NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 12: Chapter 12: The Archivist’s Warning
The wind howled through the Hollowmoor towers like a beast that had lost its name. Elara sat curled in a corner of the library's restricted wing, Grimoire in hand, a lantern flickering beside her. The candle's flame danced like it was nervous.
The page with the thorned circle was still blank—until she cut her thumb and let a drop fall onto it.
The parchment hissed.
Letters began to curl into place. Black ink, sharp as razors:
"If you are reading this in blood, you've already opened one door. There are six. The next lies beneath words never spoken."
Elara stared. What did that even mean?
"Beneath words never spoken…" she whispered.
A noise behind her. A soft cough.
She spun around, wand half-raised.
But it wasn't a monster. It was a girl. Pale, gaunt, wearing a librarian's robe at least two sizes too big. Her eyes were clouded like milk, but somehow still saw everything.
"You shouldn't be here," the girl said, voice like a breath.
"You're a librarian?"
The girl gave a hollow smile. "I'm the Archivist. For this section only. My name isn't important. No one remembers it, anyway."
Elara narrowed her eyes. "Then you know what's in the Grimoire."
The Archivist's smile vanished. "Close that book. Now."
Elara hesitated.
"I said now."
The Grimoire snapped shut in her hands—as if responding to the girl's will.
"That book doesn't tell you the truth. It tells you what you'll believe. There's a difference."
"I saw a boy who didn't burn. I saw something crawling from the smoke. Are you saying that didn't happen?"
The Archivist's eyes flashed. "I'm saying this place eats memory. It gives back stories. Some are yours. Some belong to the dead."
Elara sat down hard.
"So how do I know what's real?"
"You don't. You survive anyway."
The Archivist moved like she floated. Her feet never seemed to touch the ground. She guided Elara deeper into the restricted wing. No one else could have gotten this far without being hexed, silenced, or worse.
They passed books wrapped in chains. Scrolls that whispered. A globe that bled.
"Why are you helping me?" Elara asked.
"I'm not," the girl said plainly. "I'm helping Hollowmoor. You just happen to be holding its worst problem in your hands."
They reached a room at the end of the hallway. No door. Just a shimmer in the air.
"You'll need to remember this place," the Archivist said. "It won't remember you."
"What's inside?"
"The real names. Of things that were renamed for safety. It's where the Watcher's first name might still be."
"Might?"
"If no one burned it already."
Elara stepped through the shimmer.
The world changed.
The air turned syrupy. Heavy. Like she was breathing memory.
She stood in a vast chamber of shelves, but the books didn't sit—they floated. Each glowed with an inner light, pulsing softly. Some were screaming. Not loudly, but enough to set her teeth on edge.
A voice rang out:
"State your name."
Elara froze.
The voice had come from every direction at once.
She opened her mouth, then remembered: the boy's warning.
Don't say your name.
She bit her lip. "I'm just a visitor."
The room paused.
Then the books floated aside to make a path.
She stepped forward.
Shelf after shelf passed, each more strange than the last.
A tome bound in feathers that plucked themselves. A diary that wept ink. A scroll that blinked.
Then she saw it.
A small black book. No title. It hovered above a pedestal of bones.
She reached for it—
—and pain shot through her fingers.
The book recoiled. Bit her.
Blood dripped onto the pedestal.
And the book opened.
Inside: nothing but names.
Thousands of them. None human.
Each scratched with fury, like the page wanted to bleed.
She flipped page after page, until one line began to move.
A name erased itself.
Then rewrote itself.
And her own face blinked back from the page.
She screamed.
The name below the face twisted itself into a shape she couldn't read. Not letters. Not symbols.
But she knew it.
It was the Watcher's name.
And now it knew she knew.
The lights in the library died.
She ran.
Through the floating books.
The voices started again—louder this time. Calling her name.
Your name is not your own. It is borrowed. It is broken.
The shimmer appeared ahead. She dove through it.
Back into the corridor.
The Archivist was waiting.
"You found it," the girl said, flatly.
"I didn't read it aloud."
"But it read you," the Archivist replied. "It knows you now."
"What do I do?"
"You burn that page. Not the whole book. Just that page. But only during the next Hollow Eclipse."
"That's… weeks away."
The Archivist nodded. "Then you'd better hide well. And trust no reflections."
"Why?"
"Because that's where he hides first."
Back in her dorm, Elara stared at the Grimoire.
It opened without her touching it.
The page was still there. Still pulsing.
And beneath the unreadable name—her reflection scratched across the parchment.
But her reflection didn't smile.
It grinned.