THE LIBRARIAN DID ME DEWEY
Internal Archivists
by Lilo Quie

Alexei
My first real job out of college, and the offer is almost too good to be true—a fairly paid librarian. As a bookish omegaverse addict, I’ve had my nose in one novel or another since I was a kid waiting on my letter admitting me to any sort of magical academy or otherworldly institute. I just…didn’t think it’d come in an email with a job offer attached. Whatever happened to dragons or phoenixes or a fat bewildered owl ten thousand miles out of its native habitat?

Hell, I’d have taken a cross-eyed pigeon.

Now I’m too old to believe in magic—or fair job offers—and things are a little bit creepy in the stacks. The books whisper my name, watch me from shelves, and I have to write book reports on returned books by antisocial and nervous patrons that never make eye contact. The thing is, none of the books are what I remember, all of them with odd endings or changing scenes straight out of fantasy fanfiction gone wrong. But for what I’m being paid, I pretend it’s normal, ignore the creepiness, the books that bite me, and the occasional encyclopedia that scuttles around on the floor leaving a trail of forgotten words.

When I’m finally forced to confront the weirdness, my coworker, an incarcerated librarian bound to the town, shows me a world I’d always dreamed of. Straight out of my favorite author’s smut-i-verse. And when we find ourselves as the side characters in my favorite book—things get complicated.

Ezekiel
As the son of a plantation owner and a housemaid, I had it better than most in my day. Over a hundred and sixty years later, I’m still kept prisoner by someone else’s standards. Back then, it was by virtue of my mother’s blood. And now? All because the power I wield is dangerous, I’m at the mercy of my superiors. And in those long years since I was first brought to the library with my gift to alter history itself with but a flick of my pen, I’ve become stronger, lonelier, and more hollow.

So, when the cutest archivist I’ve ever seen enters the library, clueless as to what he is, I cannot keep myself away. He’s just my type: slender build, intelligent, and catty. A wit sharper than obsidian. I find his cluelessness endearing. But as he learns what he is, and the power he wields, a gift to pull things from the pages of books itself, he pulls more than money and trinkets from the pages. And while I’m not opposed to the odd entanglement with his beautiful self—this is one knot I’ll never complain about.

AMAZON

Also available in paperback