn't moved. Her face is caught between expressions of surprise, confusion and something softer underneath.
He waits. Just for a second. Just long enough before she follows.
As they walk, shelves blur past, endless and indifferent. The whisperer rides Kayden's shoulder, tiny hand occasionally pointing directions only it understands. Margo stays close, just not quite beside him, not quite behind. Somewhere in between.
Minutes pass from soft noises of footsteps and silence before Kayden speaks, "Hey, Margo."
She looks up. The glow from the whisperer catches her glasses as he asks, "You remember Earth, right?"
A pause. The question hangs between them.
"Yeah." She pushes her glasses up. "I mean. Why wont I?"
He nods. Keeps walking.
"Clearly?"
She blinks. "What?"
"Remember it clearly," His grey eyes stay forward. "The way things looked. Felt. Smelled. The people."
Margo's brow furrows. She thinks. Tries to hold onto images of her childhood home, her campus, her parents' faces. They're there. But fuzzy. Like photos left in the sun too long.
"I... I guess?" She shakes her head slightly. "I mean, nobody remembers everything perfectly. Right?"
She makes a small "mhm" sound like she's convincing herself more than him.
Kayden's pace doesn't change. Neither does hers. They keep walking.
"I don't remember," leaves his mouth in a flat voice. Quiet. But underneath it, something else. Something almost like... loss.
Margo's throat moves with a small swallow, involuntarily, before she asks, "You don't remember… anything?"
Her eyebrow lifts, just slightly, just enough. The question hangs between them, lighter than it should be, heavier than it seems.
He shakes his head. Just once.
"Probably deleted them." A pause. "When I changed myself. Got rid of things." Another pause. Longer. "Didn't think I'd want them back."
The whisperer shifts on his shoulder. The glow flickers.
He glances at her. Sideways. Quick. Then forward again while asking, "What was it like? Your life. Before."
Margo walks beside him in silence for a moment. The question sits between them, heavy and strange.
She doesn't know where to start but she decides to let her mouth run.
"It was... fine. Normal." She pushes her glasses up. "Went to school. Had parents who wanted me to do well. Studied a lot." A shrug. "Nothing special."
They keep walking. Shelves pass. The whisperer's glow pulses softly.
"I had friends though." The words come quieter but also quicker. "A few. When everything started falling apart… the war with the chaos that came with shifting the world. My friends wanted to find somewhere safe. Somewhere that made sense." A pause. "The library was showing up in everyone's heads. A place of order. Rules. They decided to go."
Kayden glances at her. Says nothing.
"I went with them." She almost laughs. "Didn't even think about it. They were going, so I went but it made sense afterwards."
The whisperer shifts on Kayden's shoulder.
"We read together. Climbed rooms together. For a while." Her voice thins. "Then one by one they figured out they could leave. Could warp reality. Could do things." Another pause. Longer. "They didn't ask if I wanted to come."
She looks down at her hands. At the palm Kayden healed.
"Just... went. Like I wasn't even there."
The silence stretches with weight.
Kayden keeps walking. So does she.
Neither of them says anything for a long time.
Kayden's voice breaks the silence yet again, "You think they lost themselves?"
Margo's steps falter. Just slightly. Just enough.
The question lands strangely. Not heavy nor light but sharp. Like he's not really asking about them. Like he's asking about something else entirely.
She pushes her glasses up. Buys time.
"I…" Her brow furrows. Her lips press together from thinking, really thinking, for the first time about those faces she hasn't seen in so long.
"They changed," The words comes out her mouth slow. Careful. Like she's testing them as she speaks.
"They became different. Not entirely lost… but scary, weird and unrecognizable." A pause. Her fingers curl slightly at her sides. "The way they looked at the library. At me. At everything. Like it was smaller than they remembered. Like they'd outgrown it and didn't know how to say it."
She swallows. Keeps walking.
"Maybe that's the same thing." Quieter. "Maybe changing is losing yourself. Just slow enough you don't notice until you're gone."
Her eyes stay forward. Fixed on the dark ahead.
Kayden says nothing.
They walk.
Her eyes stay forward. Fixed on the dark ahead.
Kayden says nothing.
They walk as shelves blur past in endless repetition of brown and gold and shadow, all the same, all different, all library. The whisperer's glow pulses soft and steady against Kayden's shoulder, a tiny heartbeat of light in the infinite dark. Margo's footsteps are quiet beside him. Not quite together. Not quite apart.
Minutes pass. Or hours. Time doesn't work here.
Then the whisperer stops.
Its tiny hand lifts. Points. One book among thousands. Unremarkable. Ordinary. A spine like any other in an endless row.
Kayden stops.
Margo stops beside him.
He reaches out, pulling the book from the shelf.
The moment his fingers touch it, something shifts. The air thickens. The glow from the whisperer flickers once and twice before it steadies, brighter than before.
The cover of the book is smooth and cool, almost warm, almost alive. It seems to breathe beneath his palm. Blue and black swirl across its surface in patterns that crawl at the edge of vision, geometric and organic at once, designs that make the eyes want to slide away. They move when he isn't looking directly at them. They wait when he does.
A title sits at the center. Stark. Simple. Unavoidable.
"MACHINE"
Kayden stares at it. His face doesn't change. It barely ever does. But his fingers tighten on the cover.
The whisperer's glow pulses against his cheek. Warm. Insistent.
He doesn't open it yet. Just holds it. Weighs it. Thinks.
The title stares back at him.
Margo watches. Her breath catches just slightly, just enough. She knows what that word means. She's read about it. Feared it. And now he's holding it in his hands like it's just another book.
The library holds its breath around them.
Kayden's thumb traces the edge of the cover. Once and twice. He doesn't look at her. Doesn't need to.
"So," he says quietly, "this is what we are here for."
He then opens the book. Boldly. Letting a light explode outwards.
Not gradually. Not warning. Just white. Pure and absolute and violent, a flashbang pressed directly against his face. The library vanishes. Margo vanishes. The whisperer's glow vanishes. Everything vanishes from sight into just pain. Just too much.
He flies backward. Hits the floor. Rolls. Scrambles back blind toward the nearest shelf, palms scraping wood, fingers finding purchase. He pulls himself up, barely sitting. Presses his back against the books. His eyes are closed and won't open. Won't stop burning.
"Kayden!"
Margo's voice. Distant. Muffled. She saw the edge of it, the flash that came, but she looked away just in time. Her eyes sting but she can see.
He can't.
She's beside him in seconds. Dropping to her knees. Hands hovering, not touching, afraid to touch.
"Kayden…your eyes!—are you okay?!"
"I can't see." The words come flat. Calm. Like he's reporting weather.
Her breath catches. Her hands find his face gently, so gently, cupping his cheeks, tilting his head toward what little light remains. Taking off the glasses, she stares into his eyes.
The grey is wrong. Darker. Duller. Like someone turned down the brightness on his soul.
His pupils don't move. Don't track. Don't see.
"Oh no." Her voice almost cracks. "Oh no no no—"
She freezes.
His voice. Still flat. Still calm. Like he's not blind. Like he's not leaning against a shelf in an infinite library with a book that just tried to erase him.
"Kayden, you can't see."
"I know."
She stares at him. At the empty eyes. At the face that won't show fear even now.
"I'll be fine." A pause. ""Don't worry."
Her hands are still on his face. She doesn't move them. Doesn't know if she can.
The whisperer's glow flickers weakly nearby.
"Margo,"
His voice shifts just slightly. Just enough.
"I need you to do something."
She blinks and asks, "What?"
"Close your eyes. Cover them." A pause. "Don't look… anywhere. No matter what."
She stares at him. At the empty grey eyes that can't stare back.
"Kayden—"
"Just do it."
Slowly but hesitantly, her hands leave his face. She shifts back just an inch. Just enough.
Kayden turns. His blind hands search until they find the book, lying on the floor where it fell, closed now, innocent. He picks it up. Holds it in his pale fingers, close to his pale face.
Margo looks away. Presses her palms against her eyes. Squeezes shut.
Silence.
Kayden stares at the cover or doesn't because of the blind situation. Blue and black swirls. The word MACHINE staring back.
"Not bad." His voice is quiet. Flat. "The lock. It defends itself."
A pause before a layered voice answers from behind his eye, not laughing, not mocking. Something else. Something ready.
"It does."
R.K.T.
Kayden's right eye pulses red, from dull grey to red. Slow at first. Then deeper. Then hungry.
"Together?" R.K.T. asks.
Kayden's lips don't move. But something behind them, somewhere in that vast empty cathedral, answers.
"Together, yes."
The red light spreads. Engulfs his eye. His temple. The side of his face.
He opens the book and as the red light crashes with the white, he only feels holding a book that has already tried to blind him and something behind his eye that refuses to let that stand.
Sharp red, hungry and alive, teeth bared against solid white, ancient and patient and absolute. They war like mad things.
They tear at each other across the space between his hands, across his skin, across the pages that should hold words but only seems to hold blinding light.
The library vanishes.
Just gone. Shelves disappear. Books dissolve. Margo, the whisperer, the golden glow—all of it swallowed by the collision.
There is only light. Crimson and white. Fighting.
Then he feels words.
Not on the page. He isn't reading them. They're inside him. Pressing against his skull from somewhere deeper than thoughts, somewhere older than memory. Flickers of meaning. Flashes of something almost understood.
The words come and fade, come and fade, slipping through fingers that aren't there.
He tries to hold onto them but they just disappear from his memory.
Unable to catch the words he feels, he hopes something more ancient holds them for him.
He reaches for his left eye slowly but his fingers find nothing.
No socket beneath them. No cheek. No brow. Just absence. The kind that doesn't hurt because there's nothing there to hurt. The kind that swallows questions whole.
But he lets himself wonder if his hand is even there to begin with or he just believes he's moving something that doesn't exist to touch something that doesn't exist.
He should panic. He knows this. Some part of him does panic. Maybe the part that's still sixteen, still somewhere there screams that this is wrong.
But why should he remember something he made himself forget? Memories are messy truly.
Faces don't vanish. People don't reach for themselves and find nothing.
Then, a pull.
High speed. Everything rushing backward. The lights tear away from each other, crimson retreating into his eye, white folding back into the book. The library rewinds around him, shelves snapping into place, books returning to their spines, the golden glow reigniting somewhere behind.
He feels himself moving through it all. Not his body but just his awareness.
Tumbling end over end through the space between moments, through the gap between almost-knowing and being-here.
He gasps. Air fills lungs he forgot he had. Then, he blinks.
He's exactly where he was. He hears Margo's breath beside him, the floor beneath him, the shelf behind him as he presses back against it and he also feels the familiar temperature of the library.
Then his right eye burns.
Red light floods back in, brighter than before, deeper, furious.
It spills from his eye like blood from a wound, painting the shelves beside him in crimson. His fingers grip the book tighter. His jaw clenches.
R.K.T.'s voice comes from inside. Layered. Exhausted. Fascinated.
"That book…" A pause. "It tried to take away everything. Every word. Every flicker. But I caught somethings before they burned from my memories."
Kayden waits. His blind eyes stare at nothing.
"The machine imagined everything as fiction." R.K.T.'s voice strains. "Every domain. Every being. Every flicker of what is. All of it as fiction."
A pulse of red light.
"From that thought, the higher dimension was born. A place that sees all below as story. Something to be written. Rewritten. Controlled."
Another pulse. Stronger.
"But the imagining didn't stop." A pause. Followed by a layered chuckle of amusement. "It spiraled up and up… creating infinite layers. Each seeing the one below as fiction. Each unaware of the one above."
Kayden's left eye twitches. Just slightly.
The red light flickers. R.K.T. sounds almost speculative now hungry with thoughts.
"The library... is a very tasty, juicy storage for information. I bet that machine loves that for all its imaginings in its own blind way." Another pause. "I think—I speculate—the machine uses this place. Feeds on it. Information to boost its imagination. Fuel for the spiral. For everything it… does."
Kayden's breathing doesn't change.
"Which means…" R.K.T.'s voice drops. "This place isn't just storage. It's a pathway. A connection. A door."
The red light pulses one last time and a laughter cracks across everything in Kayden's head.
"Ohh, I'm just saying maybe! I had fun seeing, learning and speculating, little nothing." Pause. Quieter. "You taste the rest."
Once R.K.T. goes quiet, Kayden's vision returns.
Not gradually. Not gently. Just there now. The shelves. The books. The golden glow. Margo's face, still hidden behind her hands.
His eyes are grey again. But different. Thinking. He blinks once. Twice.
Looks at the book in his hands. Closed. Innocent. Heavy with meaning.
Then he feels it. A warmth against his side. It is a weight with presence that was there before but he was too blind, too lost, too somewhere else to notice.
Margo is leaning on him just slightly.
Not just hiding her face anymore. Not just waiting. But learning. Shoulder pressed against his arm. Small and quiet and there in a way that makes something in his chest pull taut.
He should have noticed sooner. He really feels stupid for not noticing sooner.
"Kay?" Her voice. Muffled. Nervous.
"Can I look now?"
He blinks. Processes. Files away the fact that she just called him something no one has ever called him before. Kay.
Not Kayden. Just Kay. Like he's someone who deserves shortening. Like he's someone worth nicknames. But he tries to file it away, saying nothing.
"Yeah," he says and she lowers her hands. Blinks in the golden glow. Her eyes find his face to check.
Then her hand moves.
Slow. Curious. Her fingers find his coat, the Parisian one, the one that appeared on him when they entered that frozen city, the one he refused to take off even after leaving that domain. Her fingers trace the fabric, pausing at something.
A shape. In his pocket. Bulky and solid.
She reaches in hesitantly. Her knuckles brush his side as she withdraws something wrapped in dark paper, folded neatly, tied with a thin gold thread. Not a rectangle. A package. Intentional.
She holds it in her palms. Turns it over.
"It's…" She looks at him. Confusion. "What is this?"
Kayden looks at it. Doesn't recognize it at all.
"I didn't put that there."
Margo's brow furrows. Her fingers find the gold thread. Pull. It comes loose easily, like it was waiting.
The paper falls away, a chocolate bar reveals itself. Small. Elegant. Dark brown wrapped in gold foil, catching the whisperer's glow and throwing it back warm. The kind of chocolate that belongs in old photographs and expensive shops that crumbled when the world did.
Margo stares at it. Kayden stares at it.
"It's…" She turns it over in her hands. Reads something on the foil. "Chocolate."
"Yeah."
She looks at him. Confusion, yes. But something else underneath, something softer as she asks, "You have chocolate in your pocket and forgot about it?"
Kayden's brow furrows. Just slightly. He's asking himself the same thing. He tilts his head up, leans back on the shelves behind him more as his hands reaches up to rub his chin thoughtfully.
"Oh, me and the person I'm working with I guess," He pauses. Then continues, "We found ourselves in Paris once. It wasn't the real one."
Then he remembers more clearly so he turns to look at her, "It was a domain with its own rules. It automatically dressed us to look like we belong there but also dressed us accordingly with our taste."
Margo tilts her head and pushes her glasses. Seeing that, Kayden pushes his own glasses.
She says, "I read some books about those types of domain."
He nods and looks away, "I really didn't realize it was this accurate."
Margo looks at the chocolate again. Turns it over and reads the elegant gold lettering. Then she glances at him, before holding it out to him.
He doesn't take it. So, she breaks the chocolate in half, making a soft snapping noise. Almost delicate.
She holds one piece out to him, her fingers brushing his sleeve.
Kayden stares at the chocolate in her hand and then at her face. Then back at the chocolate again.
He takes it. He doesn't eat it immediately. He just holds it, turning it over, watching the whisperer's glow catch on the foil.
Margo waits.
After a moment, she bites into her own half. Small. Quiet.
He watches her chew.
Then he eats his.
The chocolate melts into dark, bittersweet, something close to warmth spreading across his tongue.
He doesn't react. Doesn't close his eyes. Doesn't say anything. But something behind his grey eyes shifts. Just barely.
They sit in silence.
The whisperer watches from his shoulder. The golden glow pulses softly. Somewhere distant, shelves breathe.
Minutes pass. Or hours. Time doesn't work here.
Then Kayden says, "Where would you go?"
Margo looks at him. Swallows.
Kayden glances at her, deciding it'd be better to ask looking at her.
"If the library... wasn't here anymore."
He lets his words hang in the air for a bit. While she blinks. Her fingers tighten around the remaining chocolate.
"I mean—" He pauses. His grey eyes stay forward, fixed on nothing. "When it's gone. Where would you go?"
The question hangs between them.
Margo doesn't answer right away. She looks down at her hands. At the chocolate. At the floor.
Then she awkwardly pushes her glasses, and so does Kayden with his.
Then, quietly, "I don't know."
Kayden nods. Just once. Then continues, "But, you have thought about it, haven't you? You read books about domains, and everything that is out there."
He pauses and then adds, "You didn't forget."
Margo nods, eyes lifting away from him and then gently touches her own lips, thinking as she says, "Maybe, a domain… a beautiful one,"
She pauses and looks at him, asking, "But, why are you asking this?"
Kayden looks down at the floor as he looks for words on how to explain.
"I have a feeling…"
Margo tilts her head.
Kayden continues, "The library… you said that it has rules and an end, but no one reached the end, right?"
Margo pushes her glasses and nods.
"Unless… you joined and then it changed, making it impossible," he says, eyes fixated on the shelves ahead.
Margo only stares, glasses gently reflecting the whisperer's glow.
"R.K.T… it already said that the library is a storage for The Machine, meaning it was touched at some point, don't you think?"
Margo's face only fills up with confusion and she looks away, thinking to herself, quietly saying, "Whatever this machine is… it changed the library?"
"Yes," he confirms. Then he pushes his glasses and glances at her before continuing, "Yes, and whatever it touches, spirals out of limit. Limitless. It saw everything as fiction and the dimensions spiraled into infinity. It even touched people and made them self-sustaining, absolute beings."
Margo looks at him. She swallows and asks, "The library is infinite you mean?"
Kayden nods and sighs, looking away, then looking up at the ceiling of the library room that's way above. He took in the vast room they are in, realizing how small they are, or rather how large the room is.
He then quietly says, "You know, Margo… I have chosen a path in which I have to examine every step."
Margo looks at him. Then, he looks at her.
"You see, there is a thing living inside my eyes that scared you earlier," He tilts his head and adds, "It was once a human, but it was touched by the machine, it turned into an absolute, self-sustaining entity,"
Margo's gaze trickles between nervousness and awe. He knows she is confused and might be afraid of him, or his eye.
"My path led me to the entity and then us to here. I believe it is a significant part of this."
Margo doesn't know what to say so she nods and nervously pushes her glasses.
"Hey, Margo, do you think if I sever the connection between the machine and the library, the library would become finite again?"
Margo takes a second to answer, touching her lips and then saying, "Maybe."
She then sighs and looks away, saying in a quieter tone, "But, how'd you sever?"
Kayden looks down at his own palm, thinking. He then says, "Severing might lead to chaos. What if the library collapses?"
Margo tilts her head and looks at him again. Then, she asks, "Is that why you asked where I'd go if the library was gone?"
Kayden gently touches his own face, covering mouth with his palm, then he asks, glancing at her, "Where would you go?"
"I don't know. I won't go anywhere. If I create a domain, I would become a queen or whatever. If I choose to float, I would become a corpse with a soul. There is nowhere. Nowhere except here."
Margo says, slightly in an abrupt tone. Kayden drops his hand from his mouth and asks, "What if you recreated the library?"
Margo stares at him. Then, she laughs. Not a happy one, a sharp one.
The kind that comes out when a question hits somewhere tender.
"You want me to recreate the library?"
She pushes her glasses up, harder than before, almost shoving them.
"The library? This place?"
Her voice rises. Just slightly. Just enough.
"I can't just—" She stops, biting her lip and looking away.
She won't look at him.
Kayden watches her. The way her fingers curl around the chocolate. The way her shoulders pull in, small, like she's trying to take up less space.
He understands.
Not because she explained it. Because she didn't. Because the thought of building her own world—her own domain, her own rules, her own control—made her recoil like it was poison.
She's been here all this time. Alone. Afraid. Surrounded by shelves she didn't build, rules she didn't make, an infinity she never asked for.
And somehow, that's safer than having her own.
Because if she built something, if she chose a world, shaped it, owned it, then what would be left of her? Would she still be Margo? Or just the girl who built a pretty cage, became someone else and called it freedom?
He drops the question.
"I understand," he says quietly.
His mind settles into thoughts. He really sees her. Really sees. She needs certainty that she is herself.
That the girl who walked into this library, being scared, uncertain, desperate for somewhere safe, still exists. That all those years of reading, hiding, waiting didn't turn her into someone else.
The library is safe because it happened to her. Not by her. She didn't build it. Didn't choose it. So it can't change her.
But if it falls… if all of it collapses, and she will need to make something for herself, she'd need something to hold onto or hold her.
As much as he wants to believe in solitude and self-preservation, he knows that even the self is not loyal.
In that case, she needs someone to witness her. Someone to remember who she was before she had to become something else. Someone to look at her and say you are still you.
The realization hits Kayden like a wall.
Not a thought. Not a deduction. A shockwave, rippling through his chest, through that vast empty cathedral, through every locked room he thought he had sealed shut.
He could be that.
He could be the one who stays. The one who watches. The one who reminds her, every day, that she's still Margo.
He wants to be that, or doesn't.
He wishes his assumptions on her are all wrong. What price is he going to have to pay if he turns out to be right?
He's a soul who manufactured himself to believe want is death. To have such a thesis, is to choose how to be with someone. Choosing becomes a declaration of desire.
Kayden sighs and pushes his glasses, then slowly he reaches for "The Machine" book, holding it up and looking at it.
Then, quietly he says, "Margo, I'm going to implement my theory and I firmly believe the entity inside me is the key."
Margo stares, her expression gives away her uncertainty, and then comes her voice, "A theory is… just a gamble,"
Kayden nods and replies, "The library becomes finite and maybe we get to exit it… and my supposed mission completes… or the library gets destroyed, and I don't know what happens next after that."
Margo only nods and looks at her own palm, then she speaks, "Either those two… or nothing happens."
She pauses. Waits. Then, she adds, "It's all of this for me or nothing,"
She says as she looks up, her expression unreadable but her mind is all over the place.
"It is ridiculous. This boy is ridiculous. He really makes it hard for me."
Kayden stares at the book in his hand and without looking at her, he says, "Margo, if anything happens, I'd make it up for you. I promise. I would not lose you for my mistake, nor would you lose yourself in this."
Margo glances at him, something new in her expression he fails to tell. He looks at her for a second, only to look back at the book quickly.
He takes a deep breath and whispers, "Caravelle led to this, it led to the one inside me too. This is the only way I can imagine."
His right eye flickers red light before he even utters, "R.K.T."
"Yes?"
"I hope you like the taste of this."
A chuckle, layered.
The red light explodes, flashing so bright, so suddenly, that the room turns crimson for one searing instant. Margo throws her hands over her face, a sharp squeak escaping her. The glow sears through her eyelids, hot and wrong and everywhere.
Then it is gone. The book is gone. Kayden's hand is empty.
He quickly turns to look at Margo but suddenly, the library shudders.
A deep, guttural tremor that rolls through the shelves, through the floor, through the air itself.
Books rattle. Dust falls from above. Somewhere distant, something cracks.
Kayden moves quickly. His hand shoots out, finding Margo's wrist, pulling her up.
The whisperer clings to the back of his neck, tiny fingers digging into his collar, wings pressed flat.
R.K.T.'s laugh echoes through his skull. Through the room. Through everything.
"You did it."
Layered. Amused. Chaotic.
"You actually did it."
Another tremor. Shelves groan.
"Did you think it would be clean? This place has been swollen for who knows how long. Fat with infinity." A pause. The red light behind Kayden's eye pulses like a heartbeat. "And now you've cut the gut. Everything that was meant to be scattered crammed into a space that just remembered it has walls."
Kayden's jaw tightens. He slowly pulls Margo toward the dark. The whisperer holds on.