The Search for Nikolai

With the main gates too perilous, Aidan led them to a secret exit. He guided them past the throne room and down a long corridor that terminated at a blank stone wall.

"This passage was built four hundred years ago for the king to escape during a siege," Aidan whispered. "Only those told by the king himself are supposed to know of it."

He moved to the wall and pressed four specific stones in sequence. Each one sank inward with a soft click. A low grinding sound followed, and a section of the wall slid upward, revealing a dark antechamber. As the five of them filed into the cramped space, Wells heard Aidan turn a crank. The stone slab fell shut with a deafening crash, plunging them into absolute darkness. Aria trembled on Wells’s shoulder. Aidan shoved past him, and with a groan of rusty hinges, a door opened, flooding the space with blinding sunlight.

"Useful, eh?" Aidan asked as they stepped onto a grassy knoll, a mere ten feet from the high curtain wall surrounding the castle.

"Put me in a place like that again," Aria snarled, "and I will gouge your eyes out."

"Feisty one, aren't you?" Aidan grinned. He pushed a stone door that blended seamlessly with the castle wall, and once it was shut, it was impossible to tell they had just emerged from it. "Come on. This side gate will get us out." He pointed to a set of double doors two hundred feet away. With Vance’s armor clanking at every step, they crossed the distance and slipped out into the tumultuous streets of Tor Alian.

To their right, a building nearly as imposing as the castle was surrounded by a massive, angry crowd, their shouts echoing off its walls. The friends exchanged a look.

"Let's go there," Wells said, his jaw tight. "No one seems to be trying to calm them."

They ran toward the mob, but its dense outer rim blocked their path. "Let me through," Wells said angrily to a large man in their way.

"And who's going to make me?" the man scoffed without turning.

A cold light flared from Wells's ring. He shot a lance of ice that shattered on the cobblestones just past the man’s bare legs. "I am," Wells stated, his voice as hard as flint. "And there's more where that came from if you don't move."

"Hey!" The man spun around, bigger up close than Wells could have imagined. "A sorcerer!"

Before Wells could react, the man's hand shot out, seizing him by the throat and lifting him from the ground. Aria launched from his shoulder with a furious flapping of wings. Wells kicked and struggled, his feet finding only air as he clawed at the man’s sausage-like fingers, managing to gasp a single ragged breath.

"Let me go!" he choked, thrashing in the man’s grip.

"You try to tell me what to do again, boy, and I'll—"

"You'll have to deal with me, too!" Aria cried. She dive-bombed the man’s head, pecking him fiercely. With a yelp of pain, the man dropped Wells, who collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. As the brute swatted at his head, Vance snatched Aria from the air just in time.

"Agh!" The man clutched his head, hopping from foot to foot.

"There's more where that came from!" Aria shrieked, breaking free from Vance's grasp. "Now get out of here! Go home!"

With a final roar of frustration, the man pushed his way out of the crowd. The brief altercation had drawn the attention of those nearby, who now turned to stare. "You all saw that!" Aria declared, gesturing at them. "Anyone else who doesn't calm down and return to their homes gets the same treatment!"

The onlookers, however, ignored her and quickly returned to their own arguments. The five friends scrambled past them, heading for the white marble steps of the enormous building. At the top stood a pair of ornate double doors, as grand as the castle's own. With Aria back on his shoulder, Wells, Vance, Aidan, and Juliana rushed up the stairs and forced their way inside.

"Where are we?" Wells asked, shutting the heavy doors behind them as the sounds of the riot were abruptly muffled.

"The Royal Library," Juliana whispered, her voice filled with reverence.

Wells turned and gasped. The library was a single, colossal room rising three stories high. Polished flagstones paved a ground floor filled with a maze of tall, leather-bound bookcases. A wide, gleaming marble staircase dominated the center of the space. Cantilevered balconies on the second and third floors held at least three times as many shelves. Sunlight streamed through huge arched windows on the top floor, illuminating a magnificent domed ceiling painted with a mural of Anolin’s founding.

"Whoa," Wells breathed.

"Yeah," Vance agreed. "We think this is where Nikolai has been hiding out."

"I can see why," Wells said. "He could live in here and never be bored."

An ancient woman, her face a roadmap of wrinkles, limped toward them, leaning heavily on a cane. Despite her age, her eyes were sharp and perceptive. "New to the library, dears?" she asked, her voice thin and reedy.

"Yes," Wells replied.

"Well, it's always lovely to meet new people. We've had a lot of folk come in today to escape that dreadful chaos outside." She craned her neck, surveying the vast room. "Yes, quite busy today, so you'll need to keep your voices down."

"We're looking for someone," Vance said quickly. "Dark hair, blue eyes, wears spectacles. Looks like he belongs in a place like this."

"Oh!" The old woman’s wrinkled face lit up in a toothy smile. "That one! He's in here every day! Such a polite young man. Always stops to chat with me, morning and evening. A very good boy."

"Is he here now?" Juliana asked.

"I do believe so," the librarian confirmed. "He said hello to me first thing this morning."

"Where might we find him?" Juliana pressed.

"Oh, Astalor's hoof, I haven't the faintest idea. I've too much to do to track every soul who wanders these aisles. But he's in here somewhere, don't you worry!"

"We'll go look for him, if that's alright," Wells said.

"Oh, certainly, no problem at all," she replied. "Just remember to keep your voices down, or I'll have to ask you to leave." With a final nod, she hobbled away to a nearby shelf and began rearranging books.

"This is going to take a while," Wells sighed, and the others murmured their agreement.

"Should we split up?" Aidan asked.

"Not yet," Wells decided. "Let's search the first floor together."

They began a meticulous search, pacing between the towering rows of shelves. They passed thousands of titles they knew would have fascinated Nikolai—Theories on the Physics of Magic, The Complete History of Remira, Myran and Kalan: A Dissertation on the Magical Elements—each volume thicker than the last. They also passed hundreds of patrons, all too absorbed in their reading to look up. The search was frustratingly slow.

After thirty minutes, they had covered less than a quarter of the first floor and paused to rest in an empty aisle. "This is hopeless," Vance grumbled. "There's no way he could have read all these."

"Nikolai is a speed reader," Juliana remarked, leaning against a bookshelf. "He could probably read one book from every shelf in a single day."

"And he'd know exactly where to find what he wants," Aidan added. "Nikolai knows his way around libraries."

The smell of leather and old paper hung in the air. "It will take forever to find him in here," Juliana sighed. "It would be so much easier to just shout his name."

"That would get us thrown out," Wells said. "And I doubt the librarian would appreciate Aria flying around looking for him."

"That I would not!" came the librarian's reedy voice as she shuffled past their aisle, her arms full of books.

"Well," Wells said with regret. "No, I think we have to split up."

"But if one of us finds him, how will we find the others?" Aidan pointed out. "This place is so big we'd be searching for each other until closing."

"How about we meet back at the main staircase in one hour?" Juliana suggested. "That way, we can regroup."

"Good idea," Wells agreed. "Alright, Aria and I will finish this half of the first floor."

"I'll take the other half," Vance offered.

"We'll head upstairs," Juliana declared, taking Aidan's hand. "Come on, Aidan." He followed her from the aisle with a grin.

"Like they'll get any searching done," Vance muttered to Wells, who laughed in agreement with Aria.

The search was slow and tedious. It sounded as though the riot outside had finally died down, but Wells didn't dare run to a window to check. Each aisle took at least a minute to scan, and worse, Wells had to pause to inspect every reader, as it seemed most men in Tor Alian had dark hair like Nikolai.

Aria, perched on his shoulder, was mostly silent and glum. After a long while, she growled in his ear, "I hate being this quiet. And these tall shelves are making me claustrophobic."

"I'm sure life is hard," Wells said solemnly. "I don't know how you manage."

"Oh, shut up," Aria grumbled.

After an hour, Wells committed his location to memory and returned to the grand staircase. People drifted silently up and down the marble steps. At the bottom, Aidan and Juliana sat hand-in-hand, her laughing at something he was whispering.

"Aidan!" she hissed in an embarrassed whisper. "Stop it!"

The pair straightened up as Wells and Aria joined them. "Wells!" Aidan said, failing to hide his smile. "No Nikolai, I take it?"

"Nope," Wells replied, giving them a look. "Did you two even search?"

"Of course we did!" Juliana insisted, her cheeks flushing slightly. "Very thoroughly."

Vance arrived a moment later, his armor creaking as he sank onto the step with a sigh. "Couldn't find him. I covered my whole section. Nothing."

"Great," Wells muttered, rubbing his chin. "If you were Nikolai, where would you be?"

"Right here," said Aidan.

"Thank you," Wells said icily. "That's incredibly helpful." Aidan grinned.

"He has to be here," Juliana stated. "There's nowhere else for him to go in Tor Alian, unless he left the city."

"But why would he do that?" Vance wondered aloud.

Wells fell silent. He scanned their immediate surroundings, searching for anything out of place. They were sitting near a large flagstone at the bottom of the stairs. One of its edges protruded at an odd angle. "Look at that," Wells said, pointing.

"That's strange," Vance remarked. "I wonder why it's like that?"

Wells stood and knelt beside it. When he pushed down on the raised edge, the stone slid into the floor with a faint scraping sound. He pressed further, and the stone tilted until it was vertical, revealing a long, dark staircase leading down.

"Look!" he exclaimed, gesturing for the others. They crowded around the opening. "I'm willing to bet Nikolai is down there."

"Let's go, then," Aidan said, starting for the first step.

"Hold on," Vance said, grabbing the back of Aidan's tunic. "We don't have a light. We have no idea what's down there."

Wells glanced around, his eyes landing on the librarian's desk. A single, lit candlestick sat upon it. He ran over, snatched it, and returned to the group. "This will have to do," he muttered. "Quickly, before anyone sees us."

Holding the flickering flame high, the five of them descended cautiously into the shadows beneath the library.