Chapter 4: The Feeder

Chapter 4: The Feeder

Returning to the Orphic Library was the hardest thing Lena had ever done. Every step was an act of rebellion against the screaming instinct for self-preservation that the name Elara Vance had ignited within her. The morning commute was a surreal pantomime of normalcy. The city was the same, the people on the subway were the same, but Lena was irrevocably different. She was a ghost in training, walking toward the place that had haunted her dreams. The whisper, Listen, was a constant, low hum beneath the city's roar.

She walked up the stone steps, her hand trembling as she pushed open the great oak door. The same scent of old money and polished wood washed over her, but today it smelled cloying, like funeral flowers. The silence was waiting for her, a predator poised to pounce.

Her first priority was the time clock. She approached the brass and steel machine as if it were a bomb, her eyes fixed on the sweeping second hand. The forum post had mentioned Elara’s fear of being late, of Alistair’s silent, sudden appearances. Lena would not make that mistake. Her bag was slung securely, her card held ready. With five seconds to spare, she slotted it in and, at the precise moment the minute hand clicked to 9:00, she slammed the lever down. Ka-chunk.

She pulled the card out. Punched in at 9:00:00. A small, hollow victory.

“Good morning, Miss Rowe.”

Lena’s heart leaped into her throat. She spun around, but this time, he wasn't directly behind her. Mr. Alistair was standing by the main desk, arranging a small, perfect bud vase with a single white rose. His presence was a void in the library’s atmosphere, a pocket of absolute stillness.

“Good morning, Mr. Finch,” she managed, her voice steadier than she felt.

Today, he was different. Not absent or merely observant, but attentive. As she settled behind the desk, he would occasionally drift past the periphery of her vision, adjusting a book here, running a gloved finger along a shelf there. His proprietary air was thicker, more suffocating. Before, she felt like an employee. Now, she felt like a specimen pinned to a board, her every twitch and tremor noted by his cold, pale eyes. The knowledge from the forum post had changed everything; his eccentricities were no longer quirks, but the calculated actions of a predator.

The morning crawled by in a state of high-strung tension. No patrons came. The only sounds were the hum of her monitor and the frantic, silent screaming in her own head. At precisely 12:30 PM, Mr. Alistair emerged from the shadowed aisles. He was carrying a silver tray.

“I took the liberty of preparing a light lunch,” he said, his voice a dry rustle. “It is important to keep one’s strength up.”

He set the tray on the corner of her desk. On it was a porcelain bowl emitting a rich, savory steam, a crust of bread that looked impossibly rustic and perfect, and a glass of water beaded with condensation. It was coq au vin. The aroma of wine, herbs, and slow-cooked meat filled the air, a scent so incongruously luxurious and comforting that it was utterly terrifying.

Lena stared at it. She, who subsisted on instant noodles and microwave burritos, was being served gourmet French cuisine by her jailer. The gesture was so bizarre, so intimate, it made her skin crawl. It felt like he was fattening up livestock. The title of the chapter floated into her mind: The Feeder.

“Thank you, Mr. Finch,” she said, the words feeling like ash in her mouth. “You didn’t have to.”

“Nonsense,” he replied, that unsmiling curve playing on his lips. “A well-run institution sees to the needs of its components.”

Components. Not staff. Not people. Components.

He didn’t leave. He retreated to a reading table about thirty feet away, picked up a leather-bound book, and sat down. He didn’t read it. He just held it, his unnerving gaze fixed on her over the top of the cover. Every bite she forced down felt like a capitulation. The rich, delicious food was a tool of control, a gilded chain being laid around her neck. He watched her eat the entire meal, his stare unwavering, proprietary, and deeply unsettling.

When she was finished, he collected the tray with a curt nod and disappeared once more. The silence he left behind was charged with his lingering presence. Lena felt a desperate need to do something, to break out of the paralysis of being watched. She had to find a weakness. A loophole. An escape route Elara never found.

Under the guise of tidying a section she hadn’t visited before, she began to explore. She moved toward the back of the library, into the older, dustier sections marked with obscure classifications like ‘Pneumatic Philosophy’ and ‘Forgotten Cartography.’ The air here was cooler, the shadows deeper. It felt like a place Mr. Alistair didn’t bother to polish.

Tucked away in a dark corner, almost completely obscured by a leaning shelf of oversized atlases, was a door.

It wasn't like the other doors in the library, which were all heavy, polished oak. This one was plain, made of steel, and painted a drab, institutional gray. It looked utterly out of place, like a door to a walk-in freezer. And it felt like one, too. A palpable cold radiated from it, a chill so profound it raised goosebumps on her arms. The brass doorknob was clouded with a delicate, impossible layer of frost.

Lena stared at it, her breath catching. This door hadn't been on any mental map she’d made of the place. It felt wrong, a secret cancer hidden in the library’s body. The cold it emitted was not a natural cold; it felt ancient and predatory, the same kind of chill she’d felt when she’d first seen Elara’s ghost.

Was this where Elara went? Was this The Final Door the fallen book had warned her about?

Her mind screamed at her to turn around, to go back to the relative safety of the main desk and count the minutes until five o’clock. But the whisper—Listen—urged her forward. Her hand, acting of its own accord, reached out. She had to know. She had to feel it. Her fingertips brushed against the frosted brass knob.

The cold was shocking, a biting, painful sting that shot up her arm. It wasn't just cold; it felt dead, draining the warmth from her flesh.

“Curiosity is not rewarded here, Miss Rowe.”

The voice was directly behind her. Soft, dangerously quiet, and so close she felt the vibration of it in the air.

Lena snatched her hand back as if burned, a strangled gasp escaping her lips. She spun around, her heart seizing in her chest. Mr. Alistair stood there, his body ramrod straight, his posture unnaturally still. There had been no footstep, no rustle of clothing, no warning. One moment the aisle was empty, the next, he was there.

His pale eyes were not fixed on her, but on the frosted door. For a fleeting second, she saw an expression on his face she had never seen before: a flicker of something possessive, almost hungry. Then his gaze snapped back to hers, his features settling into that familiar, cold mask of control.

He gave her the smile. The one that was just a pulling of skin, utterly devoid of warmth, utterly terrifying in its emptiness.

Lena stared back, the dead cold from the knob still tingling in her fingertips. She finally understood. His words weren't a piece of friendly advice from an eccentric boss. They weren't a suggestion.

They were a threat of the highest order, a clear and final warning from the warden of a prison she had willingly walked into.