Chapter 9: Library Blackout
The air in the Rare Books Section was a different kind of heavy. It smelled of trapped centuries, of dried leather and crumbling paper and the faint, sweet note of wood polish. Sunlight, what little filtered through the high, stained-glass windows, came in weak, colored shafts that did little to push back the perpetual dusk between the towering shelves.
Jennie’s heeled boots clicked a rapid, impatient tattoo on the parquet floor, the sound swallowed by the silence. She clutched a sketchbook to her chest, her other hand gesturing vaguely at the endless rows of dark spines. “It has to be in one of these. Venetian textile patterns, 16th century. The professor said the only physical copies of the original plates are here.”
Leonid leaned against a reading table, his arms crossed. He hadn’t said a word since they’d entered the hallowed space, his expression one of detached endurance. He wore a simple black long-sleeve shirt and dark trousers, a stark contrast to Jennie’s tiny pleated skirt and a cropped sweater that showed a sliver of her midriff with every reach.
“So look,” he said, his voice low but carrying perfectly in the quiet.
“I can’t reach the upper shelves,” she whined, turning to him with a pout that had worked on her father for twenty-four years.
He didn’t move. “Then ask the archivist.”
“She’s creepy. She watches me like I’m going to steal something.” Jennie stepped closer, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper that still echoed. “You’re taller. Please? I’ll be quick, I promise. Then we can go.”
A shadow shifted near the entrance archway, disappearing behind a freestanding case of illuminated manuscripts. Leonid’s eyes flicked toward the movement, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly. He’d noticed Rosé trailing them from the mansion, her attempts at stealth about as subtle as Jennie’s wardrobe.
He pushed off the table. “Which shelf?”
She beamed, a victory smile that didn’t reach her eyes, which were already scanning the gilt-lettered labels. “Section D, I think. Near the back. It’s supposed to be a huge folio.” She followed as he strode deeper into the stacks, the already faint light growing dimmer. The single brass lamp on the central table was the only steady source of illumination here, casting long, dancing shadows that seemed to cling to the corners.
He found the section, his eyes tracing the labels. His fingers, which could be so brutally efficient, were careful as they brushed over the ancient leather. “Here. ‘Vartoni’s Compendium of Venetian Arte.’” He pulled the massive volume from the shelf, a cloud of dust motes swirling into the beam of light from the distant lamp.
“Perfect!” Jennie grabbed for it, but the book was heavier than she expected. Leonid didn’t relinquish it, carrying it to the reading table himself. He opened the cover with a practiced gentleness, the spine cracking softly.
Jennie hovered, leaning over the pages, her perfume—that same overly sweet, cloying scent—cutting through the dusty air. “See? The patterns. I want to do a modern deconstruction, but with this historical base. It’ll be genius.”
Leonid stood beside her, looking down at the intricate plates of damask and velvet weaves. His proximity was a silent, solid fact. She was so close her shoulder almost brushed his arm. He could see the frantic, excited energy thrumming through her, a world away from the petulant girl at the pool. This was her one true focus, the only thing that ever burned away the spoiled naivete.
A floorboard creaked behind them.
Jennie, engrossed, didn’t hear it. Leonid’s head tilted slightly.
Rosé emerged from behind a shelf labeled ‘Etruscan Myths,’ her face flushed with the embarrassment of being caught. “Oh! Hey! Jennie? I thought that was you. I was, um, looking for a book on… Baroque art.” Her eyes darted to Leonid, then away, fixing on the folio. “Wow, that’s huge.”
Jennie straightened, blinking. “Rosé? What are you doing here? You hate libraries.”
“I don’t hate them,” Rosé mumbled, edging closer. “I just needed a quiet place to study. The main hall is so loud.” She stopped on the other side of the table, opposite Leonid, her gaze ostensibly on the book but constantly lifting, skittering across his hands, his profile, the way his sleeves stretched over his forearms.
The tension was a three-pointed shape. Jennie, oblivious, pointing at a specific pattern. Rosé, a nervous statue, drinking in the sight of him. Leonid, a pillar of still awareness between them.
Then the light from the brass lamp flickered.
Once. Twice.
With a faint, dying buzz, it went out.
Darkness dropped over them like a velvet blanket, absolute and suffocating. The colored light from the windows was too far away, too weak to penetrate the deep gloom of the stacks. For a second, there was only the sound of three people holding their breath.
“Shit,” Jennie breathed.
Her movement was instinctive, a lunge toward the last place she’d seen Leonid. Her hand groped through the nothingness, finding not empty air but the solid, unyielding wall of his chest. She stumbled into him, her sketchbook tumbling to the floor with a slap.
He didn’t stagger. He simply absorbed the impact, one hand coming up to steady her arm. His touch was firm, warm even through her sweater.
“Sorry, sorry,” she whispered, her other hand flattening against his pectoral muscle. She could feel the steady, slow beat of his heart beneath her palm.
From the other side of the table, there was a quick, shuffling step, a sharp intake of breath. “I can’t see anything,” Rosé’s voice trembled from the blackness.
Then another sound—a soft, determined scrape of a shoe. A shape moved in the dark, coming around the table, not toward the remembered location of the door, but toward them.
A second body bumped into Leonid’s side, pressing close from behind. “Oh! Sorry! The table—” Rosé’s voice was right there, her back now against Leonid’s arm, her smaller frame sandwiched between him and the heavy wood.
Leonid went preternaturally still. Jennie, pressed against his front, felt the sudden coil of tension in every muscle. His breath, which had been even, stopped for a second. Rosé, behind him, let out a little squeak of feigned surprise, shifting as if to right herself but instead pressing closer. The scent of Jennie’s perfume was now mixed with Rosé’s lighter, floral shampoo.
In the utter blackness, the other senses roared. Jennie could feel the heat radiating from him, the rough texture of his shirt under her fingertips. She could hear Rosé’s nervous, shallow breathing just behind his shoulder.
Then, a low, visceral sound emanated from deep in Leonid’s chest. It wasn’t a word. It was a pure, animal noise of warning, a growl so quiet it was more vibration than sound, felt through Jennie’s hand on his chest.
It was followed by a sharp, distinct rrriip.
A tearing of fabric.
Rosé gasped, a real one this time, and jerked backwards. “My sleeve! It’s caught!”
Leonid’s free hand moved in the dark. There was a clicking sound, and the sharp, blinding beam of his phone flashlight cut through the darkness, pinning them all in its stark glare.
Jennie blinked, her eyes adjusting. She was still leaning into Leonid, her hand splayed on his chest. He was looking past her, the phone held up, his face a mask of icy, controlled neutrality. His eyes were locked on Rosé, who stood a pace away, one hand clutching the torn lace cuff of her blouse sleeve. The delicate fabric was snagged on a protruding, ornate metal corner of the reading table.
The tear was clean, long.
Rosé’s face was burning with a scarlet flush that reached the roots of her hair. “It… the table,” she stammered, her eyes wide and terrified, fixed on Leonid’s impassive face. “I got caught.”
Leonid lowered the phone slightly, the beam now illuminating the torn folio on the table, the dropped sketchbook, the vast, guilty darkness around them. He didn’t comment on her sleeve, on her proximity, on the sound he’d made.
He looked down at Jennie, still within the circle of his arm. “Are you done?” he asked, his voice flat, devoid of any emotion.
The spell broke. Jennie pulled her hand back from his chest as if scalded, the imprint of his heartbeat lingering on her skin. She looked from his stony expression to Rosé’s mortified one, then to her own sketchbook on the floor.
The library’s main lights flickered back on with a hum, flooding the room with a sterile, fluorescent glare that made the previous darkness feel like a forbidden dream.
“Yes,” Jennie said, her voice small. “I’m done.”