It felt like an eternity as I was held there, the shadows gripping my head. I couldn't see anything but complete darkness, which seemed to be moving through my eyes, piercing into the back of my mind, and completely filling my senses.

There was nothing but obsidian darkness.

Sable Huntris.

My name was intoned gravely, by a choir of whispers that blended together into one. It thundered in my ears, loudly, although my name was only whispered.

Sable Huntris.

Copier of memories.

What brings you down to the Library?

I opened my mouth to answer and choked on darkness.

How did you expect to survive the Drain? You're not even a hunter, although it's in your blood and upbringing.

What can you do? Sable Huntris, what will you do when the darkness comes calling for you?

Suspended above the moat's gaping maw, only the toes of my boots and the grasp of the shadows keeping me grounded, I had no answer. My voice was stolen. I could only formulate half-logical answers in my dark-befuddled brain.

Like it came calling for them?

Then the voices changed. The words died out as the underlying sounds became a stream of soft, intrusive noise. I felt the grip on my mind shifting as they strove to reach something else inside my head. And then suddenly, I could see again.

Dazed, I looked up and around at my surroundings, surprised to find I was no longer about to plunge to my doom. Instead, I was in a tunnel, one I recognized from the Grid.

What?

I pivoted in confusion, trying to make sense of the sudden change. This tunnel was the very one I had used to access the Drain via the gutterfalls.

This doesn't make any sense.

Movement flashed in the corner of my eye and I glanced up to see a woman walking up beside me. Stopping next to me, she held out her hand and offered me a half grin. "Ready there, Sable?"

Light brown, almost reddish, hair cut short, but brown eyes like mine. Luktor told me once I looked like her, in one of the rare moments of peace between us. I never believed him, but now, I did.

I idolized my mother when I was a child. She was a hunter, a killing machine. She bargained with merchants in the marketplace of our village of Argon in a way that was both fierce and subtle. Her words were always reassuring and slightly arrogant, like she knew how cool she was to young Sable.

And here she stood, right beside me.

I couldn't respond, my throat was so choked. This time, it was emotion and not the shadows' darkness that constricted my throat and stole my voice. Megana Huntris was dead. The Drain had killed her. It had killed both of my parents and had always had a claim over Eurykhan.

"What's wrong, Sable?" she asked, furrowing her brow. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

I swallowed and tried for an answer. My voice was so hoarse I could barely speak. "Because you're dead?"

My mother threw her head back and laughed. "Oh, Sable! I'm not dead, but you're about to be."

I blinked and suddenly I was back in the chamber, hovering over the abyss. The darkness instantly receded, along with the shadows' needles from my scalp, and then I was falling forward, tumbling into the moat.

Frantically, I reached for the Muse 5 rifle in my pack. Slinging the pack down from my back, I pulled the rifle out and then flung the pack over my shoulders.

"Sable!"

Luktor's voice whirled around me as I continued to tumble through the darkness, sounding like it was coming from everywhere at once, a taunting edge to it. "Sable!"

"What?" I yelled back, aiming my rifle up at the rapidly shrinking tower and slapping at the control panel to change the settings. I couldn't help it. I knew I shouldn't respond, shouldn't join in whatever mind games those shadows were playing, but I couldn't help it.

Pressing the trigger, I watched the energy that shot from the muzzle solidify into a strong cable that would bear my weight. It traveled swiftly up the face of the cliff and stuck to the edge. The line jerked me out of my freefall and I swung towards the central island. I kicked my feet up to make sure I didn't go face first into the hard rock.

The jolt of impact rippled through my bones, causing me to grit my teeth as I tightened my grip on the rifle. Trying to push Luktor's voice out of my mind, I tapped the control panel on my rifle, letting go with one hand in order to do so. The cable began to reel back into the rifle's muzzle as I was drawn up the face of the cliff.

"Sable, Sable. Always relying on that Muse rifle of yours." The voice was condescending, disapproving.

"Shut up, Luktor," I muttered. "Let's not get into this argument again."

"You always did prefer modifications over actual skill."

I bit my lip, trying hard not to respond. Keeping my feet against the rock face, I focused my eyes on the edge of the cliff. Luktor, you won't provoke me this time. Not right after I saw Mom.

"Sa-ble. Sa-a-ble."

Luktor drew out the "a" in my name tauntingly, knowing how much I hated it when he did that. I shook my head. Memory. It has to just be memory. Luktor's being held captive by the ones who hired me.

"Sable!"

His shout cut through the air. "You know Eurykhan taught me more than he ever taught you. You know that. You know that, very well. I know you do. I know you do."

The lip of the cliff was in sight. "Oh, shut up!" I yelled to the memory of my brother. "Oh, shut up! I'm just as good at my job as you are at yours!"

"Yeah, right," Luktor scoffed. "I perform operations. You simply manipulate thoughts, and not even when they're actually being thought."

"Like stark!" I retorted. "I alter memories and construct new ones. You can't do that. You just implant drives in people's upper spinal cords so they can experience what I create."

"Yeah, right, Mnemosyne," Luktor shot back. The name he applied to me was like a slap in the face.

"Mnemosyne could create memories, beautiful things," Herc Huntris, my father, told me and Luktor, when we were children, eager for stories. "She was not a goddess, but close to one."

Her stories were like the Muse 9 – legend. Mnemosyne had never existed. The derision was crystal clear in my brother's tone as he mocked me. His implied message was obvious: you will never be that good. It was the only reason he used that name. He taunted me with the knowledge that I would never be a legend.

Whereas, my brother was the best in his field – and there were no legends for him to live up to.

Luktor Huntris was the legend for operators.

I reached the edge of the cliff face and hauled myself up over the lip. For a moment, I just laid there, staring up at the chamber ceiling far off in the distance, before I heard Luktor's voice again. "You know I'm right, Sable."

I propelled myself up onto my feet and sprinted for the base of the tower.

"Run, run!" Luktor shouted after me. "Just like always!"

No, I always punch you.

But I couldn't punch someone who wasn't physically there.

I reached the base of the tower and circled around, searching for the entrance. About thirty feet from where I had exited the moat, I found a small, black door, smoothly polished. To my surprise, it slid up as soon as I touched it.

Daughter, you are sunlight. Just because you live in darkness doesn't mean you have to accept it.

My father's voice, gravelly but comforting, rang in my ears as I stepped inside the tower. I shook my head roughly as I glanced around. Registering no immediate threats, I slung my pack down and placed my Muse 5 carefully back inside. I replaced my pack and unstrapped my Muse 8, checking its settings before I allowed myself to really survey my surroundings.

I was standing on a landing, a spiraling staircase heading both up into the tower and down into the depths of the stone island. Besides the flights of solid stone steps, there was nothing on the landing. Just dark and glossy emptiness.

I peered up the one flight of stairs, then down the other. No clues as to which way I needed to go to find the Muse 9 texts.

With a sigh, I pulled out Eurykhan's book and flipped through the pages to where he had written about the Library. I've never been inside.

"Well, stark," I muttered.

But I know Megana has been there.

I froze. Mom?

My mother, of whom Eurykhan always said There are no good hunters, just living ones? She'd been here where he hadn't?

She died there.

Herc died trying to save the body.

[----]

I took the stairs two at a time, leaping up the steps. I needed to escape the ghosts that flew around me, that haunted me, and on a whim, I took the stairs leading up.

They died here.

They died here.

THEY. DIED. HERE.

Nobody had ever told me that.

Why hadn't anybody ever told me that?

I couldn't think, I just ran. I didn't want to think about how they'd died. I didn't want to know why they died. I just wanted to escape it.

The steps kept circling up. And up. And up.

I just kept running up. And up. And up.

Step by step by step by step by step by step....

They died here.

And I kept running.