"I don't 'weave' glass," Elara said, crossing her arms defensively. She was trying very hard to ignore the fact that a ladder was gently floating past her left shoulder with a feather duster sweeping the shelves of its own accord. "I melt solder. I use glue. I scrape off old backing with a razor blade. I am a restorer."
Silas sighed, a sound that conveyed centuries of exasperation. He began to walk down a wide aisle between the towering shelves, gesturing for her to follow.
"You have been weaving your entire life, Elara. You just mistook it for craftsmanship." Silas didn't look back as he walked, his long coat sweeping over the stone floor. "Tell me, when you fix a mirror, do you merely glue it? Or do you feel where the glass wants to go? Do you hear the tension in the crystal before it snaps?"
Elara stopped walking. She felt a cold prickle at the nape of her neck. "How could you possibly know that?" she asked quietly. It was her deepest secret. Ever since she was a child, glass had hummed to her. A high, singing vibration that only she could hear.
Silas paused and turned around. The dim, multicolored light of the memory vials cast sharp shadows across his cheekbones. "Because Glass-Weavers do not merely fix the physical object. They stitch together the metaphysical fabric of the reflection. It's why the mirrors you restore never quite show the world as it is, but as it should be."
He closed the distance between them, stopping just out of arm's reach. He always stopped just out of arm's reach, Elara noticed.
"The Great Glass—the barrier between the Archive and Edinburgh—was woven centuries ago," Silas explained, his voice softening. "But it is cracking. Dark things, anomalies born from forgotten nightmares, are trying to claw their way into the human world. I am the Warden. I can fight them off. But I cannot mend the barrier. My magic is... destructive in nature."
"So you dragged me here against my will."
"I brought you here to prevent an invasion," he corrected smoothly.
"And if I refuse?"
Silas looked away, his jaw tightening. "Then the Great Glass shatters. The memories stored here will flood the human world. It will be an apocalypse of the mind. Total madness."
Elara looked around the impossibly vast library. The sheer weight of the history, the billions of lives condensed into glowing smoke, was staggering. She rubbed her temples, feeling a headache blossoming behind her eyes.
"Okay," she breathed out, a long, shaky exhale. "Okay. Show me this Great Glass. But if I do this, if I actually manage to fix your magical window, you are sending me back. With a substantial fee for my time."
A faint, genuine smile ghosted across Silas's lips, transforming his face entirely. For a brief second, he looked less like a brooding ancient guardian and more like a fiercely handsome, terribly weary young man. "You have my word, Miss Vance. You will be compensated."
He gestured toward a heavy oak door at the end of the aisle. "My quarters are this way. We will begin your training at dawn."
"Training?" Elara echoed, alarmed. "I thought you just wanted me to fix a mirror!"
"You are a Weaver who has been using a butter knife to do the work of a scalpel," Silas said dryly, pushing open the heavy door to reveal a sprawling, fire-lit study filled with velvet armchairs and towering stacks of ancient books. "If you touch the Great Glass as you are now, it will flay your mind open. You need to learn how to control the thread first."
Elara stepped into the study. It smelled of old woodsmoke and bergamot. On the desk, an intricate silver tea set was steaming gently.
She turned to him, feeling a sudden flare of defiance. "You're very bossy for a man who just admitted he desperately needs my help."
Silas paused, pouring two cups of tea. He offered her one, placing it on the edge of the desk rather than handing it to her directly.
"I am pragmatic, Elara," he said softly.
Elara picked up the teacup. Her fingers brushed the saucer, and the cup slipped, tumbling toward the floor.
Instinctively, Silas reached out, his hand snapping forward to catch the porcelain before it shattered. His bare fingers brushed violently against Elara's knuckles.
The reaction was instantaneous and horrifying.
Silas dropped the cup. It shattered against the stone floor. He stumbled back as if he had been struck by lightning, letting out a sharp gasp of agony. He clutched his head, falling to one knee, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as a violent shudder ripped through his entire body.
"Silas!" Elara cried out, stepping forward to help him.
"Don't touch me!" he roared, a sound so feral it stopped her dead in her tracks.
He stayed on the floor for several agonizing seconds, his breathing ragged and harsh. Slowly, the tension left his shoulders. He opened his eyes. They were wide, unfocused, and filled with a profound, crushing sorrow.
He looked at Elara, but he seemed to be looking right through her.
"You were seven," he whispered, his voice hoarse, scraping against the silence of the room. "The hospital room. The steady, terrifying beep of the heart monitor. Your father held your hand, but he wouldn't look at you. He was looking at the flatline."
Elara's blood ran completely cold. The teacup at her feet was forgotten. Her heart pounded against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"How..." she choked out, tears instantly springing to her eyes. "How do you know that?"
Silas pulled himself up, using the edge of the desk. He looked physically ill, sweat beading on his forehead. He refused to meet her gaze.
"I told you my magic was destructive," Silas said, his voice stripped of all its previous authority, leaving only a hollow, echoing grief. "I am the Warden of Memories, Elara. But the curse of my position is that I cannot touch another living soul. If skin meets skin, I do not feel their warmth."
He finally looked up, his grey eyes shining with unshed tears in the firelight.
"I only experience their greatest, most agonizing pain."