Chapter 7: Nyx

Tsubame sat on Shiori’s bed, enjoying the early spring breeze from the open window. Shiori emerged from her closet with a box of books.

“Done?” Shiori asked, setting the box down on the desk next to her bed.

“That’s all I can think of,” Tsubame said, offering a paper with handwritten notes.

They had talked on the way to Shiori’s house. They told her mother they’d be studying together and escaped up to her room. Tsubame wrote questions while Shiori gathered a dozen of Kawamura’s books.

Tsubame had written many questions:

What is the bookmark?

Where did Motohara go? How do we get him back?

What is Nyx?

How does the book know what will happen to Shiori?

What are Kryptics and why did they attack?

What happened in the park that made everyone else suddenly appear?

Otonashi used some kind of magic?

Otonashi said he found us in the park because someone cast a spell. Who?

Shiori reviewed the questions and sighed. “First, I have no idea what the bookmark is. None of Kawamura’s books describe anything like it.”

Tsubame sorted through the books until she found the first one. She flipped through it randomly.

“Next,” Shiori continued, “I think Motohara has been sent to Nyx, where Kawamura’s books happen. The books tell of centuries of war and heroes from other worlds. Nyx is another world, and Motohara is stuck there.”

Shiori stopped. She sounded insane. She wanted to be with Motohara.

Tsubame nodded like everything made sense. If she was panicking like Shiori, there wasn’t a single sign. “So,” Tsubame asked, still flipping through the book, “how do we get Motohara back?”

“That depends,” Shiori said, glancing over books she had read repeatedly. “Nyx is more an idea than a place. No one knows how it was created, but it was once much smaller.”

“It has layers, floating islands in a dark place. Some places in Nyx exist only certain times a year. Others exist depending on special circumstances. Some are lost.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Tsubame said, running a finger over a specific page, then flipping through randomly.

“Nyx isn’t a place, but an idea you can go to, get lost in. That’s what happened when the shadows attacked us. I think they pulled us halfway into Nyx, between this world and ours. After Otonashi defeated them, we were pulled fully back into our own.”

“A world that’s really an idea?” Tsubame said dubiously. “And Otonashi knew how to find us? So how can we get Motohara back from a place that doesn’t really exist?”

She pulled out the mirrored black bookmark, which refused to show her Motohara again. “I don’t know. I wanted the last book because of the previous one’s ending. A Princess Spoke a spell called ‘the Last Word’, destroying everything.”

Shiori pointed at the book Motohara had given her. “That’s probably why this book is called ‘The Last Word’.

Tsubame ran a finger over the book Motohara had given Shiori. “Why doesn’t it have the title on the cover?

Shiori frowned. The books cover read: ‘The Last Word by Kawamura’. “The title is right there on the cover.”

Tsubame shook her head, pointing to the cover. “It’s blank.”

“So, only I can read the book and only I can read the cover?” Shiori frowned.

Tsubame’s brow furrowed in thought. “The spell to destroy Nyx was a single word?”

Shiori shrugged. “It’s a place of pure ideas, of thought. The right words have tremendous power there, to those who can Speak them correctly.”

Tsubame stopped flipping pages. “Is that how you stopped Otonashi from holding us down in our chairs? You used words?”

Shiori smiled. “I was surprised it worked. I read aloud from a book I had never read. New words power their magic. Reading new words aloud is like powerful noise. It can jam or destroy delicate magic spells.”

Tsubame continued flipping through the book. “So words are weapons. Power.”

Shiori nodded, looking at the books in the box. “In Nyx, books are a crime. Only the most corrupt, intrepid, or powerful dare to keep them. In that place, sometimes books themselves come alive. Most Speakers are feared by Nyxian commoners.”

“You’ve used that word before, Speakers?” Tsubame ran a finger down one page.

“They can harness their knowledge to Speak spells. If they master the true word for something, they can control it: stones, rain, light, even air. I’d bet my life Otonashi is a Speaker. The thunderous words he Spoke while killing the Kryptics were spells.”

Tsubame’s finger stopped randomly on the page and she looked up. “Is his name is Otonashi? I’ve scanned this book for names, and none are Japanese names.”

“Speakers keep their names secret. They often live and die alone. Truth is their weapon. Lies are their armor.” Shiori said this like a memorized line or a motto. “They hoard books like nations hoard nuclear bombs. They fear their own books.”

Tsubame thought about this and nodded. “And Kryptics?”

“There are countless types of Kryptics. They’ve inhabited Nyx for as long as humans, probably longer. They’re monsters, animals, abominations, plants, angels, and anything you can imagine. They are born from the Nyx itself.”

“They’re magical?” Tsubame said. She had quit randomly searching the first book for names. Instead she opened The Last Word and read.

“The opposite. Kryptics can’t use magic. Only humans and other races from outside Nyx.”

“Other races, other than humans?” Tsubame asked without looking up.

“Again, how long do you have? There’s twelve books, including the last one you’re reading.”

“Is Motohara learning magic then?”

That question provoked an odd reaction from Shiori. She felt that desire to be with Motohara fluttering in her stomach, but also had a sudden headache.

“Perhaps,” she said, “he knows Japanese and some English. The only requirement to becoming a Speaker is knowing how to read, but if they find out he can read, they might kill him.”

Tsubame’s eyes widened. “Why can Otonashi speak Japanese if he’s from Nyx?”

Shiori considered this. “Speaker magic is about words and perceptions. They can easily make themselves understood.”

“I wondered about that at the café,” Tsubame said, “people kept looking at him oddly. Do we hear him speak Japanese while others hear another language?”

Shiori hadn’t noticed. “That makes sense. The books talked about Speakers using magic that way.”

Tsubame continued reading The Last Word.

Shiori looked at the bookmark. Why wasn’t it working?

“Hey, Shiori-chan,” Tsubame said, pointing to The Last Word in confusion. “The story in this book stops right after Otonashi-senpai saved us. After that, it’s blank.”

Shiori looked up from the bookmark. “That can’t be right.” She was a couple steps away, but the page wasn’t blank. “It looks like normal writing.”

Tsubame’s brow furrowed. She turned the page and pointed again. “This blank page looks like normal writing to you?”

Shiori wasn’t close enough to read it clearly, so she stepped forward. “I can read it.” The bookmark vibrated in her hand and startled her.

Tsubame looked from the book to the bookmark, confused. She stood and adjusted a makeup mirror on Shiori’s desk. “What about now?” Tsubame said, pointing the open book toward the mirror at an angle.

Shiori looked through the mirror at the book. She couldn’t read the backwards Japanese text easily, but the more disturbing thing was the entirely blank space on the page.

The only text in the book was what Shiori had already read. The rest of the book was blank. Whatever spell made her think the book was full of text couldn’t alter her perceptions through the mirror.

The book wasn’t written yet, but some spell made Shiori think it was. Actually, the book was writing itself as Shiori read it. No one could read farther than she had read.

Tsubame noticed Shiori’s surprise. “You’re the only one that can read this book, Shiori-chan and last time you read from it we were attacked.”