The Librarian of Forgotten Sundays
The Library of Ash and Ink stood at the crossroads of seven deserts, its walls black as a widow’s nails, its windows glazed with the breath of extinct poets. It was said the Librarian had bound her own shadow into the mortar to keep the building standing.
I found her in the Hall of Unwritten Epilogues, where books sighed on their shelves like jilted lovers. Her hair was the color of rust and ruin, braided with strips of vellum inscribed with the names of the damned. She did not look up as I entered, but her lips—painted with crushed lapis—curved around a silent word.
“You’re late,” she said.
“I didn’t know I was expected.”
“All seekers are expected.” She plucked a book from the air—one that hadn’t been there a moment before—and blew dust from its cover. The title slithered under my gaze: The Gospel of the Last Candle → How to Drown in a Teaspoon of Time → Your Death, Illustrated.
“Choose,” she commanded.
“They’re all the same book.”
“All books are the same book,” she replied. “The difference is in what you’re willing to lose to read them.”
I reached out. The moment my fingers brushed the spine, the library dissolved into a chorus of sobbing voices. The Librarian’s laughter was the sound of pages tearing.
“Ah,” she murmured. “You’ve already lost, then.”