“I wasn’t trying to break in, if that’s what you were thinking. I… got lost.”

  My pitiful explanation was ignored as Elian leant against the wall, staring at the tape between my fingers.

  “Of course, and you so happened to find that fingerprint lying around.” He leant a little closer. “Wait a moment, is that makeup?”

  I put it behind my back and kept my chin up high.

  “Never mind that, why are you here Elian? This isn’t exactly a place for the Chancellor’s heir either.”

  He ran his hands through his hair, the confidence suddenly gone.

  “No reason. It’s just the labs… the labs are where she used to work. It’s strange, I can still feel her presence, like she’s still alive.”

  I nodded, biting my lip.

  “As long as you keep the memory of her alive, she’ll never truly leave you.”

  “Do people actually believe that?” he asked.

  “No, but maybe you should.”

  He sighed as if all the hope had been drained from him. In all fairness, maybe it had.

  “I’ll try. Here,” he said, gesturing to the scanner, “Want me to let you in?”

  “You don’t even know why I’m here.”

  He smiled.

  “I trust you.”

  “A bit too much.”

  The scanner turned green again, opening the heavy door with an agonising groan, and he held out his arm.

  “Walk with me?”

  I took it and we started walking into the labs, with the rusty stains still on the wall, and the labyrinthine corridors with dozens of doors all hiding one secret or another.

  “So, why are you here?” asked Elian once we’d spent enough time walking.

  “I wanted to understand why your father’s sending us back in time. I figured I could use the time machine to go to the moment he first started planning the trials.”

  His face softened.

  “That isn’t going to work, my father keeps his reasons for everything he does to himself, no matter what time he’s in. I’m his son and even I don’t know why he does the things he does.” I cast my eyes to the floor but he lifted my chin. “But I might have something that could cheer you up.”

  “Well.” I took a shuddering breath. “Those electronic butterflies were great, do you have any more of those?”

  “No.” He smiled softly. “Not butterflies. It might be easier if I show you.”

  He swept his hand toward the third door on the left, and we opened it.

  The time-machine sat in the centre, brought back to the room hours ago, a dead relic, powerless without its owner. Its shiny metal arch had become dull and grey and the tools left on the workbench were beginning to gather dust.

  “This is Niva’s workshop,” I whispered.

  “Yes.” He rolled up his sleeves. “And we’re going to use her time-machine to catch a break from this mess.”

  He was already at the controls fidgeting with buttons with the excited impatience of a dog, digging out two watches, similar to the one the Lion Legion members wore, from the box of small inventions on the side of the workbench, and placing one on his wrist.

  “I haven’t done this for years, so I hope it works,” he said as he reached for my hand and fastened the other watch.

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “Have a little faith.”

  The machine thrummed to life, glowing that familiar crackling blue, and he jumped into the tower of boxes hastily shoved to the corner of the room, methodically searching through every item and placing it back in its exact position.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

  As an answer, he brought out two white tunics and cloaks.

  “The ancient city of Alexandria.”

  I took the clothes, then realised there was nowhere to change. He seemed to realise it at the same time because he said, “Oh, right. We’ll both face away from each other. No peaking.”

  I tried not to think of how exposed we both were as we turned around and I removed the Estate uniform to replace it with the much more comfortable tunic.

  It hung differently than anything I’d ever worn before, heavy on the shoulders yet light and flowing, much less restrictive than the Estate uniforms or Vocafeum’s.

  “Ready?” I called.

  “Ready,” he answered, and we both turned back to face each other.

  Seeing Elian in looser clothes compared to the restrictive waistcoats and shirts he usually wore sent me dizzy with whiplash. He looked like a completely different person but also more like himself, somehow. More comfortable.

  “You look good,” I told him.

  “So do you.”

  We stepped onto the platform, and the machine’s blue mist embraced us in its familiar coolness.

  “We’ve got three seconds.” He grabbed my hand. “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  This time the machine’s energy struck like lightning, igniting every nerve as we were pulled through the fabric of space time once again.

  We landed on solid ground, heat already starting to cook my skin.

  Elian gestured around, more excited than I’d ever seen him.

  “Welcome to the Library of Alexandria, the last day before it burns down and thousands of works are lost forever.”

  I looked up.

  Shelves upon shelves of scrolls lined the room, with half a dozen passages leading to hundreds more, splitting eternally to store the vast quantities of information within the library’s possession. The illusion of infinite space, however, was ruined by the claustrophobic ceiling, and cobwebs covering the stone walls like marble. And yet, something about it managed to take my breath away.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” I gasped.

  “This is everything the human race knows at this point in time, all stored into one place.”

  It definitely put the human mind in a good light, but then people were always good at casting themselves in good light. It came as naturally to us as breathing.

  “So where would Alexandria be in our time?” I asked.

  “Somewhere in the East African Dominion I expect.”

  “That far? I’ve never even been outside Saxanglain before.”

  “I thought you’d appreciate a change in scenery.”

  “You thought right.”

  He leaned on a shoulder-height shelf with his elbow, the torchlight flattering his eyes as they drew me in, swirling like liquid amber. His full mouth curved into a lazy smile.

  “Have you ever seen a play?”

  I placed a hand on my hip.

  “What do you think?”

  “Would you like to, then?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He held out his hand and I took it, letting him lead me out of the library and into the bustling city.

  The amphitheatre loomed large above everything, with stone steps meant to act as seats, and people crowded all over to watch the play, bodies piling on top of each other to add to the summer heat.

  On stage, actors in ginormous masks waited to the side for the music to begin, and eventually someone in the circle of musicians below trilled a few notes on a wooden stick pierced with holes and the audience fell silent.

  The actors pranced onto the stage, feeding off of their audience as they began talking and brought everyone to the edge of their seat.

  I didn’t understand a word, but I didn’t need to. The atmosphere was enough to be entertaining on its own, plus the songs were fun and catchy enough to get everyone clapping along.

  Everyone except Elian, who was happy to sit with his arms crossed, although when I stood up to dance and clapped in his face, a small smile formed on his lips.

  “Come on, don’t you want to join in?” I teased him.

  “They’re singing about the murder of the male lead’s father, I’d rather not.”

  “Do you understand what they’re saying?” I asked with wide eyes as I sat back down next to him.

  “Bits and pieces. I studied the play when I was small.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Really? I never took you for someone invested in the arts.”

  “Interesting, considering I designed and made the clothes we’re wearing.”

  I turned to face him. These could have easily been bought in a shop or factory-made. If he made these himself he had a talent that needed to be put to use.

  “Huh, I had no idea you were into making clothes.”

  “No, not into it as such...” he said, nervously running his fingers through his brown curly locks but I kept watching him, staring with a pointed look and eventually he bowed his head. “It’s a hobby. I barely get time to practice.”

  “Training to be the next Chancellor must take up a lot of time,” I guessed, about to take his hand before thinking better of it, “You don’t always have to be what people want you to be, you know.”

  “I know, but sometimes it’s easier to avoid a battle than fight a losing one.”

  “That’s true.” I nodded. “It’s a lot easier. But just because you know you’re going to lose doesn’t mean it’s not worth fighting.”

  “I don’t think that’s entirely true. Please never become a soldier.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t believe it. You see life as a battlefield, a chess match. Black and white. Win or lose. But I think it’s more…” I trailed off, slightly embarrassed in case I said something ridiculously stupid, “Don’t laugh, but I think it’s more like a sky full of stars. It can be really dark sometimes, but the bright spots are there. You just have to look.” I tried hearing the words from someone else’s perspective. “That sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

  He tilted his head side to side, considering the words.

  “Maybe life can be a bit of both,” he said, then tugged on his tunic. “You won’t tell anyone about this, will you? No one knows.”

  A lightbulb went off somewhere in my head with the realisation that I couldn’t preach something and not follow it. The logic Elian used was the same I was using to not join the Lion Legion, and here I was lecturing him on the need to fight.

  “You don’t trust people easily.” I smiled. “That’s alright. Neither do I.”

  Elian rested his chin on one of his hands.

  “You trusted me to not give you away the first night we met.”

  “Shhh.” I leaned in closer. “Don’t ruin the moment with your logic and your common sense and your objectively true statements.”

  We laughed and watched the rest of the play which carried on for hours, and clapped when it finished, our efforts nothing compared to the rest of the audience who roared in approval.

  Hand in hand, we strolled back to the library, with the sun setting over the coast and a warm breeze swirling through the air.

  In the streets, lovers kissed, merchants sold their wares, and bakers sold bread, trying to sell their last loaves before the day was out.

  Elian slowed when we got to a man selling apples. He walked up to the vendor and handed him a coin, then bowed as he took two from the cart.

  “Here, catch,” he said, casually tossing me the biggest apple I’d ever seen.

  I caught it, and everyone stopped to stare while I took a bite.

  “What are they staring at?”

  He scratched the back of his neck and laughed nervously.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Yes, you do! You’re lying! Go on, tell me why they’re staring.”

  He fidgeted with his tunic.

  “I forgot that around here, throwing an apple at a pretty girl was considered a declaration of love.”

  I looked around at everyone, seeing their expectant faces.

  “Am I supposed to believe you forgot that?”

  He put both his hands up.

  “Honestly, it completely slipped my mind.”

  “What a shame, now I have to pretend to accept.”

  I linked his arm, laughing at the growing blush in his cheeks, and rested my head just below his shoulder as we walked along the seaside to the whispers of a few people gossiping before getting on with their business.

  “Wonderfully acted,” he said sarcastically, “Now let’s get out of here before they ask us to name a wedding date.”

  We rushed back to the library before the sky went dark and entered into an open room with rectangular seats you could lounge on dotted around the middle.

  “Race you to the seats!” I cried and raced to the nearest one.

  Elian scoffed.

  “I’m the son of the most powerful man in the country, you don’t seriously think I’ll race for my seat.”

  I was already lying down.

  “Then you lose, Sir Endavell-Alvidrez.”

  He rolled his eyes with a grin but went to pick a scroll from the shelf along the wall then handed it to me.

  The pages slipped between my fingers, and the rush of emotions came at once, welling up at the surface.

  I pressed the scroll to my heart.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” I bit my lip and he tilted his head, obviously not believing me at all. “It’s true!” I protested. “Vocafeum was a little low on reading material is all. It’s just reminding me how important these are.”

  “Then keep it.”

  I couldn’t, could I? It was a priceless artefact. It needed to be preserved in a museum, or more likely a high security facility as museums had virtually become extinct in the last century. Either way it had no place being stuck with the likes of me.

  He shrugged.

  “It’s only going to burn down tomorrow anyway.”

  I shook my head at all the things humanity might never get to see because of that very fact.

  “What a loss.”

  “They say the burning of the library set humanity back a thousand years. I was always desperate to see it, but I wanted to wait to see it with someone special.”

  “And you chose me?”

  “Is that so crazy?”

  Something twinged in my heart, something impossible to ignore. That this boy, a Custom of all things, could choose me to travel in time with, was still impossible to believe.

  “I’ve seen crazy,” I said slowly, “And somehow being here with you, thousands of years in the past, isn’t it. Actually, it feels like the most normal thing in the world.”

  I placed the scroll to the side and stood up before either of us could let the words sink in.

  “Maybe we can stop it, get some water and extinguish the fire before it starts. We could save everything.”

  His lips turned upwards at a corner.

  “I wish we could but if travelling with Niva taught me anything, it’s that the universe will make sure what will happen will always happen. The library will burn. If not tomorrow then the day after, or the day after that. There’s nothing we can do.”

  “Fine, then I’m collecting as many scrolls as I can to take back with me.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “That’s… that’s a good idea actually.”

  “Oh, well thank you, I do have them from time to time,” I teased, and we began searching through each scroll to pick the most important ones.

  “You’ll have to help me translate.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  The library was the size of a mini village so there wasn’t time to flick through everything, but even a couple of pages would be worthwhile.

  We read each one by torchlight, carefully putting it back in its place if it wasn’t important enough. My criteria for this was so low that Elian gave me strict rules about what could be salvaged, though I managed to stuff a couple of my favourites in my tunic without him noticing.

  “So why did you choose to visit a library about to be burned down, of all places?”

  He suddenly became distracted by a scroll, and I thought he wasn’t going to answer, until he cleared his throat.

  “I’ve always felt at home in libraries, and this is history’s greatest. It just made sense I suppose.”

  “That sounds lonely.”

  “They’re an escape. From the life I have to live, from the pressure. If it’s lonely then that’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

  I hugged him for the second time that day, as if I could absorb all the bad things that ever happened to him, rescue him from them.

  “Besides, stories and make-believe are the only escape I can get from the life I’m destined for, because even if I wanted to give it up, I couldn’t. When it’s my turn to run this country, I have to fix the pieces my father leaves behind. I won’t abandon my people.”

  “It’s not a bad thing to do what makes you happy,” I mumbled into his chest and squeezed him tighter. “And you do deserve to be happy.”

  He cupped my head in his hands.

  “So do you.”

  For a second I imagined what it would feel like to have his lips brush against mine, but I pushed the image away and Elian dropped his hands.

  “The institutions have certainly left a big scar.”

  They had left multiple scars, but there was no point dwelling on them. I’d survived this long at Vocafeum, I could survive a bit longer, survive a few more experiments until I inevitably went out in a blaze of glory. Granted my aspirations weren’t exactly high, but it was more than most people got. And there was nothing I could do about it. Except maybe one thing.

  “If I fail the final trial, promise me I won’t become just another faceless victim. I want someone to remember me when I’m gone.”

  His breath hitched.

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “I expect to survive,” I bit my lip, “But just in case, I want to say thanks for everything. Thanks for getting to know me and caring, even if you didn’t have to, and for giving me experiences I thought I’d never have. And for not getting mad when I did stupid things like tell Niva her mother was alive when we should’ve discussed it first. Seriously, thank you for giving me an adventure most people could only dream of. I’ll never forget it.”

  The mention of Niva brought a smile to his face, though it was probably from bitter-sweet memories of his friend rather than happiness. A far-away smile, Ramya once called them, the kind you pulled when you’re missing someone you’ll never see again.

  “That sounds an awful lot like a goodbye,” he said, leaning closer. “You realise if I had my way, you’d be by my side, and I yours, regardless of what the Triumvirate thought? I don’t know what the future holds but I do know I want to explore what part you play in it. I’m not ready for us to say goodbye.”

  I had to catch my breath. He was painting a picture of a life I desperately ached for but could never have, and it cut harsher than a knife. Relegates didn’t get love. Not the bold, shameless kind where you could walk down a street holding hands, get married and settle down with a house and kids. The best Relegates could hope for was stolen moments after lights out, not even seeing your lover’s face in the daylight because they worked in a different field from you, and if they did you got stolen glances at most. The institutions made sure love was as inaccessible to us as our freedom, and sure if I got through the final trial and became a Custom it might be easier to have a normal kind of love, but the lessons taught by the institutions were drilled into us so much they became the foundation of how we lived our lives, and getting over that would take more than a genetic alteration.

  At that moment, I cursed every corner of the universe that had ever had a hold of my life, that had ever held a role in steering the direction it took, because how could it give me the spark of something so wonderful and then burn me with it?

  I wondered if the reason his words got to me were because they meant he saw me as I saw him. Maybe the reason we were inexplicably drawn to each other despite our differences was because at the end of the day looking at each other was like looking in a distorted mirror. We looked at the best parts of the other without realising it was our own hopes for who we wanted to be, the life we wanted to live, staring back at us.

  “Fate’s cruel isn’t it,” I sighed, “Just think, if I was born a Custom, there’d be nothing standing between us.”

  He didn’t seem to agree.

  “How can fate be cruel when it brought us to each other?”

  That, at least, I couldn’t argue.

  “There’d always be an obstacle between us,” he continued, “Because I’d always choose you, and my parents would hate me for it, no matter who you were, because they can’t stand the things they can’t control.”

  “I did actually notice that.” I smirked, focusing on the easiest part of what he’d just said.

  “So… theoretically… if there were no obstacles…”

  I understood what he was asking and opened my mouth to reply until I caught sight of the sun coming up through a slit in the wall meant to be a window.

  Except it wasn’t the sun at all.

  The orange glow melted into hazy smoke. It was fire.

  “Elian look.”

  He lifted his head.

  “What is it?”

  “The library is about to burn.”

  He grabbed my hand and we ran, scrolls tucked into as many pockets as possible, until we were on a neighbouring hill, with a perfect view of the flames licking at the base of the library.

  We stayed there, watching the flames engulf the building, turning every remnant of this pocket of civilisation to ash, angry fire against the calm deep of the night sky, and in that moment the flames grew so big they seemed to stroke the vast emptiness of space. It looked as if it could go on burning forever.

  “You don’t have to make a decision, by the way,” Elian reassured me, “I only wanted you to know how I feel.”

  “I’m sorry I don’t have an answer for you.”

  Not yet, anyway. Maybe when my brain had finally untangled all the broken pieces of who I was meant to be, started piecing them back together, maybe then I’d allow myself to think on it. If he was willing to wait that long.

  “It’s ok. Here.” Elian sat down, patting an empty spot on the grass next to him. “Let’s sit and watch history burn under the stars.”

  Warning bells clanged in the distance as hordes of people either ran from the city or rushed to the sea for water to put out the fire with, to no avail.

  I rested my head on his shoulders for who knew how long, until everything was nothing less than smouldering char.

  “Time to get out of here,” I said finally.

  He tapped a button on his watch and took us back to Saxanglain. The twilight of a wonderful day I’d cherish forever.

  We landed back at the labs, immediately returning back to the guest wing. I hadn’t learnt what I wanted to, but the journey hadn’t been in vain.

  “You know you can talk to me, don’t you?” Elian asked when we reached my room.

  “What do you mean?” I said too quickly.

  “I mean there are moments the mask slips and I see how it eats away at you. What they did, the things they made you hold inside. When you’re not paying attention it comes out on your face, might as well be printed in ink. And you bite your lip when you lie, so why did you do it when you said you expected to survive?”

  “Oh, I didn’t know I did that.” Heat rose to my cheeks. Dammit, Ayla, you used to be better at hiding your stupid feelings than this. You’ve certainly had enough practice. “It’s nothing, you don’t need to worry, I always find a way to pull through. I’ll be fine.”

  I simply patted him on the shoulder and wished him a good night before he could ask any further questions. I leant my back against the door and slumped to the floor, a crack in the dam breaking. All the things I’d pushed deep down, all the walls I’d built to contain them had been for nothing, and the bad thoughts, the doubts, the fears, the insecurities, came spilling out, going for hours and hours until my tears had dried up.

  I held up the Lion Legion’s communication device, staring at the pixelated message I’d replied when they gave the time and location to their next meeting.

  I’ll be there.