Librarian of the Void

4 Welcome to the Spectral Library

The book slam echoed through the hall.

Leo flinched so hard that his shoulder hit the shelf beside him. Dust rolled from the upper stacks. The floating black card stopped moving, hanging in the middle of the narrow path with the word Threadstep glowing across it.

Then the sound faded.

Nothing else moved.

Leo waited.

Five seconds passed.

Ten.

"Okay," he whispered. "That was probably normal library behaviour."

The silence did not agree.

He kept his eyes on the corridor and slowly backed toward the Entry Hall. The doorway to the academy library was still behind him, a rectangle of warm yellow light in the distance. It looked safe. It also looked much smaller than it had a minute ago.

The card drifted after him.

Leo stopped.

The card stopped too.

He took one step forward.

It followed.

"You are either a clue or the most annoying bookmark in existence."

The card rotated until its blank side faced him. The word disappeared. A small grey line appeared above it.

[Record fragment: Threadstep]

[Restoration status: 0.00%]

[Investigation status: Incomplete]

The System window hovered in front of his face. Unlike the card, it had no glow or atmosphere. It looked like a normal interface, except it was floating inside a dimension that should not exist.

Leo reached toward the card.

His fingers passed through it.

A cold shock travelled up his arm. He pulled back, and the card flickered like a bad video connection.

The word Threadstep appeared again.

A second line formed below it:

Find the first lie.

Leo stared at the words.

"First lie about what?"

No answer.

Of course.

The System had all the personality of a parking ticket.

He circled the card. It remained in front of him, keeping the same distance no matter which direction he moved. When he walked toward the nearest shelf, it drifted backward. When he turned away, it floated beside his shoulder.

The Library was already acting like it had chosen him.

Leo was not sure he appreciated the confidence.

He returned to the black catalogue on the Entry Hall desk. The metal clasp had not moved. He tried opening it anyway.

[Access denied.]

"I did not even ask for much."

He touched the broken key beside it.

[Object classification unavailable.]

The dried thread.

[Object classification unavailable.]

The white stone.

[Object classification unavailable.]

Leo folded his arms.

The place had invited him inside, given him a mystery, and then refused to explain the furniture. It was beginning to feel less like a magical library and more like a badly managed escape room.

He looked back at the card.

"Find the first lie," he repeated.

If the card was connected to a skill, the lie was probably in the skill’s history. That meant the academy records might contain the answer. The normal library had books, databases, old reports, and Professor Ruth’s locked drawers. He had access to some of those things.

He also had no permission to investigate any of them.

That had never stopped him before, but usually the consequences were limited to a disappointed supervisor.

Leo approached the shelf labelled **Inherited Combat Forms**. The books had no titles, but when he ran a finger along their spines, thin words appeared and vanished too quickly to read.

One book stayed lit.

Its cover was dark red, and a silver line crossed it from one corner to the other. The line looked like the thread on the corrupted book.

Leo pulled it out.

The Library shook.

Every lamp in the hall flickered.

[Warning: Restricted shelf access unavailable.]

[Required objective incomplete.]

[Current investigation: Threadstep]

The book remained halfway out.

Leo pushed it back immediately.

'Great. It has consequences even when I do the responsible thing,' he thought.

A sound came from the high shelves.

Not a slam this time.

A page turning.

Then another.

Then hundreds.

The entire Library began turning pages by itself.

The sound moved around Leo in circles, beginning close to his left ear and travelling through the stacks. He could not see the books moving, but he could hear them. The noise grew louder until his teeth started to ache.

The black card dropped to the floor.

The grey book on the restricted shelf opened.

Its pages were blank.

Red marks slowly appeared across them. They formed lines, then symbols, then the rough shape of a person running through a doorway.

The image lasted for one second.

A second figure appeared behind it.

The first figure fell.

The page tore itself down the middle.

The turning stopped.

Leo’s stomach tightened.

He knew the image had been a record, but records were not supposed to feel like memories. He had seen old dungeon footage before. Monsters, collapsed buildings, panicked Hunters. This had felt different. Whoever had created the book had tried to preserve something and failed.

The System displayed another notification.

[Corrupted record identified.]

[Record type: Skill inheritance history]

[Name: Threadstep]

[Owner: Unrecognised]

[Primary contradiction: The owner is listed as deceased before the skill was recorded.]

Leo frowned.

That did not make sense.

If the owner had died before the skill was recorded, who had used it? Why was there an inheritance history? And why did the Library call the record corrupted instead of simply incorrect?

The black card rose from the floor.

The word Threadstep vanished one letter at a time until only T remained.

Then the card folded itself in half.

It became a narrow strip of black paper and slid through the gap between two shelves.

Leo followed it.

The gap should have been too narrow for a person, but the shelves moved apart when he approached. Behind them was a short corridor that had not existed before.

At the end stood a single grey door.

There was no handle.

A thin line of writing crossed the middle:

Return when you know where the lie began.

Leo touched the door.

It felt warm.

That was somehow worse than being cold.

His class window opened over the wood.

[Initial investigation suspended.]

[Return condition: Present a recognised record connected to Threadstep.]

[Recommended location: Academy library.]

[Entry status: Temporary access only]

The doorway to the normal library brightened behind him.

Leo looked at the endless shelves around him. He had entered because the doorway had appeared, not because he had a plan. There was no teacher, no security team, and no emergency button. If the Library decided to lock him inside, he had no idea whether anybody in the real world would even notice.

That thought made the normal library feel very far away.

Leo looked at the grey door, then at the exit.

For once, the choice was easy.

He had no weapon, no combat skill, no idea how far the Library extended, and no guarantee that the exit would remain open. Exploring deeper would be stupid.

Leo walked back.

The black strip of paper followed him like a silent accusation.

When he crossed the threshold, the smell of old rain disappeared. Warm air returned. The academy shelves filled his vision again. The doorway closed behind him without a sound.

The card was gone.

The library clock showed twelve fifteen.

Only fifteen minutes had passed.

Leo looked at the ordinary shelves around him.

Every book was exactly where it had been.

Except for one.

On the floor beside the catalogue was a thin, grey volume that did not belong to the academy’s collection.

Its cover had no title.

But silver thread had been stitched across it in the shape of a crooked line.