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“Not really,” Alex mumbled. She was warm and comfortable. She felt safe for the first time in recent memory. Why would she want to wake up?

The voice chuckled lightly. “Come now, you’ll feel much better once you’ve had something to eat.”

Alex’s stomach grumbled at the mention of food and she opened her eyes hesitantly, afraid of what she might see.

“Where am I?” she asked, sitting up to look around the room. She was lying on a cushy couch in what seemed to be a study of some kind. Flaming torches illuminated overflowing bookshelves that lined the room, and there was a single wooden desk wedged in the corner. Seated behind the desk was a man facing away from her. He was writing with an old-fashioned calligraphy quill, feather and all.

“And who are you?” she added, when the man didn’t answer her immediately.

“Just a moment, please,” he said. A candle on the desk flickered shadows over the side of his face when he turned slightly in her direction. His short, silvery-grey hair—the only feature she could distinguish from her angle—glowed with the light of the flame.

The man continued scribbling for another minute before he signed off with a flourish and placed his feathered pen on the desk. When he turned around, the first thing Alex noticed were his intelligent grey eyes, followed closely by his kind smile.

“Thank you for your patience, Alexandra,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

She opened her mouth and closed it—twice—before she settled on the truth. “Confused,” she said, before hastily adding, “sir.”

The man laughed. It was a pleasant sound, deep and hearty. The noise filled her with warmth. “No need to call me sir, my dear. My name is Darrius.”

She smiled at him. Maybe it was the fact that she’d awoken to hear him quietly singing, or that his calm and pleasant demeanour filled her with a sense of peace, but whatever the reason, she felt relaxed in his presence.

“Confused, Darrius,” she repeated.

His eyes lit with humour. “I’ve no doubt about that, Alexandra. You’ve had quite a knock on the head.”

At his words, Alex realised that her headwasthrobbing slightly. But she didn’t remember hitting it. In fact, she couldn’t remember anything after falling through the black square.

“How did I get here?”

“You fell,” Darrius answered.

She really needed to start phrasing her questions differently. Either that, or she needed to meet some people who didn’t feel the unnecessary desire to state the obvious.

“And how did I land?” she clarified. “Without dying?”

“As to your first question, you landed head-first, which really was unfortunate,” Darrius said. “But no matter, a little bump on the head won’t cause you discomfort for too long.”

Lucky me, Alex thought.

“As for your second question,” he continued, “why would you have died?”

“Uh… maybe because of how far I fell?” Alex said. Darrius just looked at her so she added, “It was alongway! Like,flatten-into-a-pancakelong way.”

He perched his fingers together under his chin. “And yet, here you are before me in one piece.”

“Yes, I can see that,” she said, barely refraining from rolling her eyes. “I’m just not exactly sure how I’minone piece.”

“The Library is full of wonders,” Darrius simply said. “No one alive knows all of its secrets.”

“We’re still in the library?” Alex asked, gobsmacked. “How deep down are we?”

“Come and see for yourself,” he offered, motioning for her to follow him over to a curtain.

Alex rose unsteadily to her feet and walked across the room, reaching out to pull the curtain aside. “What the—?”

Clouds. That was all she could see. Fluffy white clouds in a periwinkle blue sky that stretched on forever. She looked down, but there were only more clouds beneath her.

Vertigo took a hold and Alex swayed on her feet. Before she could fall, Darrius grabbed her elbow and led her back to the couch. He walked over to the wall beside one of the bookshelves and tapped on a remote TCD. Within seconds he was pushing a bowl of soup into her hands.