Chapter 1: The Whispering Stacks
On the edge of midnight, when even the city’s clocktowers slept, Leo lingered in the oldest wing of the Infinite Library. Here, lanternlight slinked between marble pillars, pooling in shadows that writhed with secrets.
Leo, just fourteen and sporting spectacles far too large for his nose, trailed gloved fingers over silent ledgers. As Apprentice Librarian, he was meant to finish cataloguing The Encyclopedia of Imaginary Rainstorms, but as usual, he was distracted—listening for whispers, peering into darkness for mysteries glimpsed and half-remembered.
For Leo was quietly, feverishly obsessed. While others collected medals or monster cards, Leo traded in rumors: a prophecy lost before the Library was founded, a prophecy spoken in languages no one could read. A prophecy, the oldest tales promised, that could unite—or sunder—all magical realms.
He knew the corridors better than he knew his own reflection, but tonight, the Library felt odd, as if something vast breathed just out of sight. Somewhere, deep among the ever-shifting bookshelves, a faint shuffling sounded, too furtive to be a librarian, not quite bold enough to be a ghost.
Leo hesitated at an archway crowned with snarling stone lions. He drew in a breath, heart thumping as he turned his lamp to the sound—
—and nearly collided with her.
She was a tornado in a tiara: mud on her hem, keen grey eyes beneath a tangle of regal curls. Leo’s mind lurched, resolving her attire—a sapphire sash, one bejeweled slipper, and the driest glare he’d ever met.
“What are you doing here?” they breathed in unison, then both recoiled.
“I asked first,” she snapped, straightening her sash like a shield.
Leo managed, “I work here. Well, sort of. I mean—that is, apprentice cataloguer. I wasn’t following—”
“You heard nothing,” the girl said sternly, glancing back over her shoulder. “Especially not about maps or fate or— Oh, never mind. Where’s the Atlas Wing?”
Leo pushed up his glasses, cautious. He recognized that look: someone hiding something sharp beneath something royal. “No one goes to the Atlas Wing at night. The doors—are supposed to be—”
He trailed off, for every shelf in the corridor began to shift with a heavy, grinding sound. Volumes fluttered and glowed. The Library, famous for its moods, was having one now. Floor tiles rippled, resolving into a pattern: black and white, like a chessboard spilled from the sky.
The girl drew herself taller. “I don’t have time for—”
A book launched from the highest shelf, spinning midair before slapping open at their feet. Its brass-edged covers flapped; its spine quivered, as if straining to speak.
“Oh, excellent,” it sputtered, pages flicking. “Midnight guests and murky secrets—what a recipe! Let us begin with rhyme and revelry: What’s black and white and red all over, and can never be returned overdue?”
Leo blinked, recognizing a magical artifact when he saw one. “Book,” he said uncertainly, for the volume’s title—Book of All Beginnings (Annotated)—glimmered in changing letters. He’d heard tales in training: a temperamental tome, keeper of puzzles, riddle-mad.
The girl huffed, “I’m not here to play games, book. I’m here for—”
The book cut her off by snapping its covers. “Ah, ah. The game has already begun.”
The air split with the click of unseen chess pieces. A voice, low and unhurried, flowed from the shadows, cold as marble:
“Players upon my board, welcome. The Grand Game begins anew. The Library is mine until dawn, its wings and wisdom yours to win... or lose. Escape, if you can. Find the prophecy—if you dare. Move wisely. Check, and perhaps, mate.”
There was no one there, but Leo felt the presence as surely as he felt his own breath—the Chess Master, acclaimed in whispers for twisting any contest to his design, mind as sharp as cut glass.
Immediately, a dozen pawns, rook-tall and shadow-solid, drifted between shelves, barring the corridor’s end. Doors slammed somewhere distant. Shelves shifted, rearranging into a maze.
Leo staggered backwards. “We’re—locked in?”
The girl—Princess, Leo decided, given her stubborn chin—slapped dust from her skirts. Yet despite the bravado, he saw a flicker of fear. “We have to get to the Map Wing. I need—”
“Escape, you mean?” Book piped up. “You’ll need wit and teamwork for this edition!”
Leo swallowed, looking at the chessboard tiles beneath their feet. “Book, can you help us?”
“I can riddle, perhaps reveal,” Book mused, fluttering its pages. “But the way is tangled. Rules upended. Only together, you two and I, might we reach the Map Wing before the endgame closes.”
A pawn glided closer, face a suggestion of bone and shadow. Princess kept her voice icy-calm: “And if we lose?”
Book’s pages curled with apparent shyness. “Let’s not advertise the consequences. The Library rarely forgets. The prophecy waits for no one.”
Leo’s mind whirled—the shifting Library, a legendary prophecy, a princess with secrets, and now this: a puzzle-laden gauntlet thrown down by a phantom player.
He looked at Princess, who glared back, and remembered the first rule of magical libraries: nothing is solved alone, and nothing is what it seems.
“Fine,” he said quietly, summoning the ounce of courage he wore like a hidden badge. “If winning means working together, then—let’s play.”
Princess lifted her chin, study morphing into the quickest of grins. “Try to keep up, Apprentice.”
Book glowed, bouncing between them as the first riddle scrolled across its open pages:
“To pass the black-and-white, step not on light,
But count every word said in fright.
‘Round every turn, if courage you lack,
The doors you find will always turn back.”
Pawns circled, the maze ahead shimmered, and the ancient Library, with all its secrets, waited. Leo squared his shoulders and stepped into the unknown, knowing that tonight, stories and destinies alike might be rewritten.