In the previous chapter: Oriane decided to visit the library but she was ambushed by some vampiresses on the way but she got away by using the god fire, controlled by her emotions.
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CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
The library was closed.
Technically, it didn't have specific opening hours or anything like that but when she finally reached the top floor of the Main Hall, thankfully without more trouble, the doors were shut.
Deep mahogany wood reached floor to ceiling. The richness of it imposing as she stood at the foot of it. Patterns of vines and flora were engraved onto the heavy wood and polished to a smooth veneer. It positively glowed in spite of the dim lighting.
Oriane reached out... It should be fine, right? She recalled her brief encounter with a Watcher and involuntarily flinched. No, she didn't want a repeat of that. Yet when else could she spare the time to come find what she needed?
Drumming up a bit more courage, she put her hand on the doorknob and turned.
It wasn't locked. The door pushed itself open smoothly as if the door weighed no heavier than half of her. There wasn't even a squeak.
Inside, she was greeted by the overwhelming tower of books. Older volumes in their faded leather jackets and the newer ones in their freshly coloured ones lined the shelving on the curving walls.
She looked about. The librarian was nowhere to be seen. Likely retired for the evening.
The silence would have been piercing in her ear had it not for the whirring echoes of wind coming from above. It sounded like a fan was turned on. If she stood still, a faint breeze occasionally licked her.
Not to get distracted, she got to work on finding anything at all on 'O Mordha'. At a time like this, she wished for a computer. Instead, she had to find the books from scratch. She didn't even know where to begin. Supposed a text on Celtic Genealogy would do.
History... History... Biographies...
Her search went on for at least an hour just to find the right book. If only they had a catalogue for the rows and rows of texts available. The librarian being around might have had been useful if she came at a more decent hour.
On the fifth floor of the tower now, she walked from one end to the other, trying to spy for the right bookshelf. There was an elaborate bronze railing that lined the edge of each floor. Only a small path separated the shelves from the railing, carpeted in dark grey to reduce noise from footsteps walking up and down.
Although, she could see why no one ever came to the library. Other than the fact that there was no assistance, the books weren't organised properly either. It wasn't as though the required textbooks weren't already delivered to their dormitories.
She was just about to give up her search when a familiar voice sounded from behind.
"What are you looking for?" At the question, Oriane tensed. Her pulse jumped out of her skin. Robert was walking over to her from the other side of the railing.
"Robert! What are you doing here?" she exclaimed and swallowed her suddenly dry throat. She pressed her hands to her chest, heart pounding.
The dim lighting in the library cast a dark shadow over his face as he walked ever closer. He had a strange look on his face as they locked eyes, like he wasn't sure what to make of her.
"I saw you walking over her by yourself and wanted to see if you were okay," he said. She frowned at that comment. That meant he had been watching her progress through the library for how long now? "What are you doing?"
"I'm researching..." she answered, trailing off and looking away. Oriane turned her attention back to the shelves and kept walking, eyes trained on the books for anything to do with Ireland, genealogies, and history. Except, half the books were in a language she had never encountered or were about arcane magicks and aura. This tower clearly predominantly housed research texts on magickal works. Oriane had figured that out on her first walk around the first and second levels.
Robert kept a good distance away from her, footsteps soft. She could feel his eyes trained on her and it made her quite nervous.
"What are you researching, Anna?" When she didn't answer, he persisted, "It's not about the white flames, is it?"
Startled, she flipped around and looked at him wide eyed. "What? No, that's not—" She shook her head firmly. "No, it's not that." He was only about a foot away, she deliberately moved back to put some distance between them. Her nerves crackled, sending goosebumps all over her skin, from the little incident earlier and from his unexpected presence. The proximity didn't help right then.
"I saw you, with my own eyes, when you used it on the vamps."
"What?"
"I thought I imagined it but there were marks on the floor." Robert closed the distance and took her shoulders. "When did you work out how to use your affinity, Anna? Has it got something to do with being a mystic? And why do you look so scared about it?"
"It's not exactly an affinity," she tried to explain, shaking her head. Frustration coursed through her and she pushed Robert away. "And it's complicated, I'm not trying to find out more about being mystic, which I don't think I am anyway. I'm trying to figure out where I came from. I— Nevermind."
Robert let his arms fall to his side but stepped closer instead. "It is an affinity. You can control it. Those white flames are elemental, right?"
"No," she shook her head. "It's something else. But more than ever, I need to find out— Honestly, it's fine. I'll figure this out."
"What kind of book are you looking for?"
Oriane was hesitant to tell him about the O Mordha surname and about Maeve. Uilliam had certainly warned against involving any more people. But Robert already knew everything. Charlotte too. She had been hard pressed not to breathe a word about what she now knew all week. It had been killing her inside if she was honest with herself.
But... She looked up at him. Concerned eyes watched hers. Well, she couldn't quite say what would happen if she told them. If things came to blows, it wasn't as if being an O Mordha would change anything about her. If anything, perhaps it would make her less of the useless new girl. The whole year of students probably knew she was powerless despite which class she was put in homeroom.
"I'm looking for the history of an old Celtic family," she revealed yet couldn't bring herself to tell him more. "But I don't know where to find anything general on genealogies, let alone Celtic genealogy."
She left it at that. He might know about her possible mystic origins, but he didn't need to know about why she wanted to find out about it. She didn't want him to know she was researching this so that, if there was a possible lead, she didn't need to attend the ritual on Thursday. The days sweeping past made her increasingly nervous. It was a shame she didn't come to the library sooner, but she didn't think it would be this difficult to find anything.
"I'll help. The library is not organised by subject, as I'm sure you've figured out." Robert walked past her, going to the narrow winding metallic stairs leading back down the levels. "It's arranged by region... And there's a Syphon downstairs that could summon a whole category."
"A Syphon?" That didn't sound much like a library catalogue to her.
"Follow me, I'll show you. It'd be a headache to go through everything manually every time someone needed to do research, Anna."
The Syphon was an empty bookcase at the far end of the library's ground level. It was hidden behind larger bookshelves and right at the back wall. In front of it was an open book, flipped open to an empty page. The sheets were yellowing and looked rather fragile even though there were no tears, the corners flat and uncontoured. If she had discovered it on her own, she would have been slightly creeped out. Oriane could feel that it was... alive, and waiting for the next person to use it.
Robert was unfazed. He walked right up to the open book. There was a traditional pen placed at its side. The feathers were quite worn, some of the fringes had frayed. When he picked it up, she noted that there was no ink jar. The tip was also clean.
"Is there something, in particular, you're looking for?" he asked, turning to her.
"May I?"
Oriane took the pen off Robert. Clearly, she had to write on the open page. By some instinct, she knew exactly what she ought to request. It wasn't something vague like Celtic genealogy.
With a careful hand, she printed: Ó Mórdha.
The pen danced across the pages and the words appeared at the stroke but faded at the next. When she was done, in the low light, it was as if she had never even touched the pages. She set the pen down.
When she looked up, two texts appeared on the third shelf of the otherwise still empty bookcase. One was bound in dark leather, the other was a modern printed one.
"That's a Gaelic last name," remarked Robert, looking over her shoulder. "What does it have anything to do with you?"
She would much rather not say but it was likely best she explain herself. He didn't look like he was going to relent otherwise. She looked up at him. "It's my family name."
Without another word, she walked around the pedestal holding the Syphon and right up to the shelf. Oriane took a deep breath. This was it. Hopefully, she would be able to find out more about her family's legacy.
She took them, holding them to her chest. For a moment, she was afraid to open them. It wasn't all because of Robert's presence. She simply had such high hopes of finding more about what happened to her family that she was afraid she would be disappointed in the end.
Robert must have sensed her unease but was hesitant to leave her on her own. "Look, I won't ask. Let me sit with you, at least?"
Nodding, she clutched the books tightly, fingers turning white.
They found seating near the librarian's front desk. It was probably past midnight and the sooner she could get through these two books, the better.
True to his word, Robert sat silently opposite her, crossed legs thrown over a chair. He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Oriane turning pages and the wind whirring in the background. Meanwhile, she dug in, skimming past the historical records as her eyes tried to catch anything related to O Mordha.
The books did not disappoint. She found her real family's origins in the leather-bound. Legend had it, the O Mordha family was one of the seven Septs of the Loigis, an Irish tribe, which ruled east-Laois, a county in Ireland. Out of these seven Septs, the O Mordhas claimed uninterrupted succession to the chieftainship of the Loigis since the reign of Lugaidh Laeighsech. Apparently, they even had connections to the Red Branch Knights, an order of warriors of the royal houses of the king of Ulster.
The records took for granted Irish mythology. She remembered the storybooks that would show up at her door when she was younger. Was it Maeve's idea to educate her in Irish mythology so one day, like this day, she would be able to find her origins herself? The book dated her family records all the way back to the first century. When made reference to legendary kings like Conchobar mac Nessa, she wondered if these characters actually existed... Unless, the stories were not myth, and were real accounts?
Next, she turned to the modern text. Her eyes widened.
O'Mordha's modern translation was 'Moore', which was the last name she bore on her passport. She realised Maeve had never exactly disclosed her own last name. She had found it odd. Were their relation merely one that she assumed as a child? Technically then, Maeve never lied to her. Maybe she simply made a wrong inference.
Oriane shook her head. It was hard to put the blame on anyone but herself for misconstruing the situation. Except, she still had no idea why Maeve would take her in and yet not spend time with her, to get to know the girl she adopted.
Back to the text, apparently, the Moores were a powerful Irish family that truly made themselves known back in the seventeenth century. Continuing on their legacy in Laois, Ruairi O Mordha, the king then, fought against an English invasion but were unable to defend it. Another ancestor organised a terrible rebellion against the English Protestant government in Ireland.
Shortly thereafter, it seemed the lineage continued on at Balyna estate, a piece of land in mid-east Ireland. Their history seemed particularly normal. Someone was related to Princess Diana... Although, there wasn't much from the seventeenth century onwards to suggest they had even the remotest connection with this supernatural world.
Oriane scratched her head in frustration. It made no sense that she should be absent from her family. Uilliam had mentioned that the Moores were a powerful family but nothing in the two texts indicated as such. Was she researching the wrong thing?
Slamming the books a tad louder than intended, she incidentally woke Robert from his quick nap.
"I'm done. Thanks for waiting up," she said, gathering the texts into her arms.
Robert swung his legs to the ground with a light thump and stretched. "You can just leave the books in that trolley over there." He pointed mid-yawn to a smaller cabinet with wheels at the corner. It was already half-filled with dusty tombs. "The librarian will put them away in the morning."
She did as was told and then followed Robert to the door. It was much past midnight then and there wasn't a soul in the halls. The eerie silence was broken only by their footfalls.
"By the way, you didn't say why you were looking for me."
He grimaced and shook his head, shoving his hands in his pockets. The frown that laced his brows was unusual on him. "It's nothing. You look like you've got a lot of other stuff on your plate."
"It's nothing to do with the cult ritual thing and the Council, has it?"
His eyes widened in a flash of fright but it was chased away by a stiff smile. "No no..." He trailed off, but not before asking her softly under his breath, "You're definitely not going to be involved, right?"
"Why?"
"Didn't you say so last week?"
"Yes..." Something was up. "What's the matter?"
Before they knew it, they had arrived at the dormitories, at the bottom of the stairwell.
"Is there something wrong?" she pressed on. "Please, you've got to tell me. Can I help?"
Robert breathed deeply, concealing a sigh, and half turned away. "It's really nothing. I'll see you tomorrow at homeroom."
A deep sense of foreboding hit her. The Student Council was planning something and Robert was deeply troubled by it, she was sure. She had to tell Uilliam.
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