He gritted his teeth against the chill and passed under the domed mosaic arches as quietly as he could. He would never master the Second’s eerie stalking silence, and he could hear his shallow breaths and the slippery shifting of his feet in the vaulted stone hallways. From the walls, the painted eyes of former Directors seemed to follow him, their faces austere, their lips unmoving. Their countenances were so lifelike that sometimes he was sure they would leap out of their frames in the deep of night, flat hands grabbing, clothes rippling behind them in unseen winds. In the Library, the long curved tables were bare; the reading lamps, unlit. The bookshelves with their neatly ordered manuscripts slumbered in the shadows, while overhead pale moonlight wafted through the stained glass windows, lighting on the bronze statues of past Librarians standing vigil over the galleries. Lon hesitated at the threshold, but there was no sign of movement.
