NOMI
The doors shut behind us with a final, resonant click that echoed far longer than it should have.
The Great Library didn't just smell like old paper; it smelled like time. It was a heavy, intoxicating scent of vanilla, cedar, and something metallic that reminded me of the Aether outside. The silence here was different..it wasn't empty. It felt weighted, as if the millions of words surrounding us were pressing down on the air.
"It's... impossible," I whispered, tilting my head back until my neck cracked.
"It is the sum of five thousand years," Diana replied, though her voice had lost some of its sharp, instructional edge. She looked around the foyer, her pale eyes searching for something...or someone. "And it is managed by one of the most brilliant, albeit exhausting, minds in the
