The Library of Shadows

October’s breeze turned bitter as Este followed the sugar maples and their bloodred leaves back to her dormitory. Vespertine Hall was a flurry of motion as evening crept in early over the horizon. Term papers scattered through the air. The coffee maker in the first-floor kitchen gurgled, a caffeine buzz in the making. A boy in a Hawaiian shirt brushed his teeth in one of the doorways, dodging an airborne pair of Doc Martens. Este ducked a few seconds later as the rubber soles hit the shiplap wall next to her.

When she finally reached her floor near the top of the building, her teeth ached from the clench of her jaw. She angled her head high, mouth drawn straight as she stomped into her dorm, slamming the door behind her.

Her bedroom door creaked open, and Mateo’s head popped around the hinges, shoulders swaddled in her duvet. “You’re back!”

She hated how his face illuminated and then how his eyes dimmed, eyebrows cinched, when she didn’t say anything back. Her footfalls were heavy, too loud as she barged into her room, purposefully leaving a generous radius between them. She scooped heaps of laundry off the floor and onto her bed. Sweaters and socks, plaid skirts and ripped jeans.

She growled, “I didn’t ask you to stay.”

That was always how it happened, wasn’t it? One moment, Mateo was a stranger, and the next, she knew all his favorite songs (then, “Somewhere a Voice is Calling” by John McCormack, and now, “Levitating” by Dua Lipa), the sound of his laugh across a crowded room (low and lingering, like thunder on the horizon that sent electricity under her skin), and the way he looked first thing in the morning (curls frayed around the edges and sticking up in odd directions). She hadn’t asked him to come in, to make a space for himself in her heart.

“Technically true, I suppose,” he hummed, still feigning a smile. “What are you doing?”

“Packing.” Another heap of clothes tugged from the hangers in her closet. All of it needed to go.

He inched forward. “Why?”

Este didn’t answer. The taste of copper seeped onto her tongue from where she bit into her cheek. She yanked her suitcase out of her closet and shoveled her clothes inside.

Another flash of confusion washed over Mateo’s features. She loathed how easy this was for him—pretending he didn’t know exactly what he was. Seriously, he deserved an Academy Award for this performance.

He asked, “Este, dear, is everything okay?”

“Don’t call me that anymore,” she snarled. “Don’t call me anything anymore.”

His lips thinned into a fine line. “What happened at your meeting?”

Este stalked to the window and twisted the blinds. The last dregs of amber sunlight splashed through her room, and Mateo was caught in the tide. He striped transparent in the angle of the blinds. “You know my dad used to talk about this place all the time,” she said with a hoarse laugh. “Called it the best time of his life. I guess he left out a few key details.”

When her dad spoke of his school days, he’d always worn a far-off look—the same kind Este later recognized glazing her mom’s eyes whenever she spoke of him. The look of something lost. Maybe sepia-toned nostalgia was its own type of haunting. The ache of missing something you could never have again.

“Will you please just tell—” Mateo started, but Este grabbed the drawstring for the blinds and pulled them wide. Beneath the harsh beam, his head vanished. Mateo’s hands found his hips. Even without seeing the frustrated slope of his mouth, she could hear it when he said, “You’re acting incredibly immature right now.”

“I’m acting immature? You’ve been lying to me. This whole time.”

He sidestepped out of the sunshine, coming back into his full form. It didn’t matter how far Vespertine was from the Lilith—somehow he always managed to look fully corporeal in her bedroom. “Este, you know me.”

“I know you’re the Heir.” A callous laugh tore up her throat. “No, it’s worse, actually. Because you told me to my face weeks ago, and I was too naive to see it. That borrowing card—the Fades can’t choose who to sacrifice, only the Heir. And you chose me, didn’t you?”

He’d set his sights on her during orientation, and she hadn’t even realized it. All she’d seen was a ghost, dreaming of a second chance and grieving for the first one he never had. Now the Fade’s touch would scar her skin for the rest of her life, and if she didn’t leave soon, she wouldn’t have much life left at all.

He held his palms upright, a subtle surrender. One Este didn’t believe for a second. “I don’t think you fully understand.”

She cocked her head back, stifling a sob she couldn’t let him see. Her side throbbed in time with her pulse. It was like her wound worsened being around him. Like her side knew he’d caused the pain and rioted in response.

“You think I don’t understand how you framed me so that I’d end up on the night shift? And my first night in the archives when things kept going missing—that was you, wasn’t it? You’ve always known I was the only sacrifice the Fades could take, so you led me right to them.” Everything was hot—her face, her hands, the burning coals of her heart. “Or that I don’t know why you always carry matches in your pocket?”

“I told you. I have those for reading—”

“You started the fire to summon the Fades.” She slipped the sliver of newsprint from her pocket. Radcliffe Legacy Goes up in Flames. “1917, the prodigal son and daughter vanish less than a year after their parents died. No bodies found. Family records destroyed. And all you remember is smoke.”

The comforter fell from Mateo’s shoulders as he stepped forward, but Este dodged right and stepped onto and over her mattress. She wouldn’t let him get close to her—not again. It was all a ruse with him. A foxhunt, and she was the prized kill.

“I’ve waited lifetimes for you, Este Logano.” His voice cracked and so did his porcelain facade, a sliver of something like sadness slipping through. “I promise that it’s not what it seems like.”

A strangled sound snagged in her windpipe. She never thought the Heir would be so spineless. “My dad knew the truth about you.”

A seam split between his eyebrows. He finally took a step away from her, and a relieved breath found Este’s lungs. “I never lied to him, just like I never lied to you. I do need you. We all need your help.”

“Then, tell me you’re not the Heir of Fades.”

“Este—”

“Tell me.”

His shoulders sank, wilting flowers at the end of their season. His time was up. Nothing could stay hidden forever. Mateo’s eyes dipped toward her waist, the damage already done. Este wondered if he could tell the scabs kept chipping off, leaving the skin angry and vulnerable. Not unlike herself. She thought it would’ve healed by now, but the cuts carved into her side were gorges growing deeper every day.

“You aren’t safe here,” he said instead.

She made herself look at him—at the heavy set of his brows, the dimple on his chin, the divot in his sternum beneath a row of buttons where she used to wish she could rest her head. The place where his heart had once beaten.

He grabbed handfuls of his hair in both palms, leaving his curls sticking in mismatched directions. Frustration rippled off him in storm tides, powerful enough to knock Este off balance. She half expected the Fades to appear out of the shadows at his command.

Hollow, she said, “Well, that’s fine because I’m leaving.”

Mateo shoved both hands into his trouser pockets. He stood too rigid. “Good. It’s the only way you’ll be safe.”

“As if you ever cared about that,” she spat.

“You think I care more about this? Take it with you and never come back,” he said as he dragged The Book of Fades off the side table. He dropped the familiar tome with its painted edges on top of her dresser next to a stack of textbooks. “Without you, Este, none of this matters.”

His image faded, retreating into his sanctuary of nothingness, but the door opened as if moved by the wind and closed behind him. Este waited until her dorm had gone completely silent to let herself cry, let the floodwaters wash her away.

It was dark when her tears ran dry and darker when Este tucked her arms into the sleeves of her heaviest coat to trek across campus. The Lilith was a beacon through the night fog. Este clutched The Book of Fades with tight fingers, shaking hands. She’d tucked the bloodstained borrowing card back into its pocket, the book back as close to one piece as she could get it.

The head librarian’s office door was closed when she approached on leaden legs and knocked.

“Este. Nice to see you early for a change,” Ives said as her door swung open. She’d braided her black hair over one shoulder. Her mouth slipped open when she spotted the tome in Este’s hands, eyes dragged to the book’s magnetic pull. “You found it.”

“I wanted to make sure it was returned,” Este said, throat raw. “That it was kept safe.”

Away from Mateo and locked in the spire beneath the ivy’s roots where none of the ghosts could reach it, like it had been for the last thirty years. No more names on the catalog card. No more sacrifices. No more bloodshed.

Ives snatched the book away from her, the rough texture grating against her skin. Her nails rapped against the backing, the tap, tap, tap like rain against shingles. Her blue eyes squinted as she scrutinized Este’s features. Could she still see the paths carved by tears against her cheeks?

“Consider me impressed,” Ives said with a breezy smile. “I look forward to your future here at Radcliffe.”

Este forced a grin that didn’t last. This was everything she’d thought she wanted.

And it was everything she would have to leave behind.