Temptation

She returned to the library that night. Calliope was not there anymore, probably haunting her bedroom or another empty hallway to wander and find whatever it was she longed to find. But Cecilia could not simply wander and wait; she had to find answers, and there was only one place that she had faith could possibly provide them.

The book waited where she had left it, green and unmarked, a sleeping princess laid dormant under glass until someone came to disturb its rest. Yet, when Cecilia lifted it, the cover was faintly warm, like a living thing holding breath. There was no hesitance in her touch this time; she picked it up and brought it to the desk to begin her study.

It was a mix of recognizable characters, enough to leave hints and leads about what else laid inside. The symbols, however, previously dismissed as gibberish, were not random, she saw that now. At first, they dazzled the eye, shifting at the edges of vision, but when she focused, patterns emerged. Some repeated like letters, others clustered like words.

It was a cipher, then, a code.

She fetched scraps of paper and began to copy them, mapping their frequencies, guessing which shapes stood for common words from what related to the Vietnamese she understood.

Hours passed unnoticed, if they passed at all. The silence of the library pressed against her, broken only by the scratch of her pen. Slowly, a method took form. Symbols aligned with sounds, then with fragments of meaning. And again, in the margins of the text, a word slipped through in her own tongue: Look.

She froze. Her candle guttered low. She whispered aloud, to herself and to the book, “At what?”

And then, whether madness or miracle, the letters stirred. The ink darkened, rearranged. Where there had been only a scattering of symbols, a phrase uncurled itself like smoke: Behind you.

Her blood turned to ice and, swallowing her fear, she spun in her chair. The shelves loomed, mute and still. No sound, no figure, only the long aisle fading into darkness. However, even still, the air felt heavier, as if the room itself had drawn closer to listen.

She felt the desire to flee, to run to bed and hide under her blanket, hoping that maybe her original theory was true and she could just wait out her sentence here before going home. But something steadied her. Perhaps it was foolishness, perhaps defiance, but something led her back to her place at the desk. She turned back, heart thrumming, and forced herself to continue.

She wrote questions into the margins, copying symbols beside them, testing whether the book would respond again. What are you? she asked.

Seconds stretched, each beat feeling like minutes as Cecilia’s leg bounced and she watched her back from the corners of her eyes. Then, finally, the letters stirred once more, aligning and forming another word: Key.

Her hand trembled so badly she could hardly hold the pen. A key? To what? Escape? Knowledge? Or was it only mocking her, dangling words like bait?

Regardless of the answer, of the risk, she could not deny the pull. She began to understand its language, and it began to answer. Each message felt both like a revelation and a trap.

Perhaps both could be true.

Too many hours had passed, as suddenly, the toll of the grandfather clock shattered Cecilia’s concentration. As she heard the shuffle of feet and the beginnings of the day’s chores, she hurriedly hid the book away once more. With a final glance at it, both suspicious and enamored, she quickly made her way through the winding halls, sneaking past the others who milled about unawares.

She left the book where it was, but she carried its words with her, each character burned into her mind.

Look. Behind you. Key.

She would return again soon. Even if it killed her, she had know what this key was, as well as where it would lead.

…

And she did return as soon as she could. She had little choice, as thoughts around the book and its messages gnawed at her all day. Her chores blurred and her hands worked without mind. When at last the corridors fell quiet, she took the opportunity to slip out once again.

The book was waiting. Perhaps it was her own deflection, but it felt almost eager under her fingers. Its cover seemed to pulse faintly beneath the candlelight, as though it had been anticipating her touch. She opened it, and the symbols writhed into meaning at once, no longer shy, no longer requiring so much effort to parse. It was as though the book had decided she was ready.

This time, it did not play at riddles. It spoke plainly, in words that chilled and seduced in equal measure.

You are small, but you need not remain so.

Power is ink. Write your name in it, and the world bends.

Knowledge beyond your kind waits here for the hand bold enough to claim it.

The weight of those words pressed down upon her as her pulse leapt. For one unguarded instant, she imagined it, what it would be like to command rather than serve. To wield knowledge that could twist the will of the lord himself, the very world itself. To be untouchable. To be feared, admired, obeyed.

The thought made her stomach lurch. And yet, it also made her hands tremble with want.

The book promised more. There were vision of hidden corridors within the house, sigils that could unravel the bindings of flesh and soul, secrets whispered by the stones themselves…Each phrase unfolded with the terrible allure of fruit forbidden by every law of nature.

It laid its offer as bare, as one might lay a blade upon a table—Plain, sharp, awaiting a hand to lift it with multiple uses. All Cecilia had to do was accept. To read. To let the ink seep into her as it longed to. And the more she read, the more her fingers itched to sink into its pages and let its power burrow through the skin and crawl through her veins.

But then, her face came. Coriander. Gone. Her voice, her laughter, the fragile courage they shared. What would she have seen, looking at her hunched over these pages? Would she have begged her to stop, warned her that no freedom could be bought with chains of another kind?

The book spoke of power, but she had never sought dominion. It was escape, acknowledgment, freedom. She do not want to rule this world; she wanted to leave it behind, in hopes of a better one. If she bound herself to its magic-pulsed heart, would she not only be tying her own chains tighter?

She closed the book with shaking hands. In just a short few days, a collective handful of hours, she felt like was she tearing herself from the grip of a lover she could not trust. Its whispers lingered, curling in her mind, reminding her of what she refused.

No. Let others chase thrones and curses. Her rebellion was different. She would not wield the pen as tyrant, but as fugitive. She would write herself out of these pages, even if it was the last thing she did.

The book was dangerous, yes, but if navigated carefully, it was also a map. She would use it, but she would not be used by it.

The book had grown bolder, but so had she.