The book still had a thousand more pages to go, but Xenon decided to stop there.
"Hah…" He exhaled softly, the sound small in the quiet hall. His eyes felt dry and heavy, his head buzzing with too many thoughts. The text in front of him—pages full of theories, disasters, and odd diagrams—blurred together like running ink.
"You done?"
He looked up at the sound of a voice. It was the girl from before, the one who had opened the door for him earlier. She was leaning on a shelf, watching him with a puzzled smile. Her hair looked a little messy now, like she'd been working for hours.
Only then did Xenon notice how different the light was. The sunlit glow had long faded; the orange dusk shimmered through the windows. A faint ringing hum filled the air—library wards warming up for night mode.
He turned to the Glyph-clock on the far wall. "Twelve hours?" he murmured, surprised.
The girl chuckled. "You've been sitting there that long. I thought you were asleep at some point."
"I guess I lost track of time."
"Guess so. Not every day someone reads an old Codex straight through without blinking."
He blinked slowly. "Wasn't that long."
"It was," she said, crossing her arms. "We don't get kids here often, you know."
"I'm not exactly a kid," he said lightly.
"Right," she teased, "you're a scholar in disguise."
He smiled faintly and shut the book. It gave a low thump that echoed faintly in the empty library. When he looked around, he realized everyone else had left. Only the two of them and the quiet flicker of glyph-lights remained.
He stood up, the heavy tome tucked carefully in his arms. The cover felt oddly warm, though it was probably just the heat from sitting there for so long. He carried it toward the nearest shelf, craning his neck upward.
The top rack loomed far above him—too far. For someone his age, he was tall, but nowhere near enough to reach it. He rose on tiptoe, stretched, and still fell short by a good foot.
With a small sigh, he glanced at the side of the shelf where the glyph markings glowed faintly. They were standard runes—levitation prints. Anyone could use them to shelve books properly. All you had to do was press your palm on the sigil and channel a trace of essence.
He hesitated for a moment, hand half-raised. Then he let it drop. He didn't like the feeling those prints gave him—the tingle that went past his skin.
"Um," he turned toward the counter, "can you help me place this back?"
The girl looked up from her desk where she was sorting paper charms. "Sure," she said, standing up and walking over. She eyed the book in his arms and gave a low whistle. "You've been reading that? That's practically a university-level archive."
"I didn't finish," he said simply.
"Still," she said, taking the heavy book from him with both hands. "What's a nine-year-old doing with something like this anyway?"
He thought for a second, then shrugged. "It looked interesting."
She gave him a strange look—half amused, half tired. "Right. Interesting."
He just smiled.
The girl sighed and carried the Codex toward the shelf. "These things weigh more than they look," she muttered, pressing her hand against the Glyph Print. The symbol flared gently, and the book floated upward, sliding into place among the other massive volumes.
Xenon watched quietly, fascinated by how effortlessly it worked.
"All done," she said, brushing her hands off.
"Thanks."
He turned toward the exit, glancing once more around the empty hall. The rows of shelves stretched endlessly in both directions, every spine glowing faintly with magical light. For a moment, he felt like they were all breathing together—books that never slept, stories that watched you read them back.
"Hey," the girl said as he reached the door, "try something lighter next time, yeah? We've got stories, journals, adventure logs—stuff that won't melt your brain."
He looked over his shoulder. "I'll think about it."
"You better. And don't forget to come earlier; we close at dusk."
He nodded, then slipped outside. The bell above the door gave a small chime as it shut behind him.
The evening air hit his face, cool and gentle after the heavy stillness inside. The street was quiet, the faint hum of the town's ward glyphs running through the cobbles beneath his feet. Above, the sky had shifted into deep blue, sprinkled with stars and the twin moons just starting to rise.
He walked slowly, not in a hurry to get anywhere.
For a moment, he stopped at the corner of the street and looked up. The moons glowed softly—one silver, one pale red. Somewhere far beyond them, the things the book had spoken about—stars, storms, strange alignments—felt impossibly distant. Almost like bedtime stories told too seriously.
He smiled a little, shaking his head. "People back then must've been really scared," he murmured.
Then he continued walking.
Inside the library, the girl yawned as she tidied up her desk. "That kid's something else," she muttered. Picking up a stack of scrolls, she paused when she noticed the Codex shelf flickering faintly. One of the runes glowed dimmer than the rest.
"Ugh, not again," she sighed. She pressed her palm on the control Glyph. "Recalibrate."
The shelf shimmered faintly, and the glow stabilized. Satisfied, she turned away to finish closing procedures.
But if she had looked closer, she might have noticed a single line of faint text still blinking in the corner of the glyph's projection:
> Page registry incomplete.
The message faded a moment later, and the shelf went still.
Outside, the lamps along the street flickered on one by one, washing the path in warm golden light. Xenon kept walking, hands in his pockets, the cool air tugging gently at his hair.
He didn't notice the faint smear of dust on his sleeve—the same grey powder that came from the Codex's ancient pages.
By the time he turned the corner, the library lights had dimmed completely.