The Archived

“’Evening, Roland.”

There’s a table and a pair of chairs in the center of the room, but he doesn’t invite me to sit. He seems distracted.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

“Of course.” An automatic reply. “What brings you here?”

“I need a favor.” His brows knit. “Not Ben. I promise.”

He looks around the space, then leads me into the hall beyond, where the walls are free of shelves.

“Go on…” he says slowly.

“Something horrible happened in my room. A murder.”

A brow arches. “How do you know?”

“Because I read it.”

“You shouldn’t be reading things u

“I know, I know. The perils of curiosity. But don’t pretend you’re immune to it.”

His mouth quirks.

“Look, isn’t there any way you can…” I cast my arm wide across the room, gesturing at the walls of bodies, of lives.

“Any way I can what?”

“Do a search? Look for residents of the Coronado. Her death would have been in March. Sometime between 1951 and 1953. If I can find the girl here in the Archive, then we can read her and find out who she was, and who he was—”

“Why? Just to slake your interest? That’s hardly the purpose of these files—”

“Then what is?” I snap. “We’re supposed to protect the past. Well, someone is trying to erase it. Years are missing from the Coronado’s records. Years in which a girl was murdered. The boy who killed her left. He ran. I need to find out what happened. I need to know if he got away, and I can’t—”

“So that’s what this is about,” he says under his breath.

“What do you mean?”

“This isn’t just about understanding a murder. It’s about Ben.”

I feel like I’ve been slapped. “It’s not. I—”

“Don’t insult me, Miss Bishop. You’re a remarkable Keeper, but I know why you can’t stand leaving a name on your list. This isn’t just about curiosity, it’s about closure—”

“Fine. But that doesn’t change the fact that something horrible happened in my room, and someone tried to cover it up.”

“People do bad things,” Roland says quietly.

“Please.” Desperation creeps in with the word. I swallow. “Da used to say that Keepers needed three things: skill, luck, and intuition. I have all three. And my gut says something is wrong.”

He tilts his head a fraction. It’s a tell. He’s bending.

“Humor me,” I say. “Just help me find out who she was, so I can find out who he was.”

He straightens but pulls a small pad from his pocket and begins to make notes.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I smile, careful not to make it broad—I don’t want him to think he was co

He grunts. I feel the telltale scratch of letters in my pocket, and retrieve the list to find a new name. MelanieAllen.10. I rub my thumb over the number. Ben’s age.

“All well?” he asks casually.

“Just a kid,” I say, pocketing the list.

I turn to go, but hesitate. “I’ll keep you apprised, Miss Bishop,” says Roland in answer to my pause.

“I owe you.”

“You always do,” he says as I leave.

I wind my way back through the halls and the atrium and into the antechamber, where Lisa is flipping through the pages of her ledgers, eyes narrowed in concentration.

“Going so soon?” she asks as I pass.

“Another name,” I say. She should know. She gave it to me. “The Coronado is certainly keeping me busy.”

“Old buildings—”

“I know, I know.”

“We’ve been diverting traffic, so to speak, as best we could, but it will be better now that you’re on the premises—”

“Joy.”

“It’s safe to say you’ll experience a higher number of Histories here than in your previous territory. Maybe two to three times. No more—”

“Two to three times?”

Lisa folds her hands. “The world tests us for reasons, Miss Bishop,” she says sweetly. “Don’t you want to be Crew?”

I hate that line. I hate it because it is the Librarians’ way of saying deal with it.

She locks eyes with me over her horn-rimmed glasses, daring me to press the issue. “Anything else, Miss Bishop?”

“No,” I grumble. It’s rare to see Lisa so rigid. “I think that’s all.”

“Have a nice night,” she calls, offering a small, gold-flecked wave before taking up her pen. I head back into the Narrows to find Melanie.

There’s this moment when I step into the Narrows, right after the Archive door closes behind me and before I start hunting; this little sliver of time where the world feels still. Not quiet, of course, but steady, calm. And then I hear a far-off cry or the shuffle of steps or any one of a dozen sounds, and all of them remind me it’s not the calm that keeps me still. It’s fear. Da used to say that only fools and cowards scorned fear. Fear keeps you alive.

My fingers settle on the stained wall, the key on my wrist clinking against it. I close my eyes and press down, reach until I catch hold of the past. My fingers, then palms, then wrists go numb. I’m just about to roll the memories back in search of Melanie Allen, when I’m cut off by a sound, sharp like metal against rock.

I blink and draw back from the wall.

The sound is too close.

I follow the noise down the corridor and around the corner.

The hall is empty.

Pausing, I slide the Archive list from my pocket, checking it again, but ten-year-old Melanie is the only name there.

The sound comes a second time, grating as nails, from the end of the hall, and I hurry down it, turn left and—

The knife comes out of nowhere.

It slashes, and I drop the paper and jerk back, the blade narrowly missing my stomach as it carves a line through the air. I recover and dodge sideways as the knife slices the air again, clumsy but fast. The hand holding the knife is massive, the knuckles scarred, and the History behind the knife looks just as rough. He is height and muscle, filling the hall, his eyes half buried beneath thick, angry brows, the irises fully black. He’s been out long enough to slip. Why wasn’t he listed? My stomach sinks when I recognize the knife in his hand as Jackson’s. A blade of folded metal the length of my hand ru

He slashes again, and I drop to a crouch, trying to think; but he’s fast, and it’s all I can do to stay on my feet and in one piece. The hall is too narrow to take out his legs, so I spring up, get a foot on the wall, and push off, crushing his face into the opposite wall with my boot. His head co

Even as I dodge and duck, I can tell I’m losing ground, being forced backward.

“How do you have that key, Abbie?”

He’s already slipped. He’s looking at me but seeing someone else, and whoever this Abbie is, he doesn’t seem too happy with her.

I scan him desperately for clues as I duck. A faded jacket with a small nameplate sewn into the front reads Hooper.

He swings the knife like an ax, chopping the air. “Where did you get the key?”

Why isn’t he on my list?

“Give it to me,” he growls. “Or I’ll cut it from your pretty wrist.”

He slashes with so much force that the knife hits a door and sticks, the metal embedded in the wood. I seize the chance and kick him as hard as I can in the chest, hoping the momentum will force him to let go of the blade. It doesn’t. Pain rolls up my leg from the blow, which knocks Hooper back just hard enough to help him free his weapon from the Narrows wall. His grip tightens on the handle.

I know I’m ru

“I need it,” he groans. “You know I need it.”

I need to pause this whole moment until I can figure out what a full-grown History is doing in my territory and how I’m going to get out of here without considerable blood loss.