It took Rue a long time to get the heavy cart down four flights of stairs. She was panting from the effort, and the relatively warm space of the library didn’t do much to help. Like the jail, which had also been carved into the ground rather than a building with multiple flights above ground, it was far more warm than it seemed it should be.

  Then again, it could have been due to the amount of exertion she was putting forth.

  Moving the card down each staircase, while it was full, was impossible. It was too heavy, and each staircase had ten steps apiece.

  Rue devised after a bit to take the books in armfuls down, taking several trips, and then move the empty cart down. She had to do this with each floor though, and by the time she was halfway done the second floor, she realized that she should just carry the armfuls down to the fourth floor, and climb all the way back to the second, and repeat.

  It was an awful system, and she was fuming, unsure why she was even bothering to do this. She would absolutely not do this for a job. What was the point of the cart if there weren’t ramps to go down? She was almost certain that there was an awful joke behind all of this.

  On her third armful down, huffing and puffing, a voice startled her as she bent over to set the books on the floor.

  “What are you doing?”

  Rue startled and yelped, jumping back and promptly hitting the ground on her ass. She found herself staring up at a young man, who looked around her age, wearing a pair of glasses and bundled in thick, earthen brown and green robes. Mousy brown hair hung in a somewhat long cut, and he looked pale, as if he had rarely seen the sun. He appeared perplexed at the situation in front of himself.

  Rue was stunned for longer than she expected, her heart leaping in a race as if it were a wolf in front of her instead of a scrawny man. She shook her head, trying to strip off the sensation, irritated that his appearance had disoriented her so much.

  “Are you Thaddeus?” She asked, scrambling to her feet.

  He blinked and nodded once. “I am.”

  “Alright, help me get these books down,” Rue huffed. She turned and stormed up the stairs. After a few moments, an increasingly perplexed Thaddeus trailed her up the flights to the second floor, finding the last two piles of books and the cart waiting. He looked even more perplexed as Rue bundled some books in her arms, starting to rant.

  “What’s the point of a fucking cart if you have stairs in here? Does that bitch upstairs make you always walk them down? This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever had to do, and I’ve done lots of stupid things for stupid people!”

  As she started towards the stairs, Thaddeus, who had remained quiet in her ranting, reaching out to tap her shoulder to try to get her attention. Rue flinched hard at the touch, her raving abruptly cutting off. It was a reactive enough of a flinch that even Thaddeus flinched, though he recovered faster than Rue did, who had twisted around and froze in place.

  “--I’m sorry,” he started, lifting both hands. “I just want to, ah, show you something. Please?”

  Rue stared at him, her green eyes wide. It took another moment for the spell to break, a storm cloud seeming to rocket over her as surprise melded to dripping irritation. “Don’t touch me. And what do you want to show me?”

  Thaddeus cleared his throat. He turned around. They were in the landing of the stairwell, which itself was a small room with a platform, stairs leading both up and down. He pointed at a bronze plaque, centered above a door.

  “What? A closet?” Rue asked. Each level had a door. She assumed it was storage, because what else could it be?

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  Thaddeus stared at her, then opened the door. “...It’s a lift. A stair lift.” He explained.

  “I don’t know what a stair lift is.” Rue held her clutch of books protectively.

  Thaddeus nodded towards the open door. “Step inside,” he said. His voice was gentle, rather than ordering. Rue stared suspiciously at him, and slowly stepped into the lift. It was surprisingly roomy inside. Thaddeus smiled softly at her as she turned around to stare at him from the room.

  “I don’t get it,” she said, as he turned his attention to the wall, pressing his palm against it. “It’s just an empty–”

  He shut the door in her face, closing her in the room.

  “What the fuck?”

  Rue went to grab the door, then the very room seemed to shudder. She yelped, momentarily stunned, then went to grab the handle, but by then the room was moving. The walls shuddered and her stomach felt like it was lurching. She grabbed at the door handle again, but the door suddenly started going up. The handle slipped from her grasp and the very walls moved around her.

  Rue screamed and dropped the books. Her balance pitched and she hit the ground again, scrambling back to the wall, clutching at it. The walls felt as if they shuddered and moved for ages before it stopped finally. A new door had slid into place, but she was paralyzed, terrified that the walls would begin to move again.

  Her fear was verified as a minute later, they did move once more, started the process over again. Rue whimpered as the door went down this time, watching it disappear. Paying more attention, she saw another door go by as the walls churned, and then another. It stopped at this door. Rue trembled, closing her eyes. She didn’t trust the floor to stop moving.

  Click.

  “Are you alright?” Thaddeus laughed as he found her trembling on the ground. Rue’s eyes flew open, staring at him in shock as he stood in the entryway of the door.

  Then she was flying forward. He hopped out of the way as she dove from the room, scrambling back to her feet, chest heaving.

  “What was that?!” She cried out. “Are you trying to kill me? Fight me like a real man!” She bellowed, energy surging through her.

  He stood much taller than her, lanky limbed, but wasn’t exactly much more strong looking. He laughed again, stepping back, putting the cart between them. He had loaded it back up with the leftover books.

  “It’s a lift!” He insisted, while Rue vibrated, fists clenched together. She seemed to be seriously considering launching herself over the cart to get to him. “It’s powered by runes, it takes you between the floors!”

  “How’s that even possible?” She challenged.

  “A lot of buildings in the city have them, you know. Well, the important ones, anyway. Come on, we’ll go down again.”

  “No!”

  “It wasn’t really that bad, was it?” He said. He backed into the lift, keeping himself facing her and the cart between them, seeming to realize she might actually try to hit him. And though he was taller, Rue wasn’t that short either, a bit taller for most women in the area.

  Rue glared, and turned to hurry down the steps. He shrugged and put his hand to the wall on the inside. Closing the door, the walls shuddered and brought him down.

  Rue waited at the bottom for him, staring at the door with a hard glower.

  She could hear the sound within, an odd straining, but she realized that the stone itself didn’t sound like it was scraping or hitting anything. It was absolutely bewildering and unlike anything she’d seen before.

  Sure, like everyone else, she had heard that Whesirki contained magic that you wouldn’t find just anywhere else. The entire city had been created around superior magical innovation, creatively using abilities to fortify the buildings, and create luxury for the residents. This must have been one of those things, but she hated it. Being underground was already unpleasant. Being underground and trapped in moving stone walls was even worse.

  The door opened, and Thaddeus wheeled the cart out. He had put the books Rue had dropped inside onto the cart, and now wheeled it to pick up the books she had stacked on the floor, crouching as he pulled them back onto the cart.

  “I take it you’re not from here,” he said, a smile evident in his tone. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’ve never seen anyone try to move the books down like that, but Miss Tomeheart doesn’t usually ask strangers to shelf them.

  Rue didn’t move to help him. “Miss Tomeheart?”

  “Yeah. The librarian, who probably let you in. And apparently gave you this cart. And my name.”

  He finished stacking the books back up, and stood to look at Rue again. Rue stared, then blinked as her memory finally remembered how to work again. “The satyr? What’s a satyr doing working in a library?” She blurted.

  Thaddeus winced. “She’s a bit prideful on that matter. Don’t say that so loudly if she’s around, alright?”

  Rue scoffed. “I don’t really care. It’s just weird. She told me to find you to show me how to put these away. I’m trying to get a job.”

  Thaddeus raised his brows. “Alright,” he said. “We can do that. How familiar are you with library shelving systems?”

  Rue mimed picking a book up, and shoving it onto a shelf. “Pick up a book, find an empty spot, and put it there. Yeah?”

  “Oh, no. Not at all. Alright. Don’t put anything anywhere unless I say to, please. Come on, I’ll show you.” He skimmed through the books, humming until he hit the spine of one, and pulled it out. He started walking out onto the floor of the library, and Rue followed after a beat.

  “So, every floor here is dedicated to a subject, but the shelving system is dependent on magical versus non-magical text. This book is non-magical, so we’ll go over here…”

  Rue was already tuning the lesson out without meaning to, finding herself unable to care about this apparent, over-complicated system to organize books.

  Even without caring that much, she followed Thaddeus around like a lost puppy in his shadow, grunting false affirmations of understanding.