The Book of Miranda | gxg | ❖

(6) Exie Will-Not-Tell Quinnell

The Melliford Academy library is exactly what I'd expect from a posh school with too much money and too many students willing to set things on fire. A hawk-eyed librarian—or book defender, as the case may be—glances up as I let the door fall shut behind me. Behind him, the room opens up into an labyrinth of shelves that are trying to be mahogany, but are probably just bloodied oak. I sidle past the librarian with my best not-a-pyromaniac impression. Then I dive amongst the shelves. There is an abundance of books, but I can tell none of them are first-rate. Most are cloth-bound, with the tatty look of copies inherited from an attic box at the estate sale of a reclusive centenarian. Melliford Academy stocked its library, a pricey undertaking in and of itself. But it didn't flaunt its wealth much farther than that barest minimum.

My eyes keep drifting to the shelves. I soon take back my first impression of this book hoard. Some aren't in quite as poor a condition as I judged at first glance, and there are leather-bound specimens among them. I pause beside one particularly ample tome. My fingers drift up of their own accord to trace the golden lettering down its spine. I can already feel it in my hands. If that's a novel and not some old man's circumlocutory philosophical proofs, that's a whole lot of story.

I start to pull the book down, then catch myself. I'm not here to study. There's a part of me that aches to grab the tome anyway, but I'm Exie-hunting at the moment, and I'll never live it down if she catches me with a book in hand after my display in class this morning. I also have no plans to be remediated. Melliford Academy won't be the place I admit to wishing I could read better. Knowing what my parents expect of me, I'd rather make it through the semester without reading at all.

I'm not the only student in the library. The mousey boy with the aristocratic haircut has occupied an armchair beneath a vaguely phallic lancet window. That's Colson, I think. He doesn't look up as I approach. I scuff a foot to test it, but he's so lost in his book, I'm sure it'd take a horse-sized chicken riding by to unglue him. In the next aisle over, two more students rifle through the shelves with clumsy hands and lowered voices. Probably a project pair. I give them a wide berth and let my feet carry me to the library's farthest corner. My search is instantaneously vindicated.

Exie is a near-mirror to Colson three aisles over. There's a book in her lap that could sink a Spanish galleon, and she's curled around it like she's trying to incubate it into hatching. She too remains oblivious to my approach. A candle-flame of satisfaction flares to life inside me. It's a cheap blow to feel superior over something as streetwise as situational awareness, but if this school proves malevolent and all goes to hell, at least I have a survival edge against Exie.

"Studying already?" I say.

Exie spooks. Her cannonbook slips sideways, and a second, smaller volume flees its pages and clatters to the floor. My eyebrows shoot up. I can't read the title before she snatches it again, but I don't miss the angel embossed on the cover.

"Studying so studiously." I amend. "Deceiving librarians, are we?"

Exie jams the slim book back inside her literary shield. "That's none of your business."

"But you're not denying it."

"Have you just come to be a bother, or do you actually have something useful to speak with me about?"

I clench every muscle in my body to keep from flinching. What little amusement I gleaned from needling Exie evaporates, replaced by all-too-familiar obstructionism. I sit on the floor and regret it as the frigid stone sets about ice-boxing my posterior. "We're supposed to be working together, aren't we?"

She's gone back to her book like I'm not worth her time. "Do me a favor and stay out of my way."

"You're asking me to freeload?"