Inside the double front doors it was even busier than the street outside. The foyer was flush with people. There was a staircase going up on one side and down to the other and they had to pause as several people crossed the entryway to continue going up the other side. Once clear they quickly shuffled into the main lobby which was a large open room. There was a counter that ran the perimeter of the room and people queued up at designated places to speak to one of the people behind it. There were signs hung from the ceiling that denoted which lines were for what and there were smaller signs on posts that were shaped like arrows that pointed this way or that for various services.


    LoVelly tried his hardest but none of the writing looked familiar to him. It all just looked like shapes and squiggles and the more he tried to force it to make sense the more overwhelmed his brain began to feel. His head turned as if on a swivel trying to take everything, anything, in. Something had to make sense, something must be familiar. Anything.


    Mezalie dragged him from his internal spiraling when she announced that they were going up to the third floor. She placed her hands on his shoulders and steered him back towards the stairs, neatly dodging around a couple entering the building. The touch allowed a fleeting trail of spotty feelings and impressions to glide across his mind- a little bit of excitement, some fear, and something he couldn’t decipher between desire and hunger.


    “The archives I want are upstairs, according to the signage.” she told him as they began to ascend.


    The smell of the library hit him before they’d even made the landing; aging paper and glue had such a distinct, lingering odor. It was musky and sweet, a smell that enveloped him and made him feel at ease. It was there in that moment that he felt it: a memory pushing at the seams of the blank space in his mind, a flicker of who he once was.


    He remembered books…no not books, but maybe the smell..of something smoky and maybe spicy? His feet kept marching up the steps, Mezalie at his back. He took another deep breath, tasting the air on his tongue. It was tangy, the glue no doubt lending it that quality. He heard Mezalie take a deep breath behind him and he wondered if she did it to taste the air too or if she was just remembering what he’d told her.


    When they reached the landing his feet took him away from the stairs, in amongst the bookshelves. He stopped, eyes squeezed tight, just beyond where the flooring went from bare to faded carpet. He let the smell drift and settle in his mind, finding its way home to whatever memory it was trying to dig up.


    He remembered soft, sturdy leather in his hands. The sharp tang of greases and conditioners exploded like starbursts and he realized why the smell of the library had triggered it. It was the smell of tools of the craft and while they weren’t the same, they weren’t all that different either.


    “I think…” he whispered, bringing his hands up and opening his eyes to truly see them, “I remember something.” He could almost feel the phantom weight of a tool in his hand.


    He turned his head to see where Mezalie had gone but she wasn’t far, just steps away from him. He waved a hand to get her attention from whatever cover she’d started reading. Once her eyes slid over to him he pointed back, down one of the rows of shelves and away from the more crowded area. She didn’t even glance back at the book, setting off down the aisle before him and taking them all the way to the back.


    “What is it?” she asked with some hesitancy, glancing around them.


    “I think I have a memory.” He blurted in his excitement. It must have been a little contagious because a tiny smile tried to turn the corners of Mezalie’s mouth up too.


    “That’s great! What is it?”


    “I- it’s uh…” He struggled to find the words for the way his mind was processing something as simple as a smell. “Can I show you?” He didn’t actually know that it would work but he had a feeling, almost like remembering something, almost like muscle memory. He reached between them to offer his hands, palms up. Mez quickly reached out and threaded their fingers together, letting the zap of energy run back and forth between them until it settled. He tried to leave his mind open, inviting even, in hopes that Mezalie could find her way to the same memory that he was so close to having.


    A bit of movement caught his eye as a person started down their aisle but decided against it when they saw Mezalie and LoVelly already there. He glanced over her shoulder for any other interruptions but there were none thankfully. He closed his eyes, trying to focus on peeling back a layer in his mind like a sticker, letting himself drift into that space. It was dimmer, in his mind''s eye, than it was in the library with a gentle glow that came from everywhere and nowhere at once. Soft dustings of colors drifted by as Mezalie’s mind began to mingle with his. He felt it when she must have found it, her curiosity piqued and she began burrowing down for the memory he was also chasing. It felt like a tickle in his mind as she grasped for the fleeting images that shot by too fast and feelings that were only half formed.


    As if the so-called sticker had been hiding a crack in the wall, it pulled away just enough and a torrent of information came pouring into the void in his mind. It was a needle and thread. It was colors and textures. A smile on a woman’s face over an item mended. Currency exchanged for a pair of shoes in better condition than before. A child''s delight in the repair of a sacred toy. It was solcen after solcen of practice and application. His hands were those with skill and precision that had taken his entire life to gain and he’d just…forgotten.


    How had he forgotten?


    It was as if his entire being sung with it now, he was a craftsman, he was an artist. He always had been and he always would be. He wanted to shout it because how could he have forgotten?


    “Oh,” Mez breathed out, “I see now.” LoVelly opened his eyes when she started to pull her hands away. The memories felt like smoke drifting lazily through his fingers. They were there and he could feel them settling into places in his mind but they were so few and far between. There was no context and nothing to ground them, they were abstract moments on an otherwise empty canvas but at least now there was something.


    “Yeah… yeah. I remember now. Just a little bit but I remember something finally.” He clenched his hands into fists and then stretched them back out a couple of times, testing the feeling.


    “What happened? How did you remember?” she asked. They both paused when another person stopped at their aisle and, after a moment, started towards them. They were looking so intently at the books he didn’t think they’d even noticed the two of them yet. Mezalie made a sweeping motion and they silently agreed to move along. LoVelly turned at the end of the aisle and they kept walking through the bookcases, watching for other people.


    “I think it was the smell? Something about the way it smells in here reminded me somehow. It just came to me really.” He explained as they slowed to linger around the end of another row as two other people passed them.


    “Huh…okay so some things can trigger it. Maybe we can figure out how to trigger more on our own?” she wondered. He watched her place the tips of her fingers to the spines of the books on the shelf and dragged them along as she wandered down the new row.


    “What exactly are we looking for?” LoVelly asked.


    “I’m not sure…something on old convergence points maybe? Or maybe something about memory loss.”


    “And what about your thing?” he asked. She paused momentarily before taking a deep breath.


    “Well we have to start somewhere.” Mezalie argued with a shrug and an eyeroll and he let it go because he figured she was right. It was just that ‘starting’ felt a lot like searching for a pin in the dark.


    “I’m sorry I won’t be much help,” he sighed. Even now, scanning the titles of books and looking at the signs that hung down denoting each section, nothing stood out as readable. Instead it all remained strange and unfamiliar with some of the squiggles seeming to shift around in an effort to keep him from deciphering them.


    “It’s okay. I’m thinking of you more as my moral support greshgen,” she said absently as she reached up and pulled a book from the shelf. She cracked the cover to skim over the contents, briefly flipping through before replacing the book on the shelf.


    “A greshgen?!” LoVelly gasped, mouth hanging open in offense. “I am not a pet.” Mezalie narrowed her eyes at him.


    “You would be honored to be a greshegen,” she told him and spun on her heel away and marched away from him to the end of the aisle. LoVelly surely followed after, drawn like a magnet that always pointed home. “I’m sure we can find some way for you to help.” LoVelly was skeptical despite her confidence. He really truly wanted to help but he couldn’t force himself to be able to read, not for a lack of trying.


    Mezalie led them around the library and back toward the front where they’d come in. She was clearly looking for something, head turning this way and that. Finally she perked up at the sight of a small counter tucked away against the far wall and quickly led them over. The woman behind the counter noticed them and gave a small wave as they approached.


    “What can I help with?” Her voice was hushed to match the muted sound of the surrounding room. There was chatter around them but the many many books acted as a great insulator.


    “Hello,” Mezalie smiled in greeting, “I’m looking for something old on convergence points. Maybe even something pre-war if you have it?” she whispered back. The woman’s eyebrows raised.


    “Well now that’s a request!” The woman laughed and LoVelly couldn’t help but admire the way her laugh lines settled heavily on her face; she was someone who smiled wide and laughed often. “Forgive me,” the woman waved a dismissive hand at them, “I just hardly get requests for those kinds of things. We have them though.” She looked down at her desk and reached to press a button on a palm sized box there. A bluish white light appeared between them and her. It flickered a few times before stabilizing and the holographic screen started to load a variety of text. The woman used her finger to drag the screen until she found what she was looking for, tapping an empty box. Another light came on the front of the box and a digital keyboard appeared on the table before her. She quickly tapped away and the screen reloaded several times in quick succession.


    “Now, I’ve got a few things on the subject.” She said with a conspiratorial smile as if it were a secret they were sharing. She dragged her finger up the screen, scrolling through a list of things. “I’ve got collections of historical accounts, I’ve got…partial reconstructed engineering records but they’re in untranslated Kargeine. And then several books that talk about the role and impacts they had in both Great Wars. Do you know more specifically what you’re looking for?”


    There was that feeling again, like a corner of the blank sheet in his mind was peeling up, gently coaxing him into picking at it. If he could just…peel it back far enough… then, surely, it would release the contents it was hiding from him. A different touch, a physical one, to his shoulder dragged his attention out from his mind and both Mezalie and the woman were looking at him expectantly.Stolen novel; please report.


    “Did you get lost again?” She said it playfully with a little puff of laughter but he could feel the concern, the curiosity, that transferred between them. He quickly laughed along, flashing an embarrassed smile.


    “K’div k''div,” the words fell from his mouth, and even though he wasn’t sure where they’d come from, they felt right. “Can you say that one more time?” He abandoned the scratchy feeling in his brain for the time being.


    “Don’t even worry about it. Here’s a list for now,” the woman placed her pen down and handed Mezalie a card with several lines of text scrawled across it. “If you don’t find what you’re looking for, come back and we’ll try some others.”


    “Thank you, truly.” Mezalie scanned the card, turning to look around at the section signs.


    “All the way down, second to last row, for the first three. And the other ones are upstairs. You’ll need to ask Elelle at the desk up there to help you with those. They’re very old.” They nodded as she dismissed them and they headed in the direction she’d pointed them.


    Mez held the paper out to him, raising her eyebrows in question. He took it and looked at the words there. He closed one eye and looked and then the other. He tried turning it this way and that but finally sighed in frustration. “I can’t even tell if she has good penmanship.” He let out a miserable little groan in defeat. Mezalie squinted at him, like she was trying to look through him.


    “Can you even recognize the difference between languages or can you actually not see the letters?” She asked in a hushed tone. He looked back down at the card for a moment. He looked up at a plaque on the wall ahead of them.


    “I think I can’t see the letters right. It’s like…they shift around before I can figure out what they are. Does that make any sense?” He briefly closed his eyes because trying to decipher the squiggling words was making his head spin a little bit.


    “I wonder if it’s the [glamor]?” She offered up as they arrived at the correct aisle and Mez began combing through the shelves looking for whatever was written on the card. LoVelly felt awkward having to simply stand there and wait but Mez began to pull books off the shelf somewhere in the middle of the row and he gladly reached over to take them as she collected more.


    Once they had a sizable collection of maybe six or seven books, some short and some intimidatingly long, they wandered off to find somewhere to comb the material for anything they could. They ended up finding a quiet corner set with a squat table and thick, dense cushions around it. A little ways further a young woman sat on a wide window seat, her knees pulled up and a book propped there. Otherwise the area was theirs. They both slid their books down onto the table and dropped into a seat. Mezalie drew one of the thicker books to herself and flipped the first few pages before flipping it face down on the table. She met his eyes across the table and maybe it was the lighting or the strange after effects of his memory burst but the intensity in her gaze made a shiver run down his spine. There was a depth to her dark eyes that made her feel so cold in a way that had nothing to do with her clammy body.


    “Close your eyes.” She placed an elbow on the table beside her book and propped her chin in her open hand. He narrowed his eyes skeptical, but finally closed them. He huffed in a deep breath and released it all in a put-upon sigh. “Good, yeah. Deep breathing.” She made a show of taking her own deep breath.


    “What are we doing?”


    “[Meditating]. Since you can’t help me read maybe you can try traversing the realms with intent and see if anything else comes to you.”


    “Oh. I see. I supposed it can’t hurt. And if all else fails I can just take a nap,” he snickered.


    “Either way I’m going to try to get through…some of this.” They both looked at the pile and he was starting to have doubts about the viability of this plan. “Actually, come sit over here.” He opened his eyes and Mezalie scooted over far enough for him to scoot his cushion around the corner and join her. It was a bit cramped but Mezalie immediately cozied up, making herself comfortable which solved the space problem. Neither of them minded the closeness and the tingly sharp feeling that snapped between them was starting to feel familiar. She picked up her book again. “Maybe you can absorb some of this through me if you try hard enough.” She turned to the first page of the book proper.


    “You say that sarcastically but I don’t think it''s a terrible idea. It’s not like I have a better one.” Her only response was to shrug at him. He closed his eyes and took several more deep breaths, holding them for a tes before releasing each one. He tried to find that itchy feeling again that had had him so thoroughly distracted earlier. There was something in his mind trying to claw its way out and maybe Mez was right, maybe he just needed to let the ambiance of their surroundings guide him back like it had when they’d arrived.


    At first all he noticed was the quiet. The denseness of the room, the shelves acting like corrugated layers created a gentle hush over everything and it was easy to relax into Mez’s side, breathing deep and even. It wasn’t for several dib that LoVelly realized it wasn’t all that quiet actually. He could hear a dull roar coming from downstairs, he could hear people chatting together in other rows. He could even hear someone shelving books somewhere nearby, the gentle ‘thunk’ and ‘shwish’ as books were shuffled and shelved. There was a lot of general noise happening around them that he hadn’t really notices until he slowed down.


    He was so caught up in the whirlwind that was Mezalie that hadn’t really stopped to assess the situation. He’d said he needed to examine his blind devotion and maybe later was now. So he pondered. He examined the abstract thing in his mind that represented Mezalie and her ‘isms. Something that felt a lot like all of his blood and organs and maybe his soul too, sang to him that Mezalie was important, that she was the key to everything. It was a strange thing to have such conviction for when he had absolutely no context for what ‘everything’ was. He was sure it had to do with the monster though.


    He tried to remember something beyond a vague notion but he found it difficult to focus on anything specific. How did he find her? How did he know he was needed?


    Who was he besides ‘LoVelly’? He’d had a life before this, he was sure of it. The few precious memories he’d been afforded so far proved that but there was much more. There must be. Someone out there had to know him, right? Would they look for him? He had no way of knowing.


    His mind drifted instead to what he did know. He knew he was LoVelly, that was most certainly his name and now he knew he was a craftsman. He fixed things with his hands and he thought if he gave it another try he would pick it right back up. On the other hand Mezalie was fairly certain that he had some kind of glamour over him and that his appearance may not be what it seemed. He tried very hard to picture his own face and it was harder than he thought it would be, trying to recall times he’d looked in the mirror or had seen his reflection but when he thought of recent times it seemed fuzzy and unclear. Like there was a haze he couldn''t quite wipe from the lens to view. What came instead was a sudden onslaught of photographs like his mind had taken a sudden tour of someone’s home.


    He saw photos in frames and when the space ran tight there were photos tacked and taped around those frames and on walls, everywhere and anywhere they could be put really. They were beautiful, many of them were capturing natural phenomena and even some fae, from any variety of landscape. But as his mind shifted erratically with little control he saw that in so many of them there were small groups or sometimes just two people, smiling back at the camera and he only mostly recognized one particular face but it must be him because he was in most of them. It felt more like seeing a twin, someone that looked like him but wasn’t. He didn’t have a twin though, he was sure about that.


    His mindscape shifted into a nebulous space that his heart said was home. It was… unremarkable actually. He wasn’t sure he could identify what anything at ‘home’ looked like. There was the vague impression against the background of furniture maybe, a staircase going down, a door that led somewhere deeper. Like the letters on the page though, these things shifted, undefined and only partially formed in his mind. Those things, barely there at all, began to dissolve even further, slipping away like smoke in the air and he was left adrift in the non-space in his mind.


    It hadn’t even occurred to him that he might fall asleep, sitting down, with his eyes closed, warm and comfortable. When Mezalie shook him for the third time, unbeknownst to him, he jolted awake. He slammed his knee into the table in his full body jerk and he hissed, immediately rubbing a hand over the affected area that was sure to bruise. LoVelly blinked a few times, squeezing his eyes and trying to shake out the needles in his feet. He looked over at Mezalie who was stacking the books in two piles on the table.


    “Did I miss anything exciting?” he joked. To his credit she did crack a smile as she shook her head.


    “Honestly the first book was too dense for me right now, and I skimmed these ones,” she motioned to one pile of books, “for anything that stood out but it’s a lot of useless stories and pictures of people who threw a lot of money at the Convergence Project.”


    “I did find one thing that was interesting though.” She flipped the last book she had open to a marked page. There was a photo on one page and a full block of text on the other. The picture was taken at a distance, it showed a very small, slight figure that was entirely in shadow, back lit by a huge torrent of light. It wasn’t a perfectly clear shot having the tiniest bit of motion blur as the moment was captured.


    “It says that the Seltzeka, the mage that took out the Vott, came here through a convergence point. Which is whatever but-” she flipped the page, “look at this.” She pointed to the technical drawing that was on the backside of the page detailing the specific convergence point. “I’m pretty sure this is the same one that you took us to. Look at the lines.” She ran her fingers along the lines in the image for a distance before swiping her finger across it. “It’s the same it was just broken here,” another swipe, “and here.”


    LoVelly was still fighting off images of places and strangers and a feeling of creeping dread but he did his best to listen to what Mezalie was telling him. He squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head a few times, trying to clear it of the dreams still haunting him. He took a deep breath and then refocussed on the image she was showing him. He did think it looked familiar…


    “Yeah. I think I see it. Here and…” he punctuated the sentence with a wide yawn, “here.” Mezalie looked at him, expression blank, then at the book and back at him. She softly closed the book and set it on top of the pile in front of her before she unsettled them both to stand. LoVelly blinked up at her, a frown in place.


    “We don’t have to leave because of me.” He patted the edge of her cushion a few times. “The meditating just worked too well.” He laughed at that. “I do think it was a little bit helpful though. It’s hazy but I remember…I almost remember, seeing people’s faces that I knew.” He tried to find any of those memories now but they were impossible. Mezalie gave him a soft smile and offered him a hand to get to his feet.


    “It’s okay. I can come back later. We’ve been through a lot. I think we deserve the rest. I was just so anxious earlier, like I was buzzing and this seemed like the best way to use that to our advantage. But the passion has passed and now I want to lay down.”


    LoVelly stretched his arms high above his head and twisted a few time before he helped Mezalie gather up the books they’d pulled. They made a quick stop to drop the books on a return cart before heading back towards the front of the building for the stairs.


    “Oh. Wait. Before we go,” LoVelly stopped them suddenly. “I need a bathroom break before we head back.” He didn’t need to be able to read to know what a bathroom looked like thankfully.


    “I’ll wait for you.” Mezalie assured him.


    He broke away and pulled hard on the heavy door they nearly passed. He was relieved to find a remarkably clean facility; there were vents along the ceiling on the far wall that allowed airflow in and out even. He was quick to do his business and move to wash his hands. With the water running over his hands, the soap sloughing off with it he had to confront the growing ball of twisting feelings in the pit of his stomach. He had no reason to be afraid, or even concerned, because it didn’t matter. Whatever he saw in his reflection was going to be the same as it had been this whole time and likely would be until they managed to solve more of their mysteries.


    Even so, it was hard to look.


    But he did it anyway.


    And then he moved to dry his hands, shaking them still after and briefly patting them on his pants, front then back, and left the bathroom. Mezalie was still waiting right where he’d left her and together they descended the stairs and started their trek back to their accommodations for the rest of the driev. And if she noticed that he was quiet on the trip back she must have thought it was the exhaustion. LoVelly wasn’t sleeping though, nor was he interested in the scenery that flew by as the street car whizzed along. Instead he was fixated on the thing he could see in the almost-reflection the window offered periodically.


    He wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, but what he’d seen in the mirror and what he was catching glimpses of in the glass now was strange. It didn’t make sense to look at and all he could think of was the way he felt when he''d looked at the creature lurking within Mezalie. It was otherworldly, an impossibility, and it certainly wasn’t the face he’d recognized in his dreams but like that stranger in the photographs this too, he could feel deep in his soul, was him.