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Reven's fingers were inches from the doll when Levi's voice cut through the silence.
"Father Reven Reposo."
The voice came from above, calm and measured, carrying absolute authority.
Not shouted. Not urgent. Just speaking his full name like a teacher calling a student who'd wandered too close to the edge of a cliff.
But there were no footsteps. No creaking floorboards. No sound of movement at all.
The voice simply existed, filling the bookstore from every direction at once.
Reven's hand froze, hovering in the air above the doll's porcelain face.
Luna's purr stopped abruptly.
"Step away from the doll," Levi said,
"Slowly. Don't touch it."
Reven pulled his hand back as if the air itself had burned him. He took two shaking steps backward, nearly tripping over his own feet.
"Good," Levi continued.
"The therapy room is ready. When you're finished composing yourself, please come upstairs."
Then silence.
Reven stared at his hand, the one that had been reaching for the doll. It trembled violently.
He stopped me. He knew. How did he know?
Luna sat on her shelf, tail swishing twice. Her eyes never left Reven's face, and something in her expression suggested she'd been waiting to see if Levi would intervene or if she'd get to watch the transformation.
The doll still lay on the floor, innocent and terrible, waiting for the next person foolish enough to touch it.
Reven's heart hammered against his broken ribs. Sweat ran down his face in cold rivulets.
He saved me. The librarian saved me from becoming that.
But gratitude was immediately swallowed by deeper terror.
Which means he knows what the doll does. Which means this place, these collections, all of this is intentional.
He slowly turned toward the staircase at the back of the bookstore.
It was a gentle incline, well-lit, with a wooden railing worn smooth by countless hands. The steps looked solid. Safe. They represented conversation, understanding, perhaps answers.
Or they represent a deeper trap.
He lifted one foot toward the first step.
Then stopped.
What if the second floor is where it happens? What if Levi saved me from one fate only to deliver me to another?
He looked back at the shelf full of Victorian dolls, their glass eyes catching the light, their painted smiles forever frozen.
What if he's not a librarian at all? What if he's the curator? The one who decides who gets shelved and who gets to leave?
The calm in Levi's voice suddenly felt inhuman. Too controlled. Too measured. Like someone who'd done this many times before and knew exactly how it would end.
Reven's gaze shifted to the front door.
Freedom was close. Twenty feet. Maybe less.
The brass handle reflected the dim light.
Outside was night. Rain. Fog. But also open air. Movement. The possibility of escape.
The inquisitors might kill me, but at least I'd die as myself.
He glanced at the doll on the floor one more time, then made his decision.
He turned away from the staircase and walked toward the door.
Each step felt like wading through water, his body resisting even as his mind insisted this was the right choice.
Levi saved me once. But I don't know why. I don't know what he wants. The only thing I know for certain is that staying here means surrendering to whatever this place is.
His hand reached for the brass handle.
The moment his fingers touched the metal, his foresight activated.
Not gently. Violently. Like a fishhook sinking into his consciousness and dragging him forward through time.
The vision was already in motion before he could resist.
He saw himself opening the door. Stepping out into the rain. The cold air hitting his face.
The vision felt different from the last one.
This one felt like law.
He watched himself glance back at the bookstore one last time, then turn and run.
Five steps into the street.
Then reality simply ended.
No warning.
One moment he was running. The next, his knees buckled.
His body collapsed forward, momentum carrying him into the cobblestones. His skull struck the threshold of the bookstore door with a sound like breaking pottery.
Blood spread across the wet stones in a dark pool, mixing with rainwater.
He was dead before his body finished falling.
The vision didn't end.
Reven's perspective shifted, rising above his corpse like smoke. He had no body now. No mouth to scream with. No voice to call for help.
Just awareness.
Pure, helpless awareness.
He watched his own body lying broken in the doorway, rain washing blood down the street. He tried to move, to reach toward himself, but he had no hands. No form.
Then he noticed the cat.
Luna sat outside the bookstore, perfectly dry despite the rain. She'd been there the entire time.
She looked up at his hovering consciousness with those eyes and smiled.
Not with her mouth. Cats couldn't smile like that. But her presence conveyed amusement, satisfaction, confirmation that everything had gone exactly as expected.
Reven understood with crystalline clarity: he was dead. His body was broken. His soul was untethered.
And Luna was still watching.
Reality snapped back.
Reven gasped and jerked his hand away from the door handle. He stumbled backward, nearly tripping, and caught himself against a bookshelf.
He was alive.
Still inside the bookstore.
Still breathing.
That wasn't metaphor. That wasn't warning. That was certainty.
Morvexis had given him many visions over the years. Warnings of danger. Glimpses of possible futures. But those had always felt conditional.
This was different.
This was law.
Divine certainty delivered with the absolute authority of his god, even in absence. If he walked through that door, he would die. Not might die. Would die. As surely as the sun would rise.
The choice had never been real.
Reven turned slowly, looking back at the bookstore.
The shelves no longer creaked. The books had stopped their whispers entirely. Even the air felt different, heavier, like the space itself was holding its breath.
The door behind him felt hostile now, a trap disguised as an exit. The doll on the floor seemed to smile at him, though its painted expression hadn't changed.
And the staircase.
The only path left.
Levi stopped me from touching the doll. But he didn't stop me from approaching the door. He knew I'd see what would happen if I tried to leave.
He's showing me that there's only one path that doesn't end in death or transformation.
The path upward.
Reven's legs trembled as he walked back toward the staircase. Not from injury, though his broken ribs screamed with each step. From the simple, terrible understanding that he had no choice.
The Library had decided.
He glanced once more at the fallen doll.
Still. Silent. Its glass eyes catching the light.
At least upstairs I might get answers.
He placed his foot on the first step.
The wood was solid beneath his weight. The railing smooth and cool under his hand.
He climbed slowly, each step deliberate.
Behind him, Luna sat on her shelf, watching with patient emerald eyes. She licked her paw once, calm and unhurried, as if this outcome had been obvious from the start.
Which, of course, it had.
The Library didn't give choices.
It simply presented paths, some survivable, some not, and watched with quiet interest to see which ones people chose.
Reven reached the top of the stairs.
A door stood before him, slightly ajar, warm light spilling through the gap.
Inside, he could hear the soft clink of teacups being arranged.
Professional. Orderly. Calm.
He pushed the door open and stepped through.
Levi looked up from where he was pouring tea, his expression pleasant and composed, as if he hadn't just saved a man's life with five words spoken from another floor.
"Good," he said, gesturing to one of the chairs. "Please, sit. We have much to discuss."
The door closed softly behind Reven.
Not locked. Not sealed. Just closed.
Because locks were unnecessary when all the exits led to death.
Levi studied him for a moment, his eyes sharp despite the gentle smile on his face. He set down the teapot with careful precision.
"What is this place?" Reven's voice came out hoarse.
Levi handed him a cup of tea. "Sit first. Drink. Then we'll talk about what you are, what you've lost, and what you might become."
Reven took the cup with shaking hands and sat.
The tea was warm and fragrant, and for the first time in three days, he felt something other than terror.
He felt seen.
Levi sat across from him, sipping his own tea with calm deliberation.
"Now then," Levi said.
"Let's begin with the most important question. Father Reven Reposo, last priest of Morvexis, God of Plague. Why do you think your god abandoned you?"
Reven opened his mouth to answer.
And realized with dawning horror that he didn't know.