Page 35 of The Alien in the Archive (Galactic Librarians #1)

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I wish I could focus only on my project with Thorne—trying to get him out of the Obscuary, safe—but alas…I’m also dealing with a potential pregnancy.

No big deal.

Other than the fact that, if I am pregnant, that baby will be the first Borean child in over a thousand years.

I pace the living room of my cottage as I wait for Lyn to arrive, all under the guise of a very normal evening. I’ve scrounged up some pregnancy tests from the hospital in Mythara, but I didn’t want to take one alone. Plus…I don’t want Riley to know. He’s overprotective enough already. I considered telling Thalara, but I don’t trust that she wouldn’t spill the beans to Riley.

So Lyn is on her way.

I hope my trust isn’t misplaced.

I’ve already tidied the books on my table twice, and I’m half-convinced I should start a third round when there’s finally a knock at the door. My stomach turns, though I can’t figure out if it’s nerves or anticipation.

Or morning sickness .

Wait. Can you even get morning sickness at night?

Jesus…I know absolutely nothing about pregnancy—least of all a potential alien baby.

I cross the room and open the door, finding Lyn standing on the other side, chill as always. Her bag is slung over her shoulder, a bottle of emerald green booze in her hand. She frowns as she steps inside, taking in the sight of my oddly immaculate living room.

“You look…well, it’s tidy as hell in here but you look like a wreck,” she says. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say. “I mean—not really. Not at all. I uh…I think I might be pregnant?”

Guess I’m just ripping off the Band-Aid.

Lyn’s eyebrows shoot up, her head tilting as if to emphasize the expression. “Wow. Okay, cool. So your guy is human, then.”

Shit, that didn’t even occur to me. Thank fuck I didn’t specify what species my mysterious boyfriend was.

“Yeah, he’s human,” I say. “We got reckless, things got spicy…and now I have these pregnancy tests and I just didn’t want to take them alone. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Lyn says. “I’ve got you. Wanna do it now and figure it out, or talk about it first?”

I take a deep breath, then blow it out.

“Do it now,” I mutter. “Drink next.”

“Not a problem,” she says. She heads to the kitchen and puts the bottle on the counter. “I’ll crack this open and pour a couple glasses while you’re peeing on the stick.”

I nod, already heading for the bathroom. I shut the door behind myself and read the instructions, getting more and more nauseous. Okay…so in two minutes, I’ll know.

Unfortunately, they are the longest two minutes of my entire life.

When the timer goes off on my comm, I snatch up the test and look at the result. I stare at it, relief washing over me so strongly it almost knows me over.

And yeah…maybe a little bit of sadness—and hope that we somehow pull this thing off—because the test is negative.

I step back into the living room and Lyn looks up from where she’s browsing her tablet on the couch. I hold up the test. “Negative,” I mutter, exhaling. “Thank God.”

“Good,” Lyn says with a small nod. “That’s one less thing to worry about.”

I collapse onto the couch beside her, where she hands me a glass of that emerald green booze. I think it’s Merati mead. “You have no idea.”

Lyn holds up her glass. “How about a toast to being footloose and fancy-free for at least a few more years?”

I snort. “Cheers.”

We clink our glasses together and I take a big gulp, nearly choking on how sweet it is. Lyn does the same, glaring at the bottle still sitting on the kitchen counter. “That’s the last time I take Thalara’s advice on what to drink,” she mutters.

“Of course this was Thalara’s doing,” I laugh. “God help her, but she’s sweet enough to charm the sugar out of candy.”

“Tell me about it,” Lyn says. She tucks her feet underneath her, still cradling the glass even if it isn’t to our taste. For a moment, we sit and watch the fire as I try to steady my breathing. I’m still in the aftermath of the adrenaline rush, I think—the comedown from realizing I’m not dealing with an even bigger crisis.

Then Lyn clears her throat. “You know…I was actually wondering if I could ask you something a bit sensitive?”

I frown, no idea what she’s going to ask. “Sure.”

“You and Riley both use religious language,” she says. “I guess it just…surprises me. I don’t know a lot of people back on Earth who still believe.”

“Well, we grew up in a convent,” I shrug .

“But you aren’t Catholic, are you?”

“Hmm…” I purse my lips, looking up at the ceiling as if I’ll find a sign there. “I don’t know. I don’t practice, obviously; there aren’t any churches here on M’mir. But the ritual of it was comforting when me and Riley were kids. The rules, though? Not so much.”

“Yeah, you two don’t seem much like rule-followers,” she chuckles. “But I guess I didn’t peg you for religious folks either.”

“I think Riley is more of a believer than I am, oddly enough,” I say. “He was still praying on a rosary before we left Earth.”

“No way.”

“Yes way,” I laugh. “Neither of us are really serious about it, but…well, there were still plenty of religious folks in Boston. Not where you’re from?”

Lyn’s face falls and she lets out a long breath. “No…but I’m from Oklahoma. Shit got real bad there after the Convergence. Worse than New England. My great-grandma had fucking horrific stories, even battle scars.”

I blink, caught off guard by how heavy this just got. “Really? I didn’t realize there were too many survivors left, other than people who left Earth and got Elixir bonded.”

She nods. “Yeah, well…she lived through it. I think she hated the Boreans more than anyone I’ve ever known. She had good reason to.”

I go quiet, unable to figure out what to say. I want to get a read on her first, but she’s giving me nothing.

“I mean…they were ugly times,” I say. “No one would expect her to forgive them. But I’m not really sure about the religious part.”

Lyn blows out a breath. “I mean…that’s the thing. Down south, people were believers—and the Boreans preyed on that. They came in posing as angels, said the Skoll couldn’t be tr usted when they were only trying to help. They tricked so many people and claimed to be rapturing them up. My great-grandma was one of them.”

“Oh my God,” I breathe, because there’s nothing else to say.

“She scared me as a kid,” Lyn says. “They had like…carved her up. She was missing an eye, had these like…broken wings attached to her back. I guess they worked at one point, but they’d left her with permanent deformity. It was so messed up.”

“ Fuck .”

“They said she’d been hallowed,” Lyn says with a bitter laugh. “Grafted wings onto her body, called it salvation. Needless to say, she never went back to church. None of us did.”

Her words twist something in my chest, the implications clear as I think about what Thorne said when I gave him the book on dissenters, what he’s told me over and over again. “I didn’t do enough. When people were being tortured and slaughtered, all I did was write.”

Maybe he isn’t wrong after all.

“So I guess…fuck, Lyn,” I murmur. “Is that why you went into cybernetics?”

She nods. “Yeah. Gran used to say her body was a prison, but it didn’t have to be. She thought maybe someone could figure out how to fix what they did to her. She didn’t live to see it, but I wanted to try. I wanted to give people like her a chance to feel human again.”

I hesitate, wanting to say something comforting but not knowing how. “It sounds like you’re doing something incredible, Lyn. I think your great-grandmother would be proud of you.”

Lyn snorts softly, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Maybe. Or maybe she’d tell me I should’ve focused on weapons instead. She always said the only way to stop monsters was to fight back.”

The knot in my stomach tightens, and I force myself to smile. “She sounds like a force of nature.”

“She was,” Lyn says, her tone softening. “And she deserved so much better.”

We sit in silence for a moment, the weight of her story heavy on my heart. I take another sip of the overly sweet mead, my thoughts racing. Lyn is just one of millions of people; the legacy of the Borean Empire is the scars they left on their way to annihilation.

Scars that would never allow her to see Thorne as anything other than a monster.

I force myself to focus on her, on the present. “Thanks for coming over tonight,” I say, trying to steer the conversation back to something lighter. “I didn’t realize I’d end up unloading all this on you.”

“Hey, you’re not the only one unloading.” Lyn gives me a wry grin. “But anytime, Page. Seriously.”

I nod, the smile on my face feeling brittle. Lyn may have offered me her support tonight, but I know now that it comes with limits. And if I’m not careful, those limits could cost me everything.