Always the Bridesmaid

Part XVI

He finds Sadie crying at the table in front of the circulation desk. Henry is at her side, face pressed against her arm. The Librarian is not surprised at all. Then again, he has no room for emotions right now except for pure, unadulterated determination, laced with rage at the Library itself.

"Sadie?" he booms.

She picks her head up and blinks through tears at him. Her eyes widen at the sight of the book in the Librarian's hand. He holds it up, still alight, and he gives her a stern look.

"Elbows off the table, dear. I'm about to do something stupid," he says.

Without question, Sadie scoops Henry into her arms and shoves her chair back. No sooner is Sadie out of the way than the Librarian tosses the book onto the table. It takes a second for the fire to spread, but spread it does, slithering across the tabletop like golden snakes out of a den. It must have been a sight to Sadie: the fire on the table and the inferno behind the Librarian. Flames arced from shelf to shelf, spreading ever backwards yet somehow never feeding black smoke into the area above the circulation desk. It was almost as if the Library had anticipated this. As if it had just been waiting for the Librarian to set it ablaze and free himself from its chains as destructively as a phoenix.

He doesn't think about this. He merely walks around the table, head held high and body and soul as calm as they had ever been, until he reaches Sadie. Then, with hands darkened by soot and the distant Alexandrian sun, he takes one of her arms and helps her to her feet.

"I'm sorry," he says. "You're right. I should trust you."

Her eyes brim with tears, and she pulls her hand away from the Librarian's to wipe her face with the back of an arm. When she looks back at him, she's smiling, and her eyes are still glistening, and it's clear that for once—for the first time since they had met—Sadie has nothing to say. She coughs and croaks, her voice caught in her throat, until the Librarian gently takes her arm again.

"Come on," he says. "It's time to go home now."

Truthfully, he has no idea what's about to happen. He knows the door won't open for him, and he has no idea whether or not he'll be able to order it open with his newfound grasp of command. Worse yet, if the Library is telling the truth about Sadie and if she is indeed a librarian too, then the door won't open for her either.

And that is why he maneuvers her to the door but presses his hands into her shoulders and positions her to its left, with a wide enough berth between herself and its face.

"Stay here and do not move a muscle," he tells her. "Do you understand?"

She nods.

"And do you trust me?" he asks.

She nods again. There is no hesitation.

He lets her go, then walks calmly back to the table. He grabs one of the heavy wooden chairs and touches its seat to the flames. When it catches, he walks back towards the door, and halfway between the table and the door, he hoists the flaming chair over his shoulder and throws it with everything within him at the door. The chair breaks as soon as it hits, raining wood and flames onto the base of the door. Ignoring Sadie's screams, the Librarian doubles back, picks up another chair, and storms forward, smashing the chair into the face of the door. He can't tell how much damage he's doing to it. All his focus is dedicated to taking the door down through any means possible, and not an iota of his being will stop until the door is gone. The chair's legs go first against the solid wood. Then the seat. Then back. And finally, the Librarian has no choice but to switch to kicking. His boot comes down hard on the lock once. Then twice. And then, finally, on the third time, it yields. The wood splinters beneath his foot. The brass bends inward. And the door is gone, leaving a gaping darkness beyond it.

Without thinking, the Librarian reaches out, hand pinwheeling through open air until it closes around Sadie's. And they tumble through the fire and through the darkness, and the last thing the Librarian sees upon looking back is Henry, sitting in the doorway, golden eyes glittering within his intact library. The Librarian almost thinks he sees a smile play across the cat's face.

And then he knows. And he knows this when he hears the cat purr in his head.

At last, my little librarian, the voice tells him. It's time to wake up.