The Library of the Departed never truly slept.


    Even in the dead of night, the endless halls carried the sounds of rustling parchment, the shuffling of robed initiates tending to the newly collected, the soft whispers that bled from the spines of the dead. The silence was never quite silent, not in the way most people knew it.


    It wasn’t unnerving. Just familiar. Another part of the work.


    Most of the time, at least.


    I sat at my desk, staring at the blank expanse of the parchment in front of me. The quill rested, untouched, in its inkwell. I’d been sitting there for hours, trying to coax something out of the depths of my mind, but the words never came. They rarely did, anymore.


    Writing had been my first passion, before the Library found me. Stories filled my youth—the grand, sweeping tales of knights and dragons, of star-crossed lovers, of the great, the infamous, the broken. I’d been a writer, or thought myself to be. But that was a lifetime ago.


    I ran a finger over the pale, twisting scar on the back of my left hand. The symbol of the Undertakers, etched in flesh and ink. The mark of those who knew the secrets of Transcription. Every Undertaker bore it, a permanent reminder of their bond to the Library. To the work.


    The work that came with more scars than just the one on my hand.


    With a sigh, I gave up on the writing. Words weren’t meant for me, not anymore.


    My thumb traced the lines of the scar. The past was a strange thing, both distant and closer than breath. I could still hear the echoes of the life I’d left behind—the clatter of typewriter keys, the scratch of pen on paper, the faint scent of tobacco and whisky that had followed me into the small hours of the morning. Back then, I hadn’t known what it meant to collect the memories of others. I hadn’t understood.


    I pushed the memories back down and stood from the desk, stretching out the stiffness in my shoulders. Sleep wasn’t likely to come, but at least I could try. I blew out the lamp and settled onto the narrow bed, letting the darkness surround me.


    <hr>


    The rain had picked up again by the time I left the Library. Fat droplets hit the pavement in a slow, unhurried rhythm, the kind of drizzle that seeped into the bones rather than drenched outright. I pulled my collar up and stepped into the street, joining the thin stream of people hurrying to and from their own daily errands. Somewhere down the block, a gramophone played a blues tune too old and tired for the hour.


    St. Hubert’s Infirmary wasn’t far. Close enough that I could have taken the tram, but I walked. Always did. It was a habit I’d picked up early in the job. It was easier to think on my feet, and sometimes you saw things from the ground you’d miss from behind a window.


    By the time I stepped through the infirmary doors, I could already feel the eyes on me.


    A different doctor manned the desk. Younger, a little less reserved than the last one. He gave a nod, and a quick, “We’ve been expecting you.”


    I said nothing, just gave a half-nod in return and slipped past him toward the stairs. They always said the same thing. We’ve been expecting you. As if death’s door swung on a schedule. In a way, I supposed, it did.


    The first sign that something was off came before I even stepped into the room.


    Hospitals always smelled of antiseptic and something fainter, something cloying and metallic that clung to the back of your tongue. But this room was different. The scent was almost cinders, like a house burned long ago, or a pile of dead leaves set to flame. It pricked at the inside of my nose.


    I adjusted my gloves, stepping inside.


    The body lay under a white sheet, just as they always did. The chart by the bedside listed the name Eleanor Reed, aged thirty-one, cause of death: pulmonary failure. No listed family. No outstanding debts. A quiet, unremarkable passing.


    A clean, straightforward collection.


    Or at least, it should have been.


    I set my case down beside the bed, fingers running over the brass clasps. Something in the air itched at the back of my mind. Not wrong, not unnatural—just... off.


    The first signs of Transcription started like they always did. Ink welled beneath her fingernails, dark veins curling up her arms as the body began its dissolution. Flesh softened to parchment, bones to binding, skin tightening over a frame that no longer held breath. The scent of ink filled the room, rich and heady, as words began to etch themselves across her skin.


    It was slow, deliberate, inevitable.


    I watched, waiting for the end. Hours passed, marked only by the gentle ticking of the clock at my back. Time had a way of blurring when you spent enough of it waiting on death.


    Eventually, the ink stopped spreading.


    Eleanor Reed was gone, and in her place, a small, slim volume with a leather cover. The smell of smoke still hung in the air, but it was muted, buried beneath the ink and the unmistakable scent of old paper. I leaned over, turning the book to see the title—and my breath hitched.


    The name on the spine wasn’t Eleanor Reed.


    <blockquote>


    “The Last Confession of Nathaniel Kade.”If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    </blockquote>


    I frowned, pulling the book closer.


    Names weren’t arbitrary. A book’s title was the truth of a life, compressed into a phrase. No two books ever bore the same name. No book had ever carried the wrong one.


    This was wrong. Had to be.


    Transcription didn’t make mistakes.


    I ran a finger over the spine, tracing the letters there. The leather was dark, the edges of the pages gilded in silver, the kind of binding that suggested something deliberate, something carefully maintained.


    Maybe it was a nickname. An alias. Or a pseudonym? Had Eleanor Reed been a writer, I could see it. But the record stated she’d been a seamstress. Hardly the type to hide behind a false name.


    This was not Eleanor Reed’s book.


    And yet, it had to be. Transcription didn’t lie.


    I hesitated. This was not my place. My job was to collect the book, and to deliver it to the Library. The mysteries of the departed were for the Archivists to untangle, not some Undertaker.


    But nothing prevented an Undertaker from reading the books. It was just my personal rule.


    I had seen thousands of Transcriptions in my time as a Field Undertaker. I had seen books formed from murder victims, from the lost and the forgotten, from those who had died screaming. I had seen books with torn pages, with ink smudged by agony, with bindings barely holding together.


    But I had never seen a book that did not match its dead.


    A slow breath.


    I needed to be sure.


    I flicked the book open, careful not to disturb the spine too much. The first page bore the usual dedication—the single sentence that every book carried, the one thought, memory, or truth that defined its existence.


    I flipped the book open carefully, my gloved fingers skimming the first page. The ink settled, curling along the parchment, forming words that should not have belonged to the woman who had laid upon the bed.


    <blockquote>


    “This is the story of a man who never existed.”


    </blockquote>


    A short sentence, a dedication both confessional and contradictory. The words were even, measured—not the rushed scrawl of a life cut short.


    My hands stilled, but I continued to read.


    <blockquote>


    “I boarded the train at dusk, the weight of the journey pressing against my chest like an iron shackle. The destination was irrelevant. Only the leaving mattered.”


    </blockquote>


    The handwriting was sharp, deliberate. The voice behind the words was unmistakably male.


    This was not her story.


    But it was her book.


    The question was: Why?


    <blockquote>


    “My name is Nathaniel Kade, and I have been running for a long time.”


    </blockquote>


    I snapped the book shut, shoving it into my case, more forcefully than I’d meant to. I had two choices. File it away and let the Archivists deal with it, or investigate.


    The former was protocol. My role as an Undertaker was simple: collect, deliver, move on. The Archivists handled the rest. If the book was wrong, they would flag it, investigate it, seal it away if needed.


    Whatever had happened, it wasn’t my concern. I was a collector. A ferryman. Not a keeper of stories, and certainly not some kind of detective. I had no business reading the pages of the dead.


    Still, the thought nagged at me as I made my way out of the hospital, my case in tow. It nagged at me as I stepped out into the drizzle, and as I walked the rain-slick streets toward the Library. It nagged at me even as the gates opened before me, and as I pushed the great oak doors of the Library inward.


    Edwin Hargrave was still at his post, ledger open, spectacles perched on the end of his nose. He looked up as I approached, his eyes flicking to the case in my hands.


    “Another one?”


    I nodded. “Something’s off about this one.”


    He sighed, setting down his pen. “You always get the interesting ones, don’t you?”


    “Not by choice.” I unfastened the clasps, pulling the book free. “Look at the title.”


    Hargrave adjusted his glasses, squinting as he read the spine.


    His brow furrowed.


    “The Last Confession of Nathaniel Kade.”


    I waited.


    Hargrave frowned, flipping the book open. He skimmed the first page, then the second. His fingers drummed absently against the desk.


    “This—” He hesitated. “This isn’t the right name.”


    “I know.”


    “This should be Eleanor Reed’s book.”


    “I know.”


    Hargrave exhaled slowly, rubbing at his temples. “I’ve seen misbindings before. Echoes from other deaths, bleed-through from shared trauma. But this—” He shook his head. “This is different.”


    The book rested between us, its leather cover gleaming in the lamplight. My mind replayed the lines from the first page. This is the story of a man who never existed.


    What did that even mean? Who was Nathaniel Kade?


    I glanced toward the shelves behind him, endless rows of books stretching into the distance. Each spine bore a name. Each book told a life. This was the first time I had ever questioned whether a book belonged there at all.


    “What do you want to do with it?” Hargrave asked.


    I could tell what he expected. File it away. Let someone else worry about it. That would be the simple choice. The professional choice.


    Instead, I slid the book back into my case. “I want to find out who Nathaniel Kade was.”


    Hargrave studied me for a moment, then exhaled. “I had a feeling you’d say that. I’ve been pushing for you to be an Archivist for years now.” A pause. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s the right decision.”


    He flipped through the ledger, skimming through the entries until he reached the end. “Eleanor Reed died in a small apartment above a milliner’s shop. No relatives. Worked there as a seamstress, according to the landlord. I’ll send a runner for her personal effects. Maybe we can glean something more from that.”


    “Thank you.” I hesitated. “Why are you helping me?”


    Hargrave gave a wry grin, adjusting his spectacles. “Someone needs to.” A pause. “And, to be honest, it’s good to see you interested in something again.”


    My jaw tightened at that, but I didn’t reply.


    I knew what he meant. It had been years since I’d cared about anything beyond the simple process of retrieving a book, delivering it to the Library, and repeating the cycle. Hargrave had tried to reach out in the past, to get me to engage in something more meaningful, but it had always felt hollow.


    Not this time. This time, there was a question to be answered.


    I gave him a short nod, then turned to head to the restricted archives.


    A book had never lied before.


    I needed to know why this one had.