Baehrly Alive Read Online Free Page B

you won’t?”
    Hypatia sighed. “What do you want me to say, Goldie? I know each and every one of these volumes around us. I say I cannot help you, because I cannot find anything that will help your stepmother.”
    I swallowed hard to keep myself from letting a sob escape. “That’s not possible! There has to be something!”
    “About the disease, yes,” Hypatia said, pointing down toward one particularly large book on her desk. “A cure? Nothing. No one has ever found a cure.”
    I read the paragraph she was pointing to and felt my brows draw together in confusion. “This disease has only existed since the separation with Faerie?”
    Hypatia shrugged. “That is the first recorded case,” she said. “There may have been earlier cases that weren’t recorded.”
    I flipped through the book. “But—the cases have been getting more severe over time?”
    “The disease is spreading faster and hitting harder,” Hypatia agreed. “And there is no cure. It’s a plague—and all Magical creatures are affected.”
    “How does it spread?” I asked, thinking of my pocket of Magical—and rare—creatures at home.
    Hypatia shrugged. “If we knew that, maybe there would be a cure. No one knows how it spreads from victim to victim. The only thing we know about this disease is that it only affects Magical beings and that it is always fatal.”
    I slumped back in my seat, hearing those last words echo repeatedly in my head. ‘Always fatal’ was not a reassuring thing to be up against.
    “There has to be something,” I insisted, flipping through more pages of the book, trying to absorb everything written there.
    “You young creatures feel such enmity with death,” Hypatia said sadly.
    I glanced up at her, with her solid black eyes with no white around them. She looked ageless and ancient at once.
    She did not look even remotely human.
    “I’m not a fan of Death’s work,” I agreed. “I’ve had too many loved ones taken away too soon. I would be happier if I never had to deal with Death ever again.”
    Hypatia chuckled, but I thought there was a note of bitterness in her voice. “Death is what makes life… bearable.”
    Well, she would know. She had been cursed to live forever after that mob had tried to stone her to death and burn her body.
    Like me with my bear—no one had asked her if that was what she wanted.
    Until recently, she’d never been able to leave the Library at all. Only by vowing to return was she able to escape for a couple hours at a time. If she tried to stay away for too long, the Library would yank on her, as if the leash of a naughty dog, and drag her forcibly back.
    After almost two thousand years of that, no wonder Hypatia sounded wistful when she talked of Death.
    “I’m not going to give up,” I told her. “Can I take this book with me?”
    Hypatia gave her hand a negligible gesture and I knew I would find an identical volume in my home library. “I will keep the Ouroboros searching for information,” she promised. “I fear that there is nothing there to find.”
    Every time she implied that it was impossible, I felt my determination increase.
    Maybe that’s why she did it.
    Hypatia was a renowned teacher and philosopher. If she could motivate reluctant students, then she would have no trouble in manipulating me to work even harder.
    “Time,” I muttered as I kissed her good-bye on the cheek and left the Library. “I need more time.”
    I was so focused on my thoughts that I ran right into the person standing on the corner.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, as I pulled myself up to my feet and dusted the seat of my jeans off. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
    The stranger gave me a long, surprised look.
    I touched my face. What, was I wearing jam from tea? Did I have hellcat fur on my sweater?
    As far as I could tell, there was no reason this stranger should be staring at me like that.
    “Did I hurt you?” I asked.
    He shook his head, seeming to blink back from