Chapter 4: The Singularity Closet
The Singularity Closet was not, as the name implied, a closet containing a singularity. That would’ve been far too straightforward.
Instead, it was a long-forgotten maintenance shaft stuffed with rejected jars, spare cardigans, and one highly illegal pocket black hole. The Archivists had stuck a “DO NOT OPEN” sign on the door sometime around the library’s third collapse and then collectively agreed to pretend it didn’t exist.
Lexi did not believe in pretending.
Which was why she now stood outside the Closet, arms crossed, glaring at the door like it had personally stolen her favorite fountain pen.
R’thax leaned casually against the wall beside her. Shirtless, again.
“Ventilation,” he said when she raised an eyebrow.
Lexi didn’t reply. She was too busy calculating how many disciplinary reports she could realistically file before her stylus ran out of ink.
From inside the Closet came a sound. Not a scream, not a growl—worse. It was Jexi, the intern, belting out a heart-wrenching aria in flawless Italian. Her voice cracked the air with such force that three nearby jars labeled “Mildly Awkward Family Reunions” shattered simultaneously.
“Possession level?” R’thax asked, his third eye narrowing.
“Somewhere between Phantom of the Opera and Cats,” Lexi muttered. “Heavy on the furball.”
The aria swelled, filling the corridor with vibrations that made the shelves rattle. Lexi’s glasses slipped down her nose. R’thax caught them deftly, sliding them back up with a tenderness that made her stomach tighten in ways she did not approve of.
The jar she carried pulsed in response. The Suspended One. Beige light throbbed between her fingers, syncopated to the rhythm of Jexi’s voice.
Lexi hissed. “It’s harmonizing with her.”
R’thax grinned, infuriatingly calm. “Duets are romantic.”
“This is not romantic. This is contamination.”
“So are most relationships.”
Before Lexi could snap back, the door blew off its hinges.
A surge of hot mist rushed out, carrying Jexi with it. She hovered midair, hair wild, eyes glowing with borrowed memory. When she sang, the library itself seemed to answer, shelves groaning, jars rattling, the whole atrium trembling to the beat of her possessed aria.
Lexi tightened her grip on the jar.
R’thax flexed, unnecessarily.
And Jexi hit a high note so sharp it nearly cracked their composure—and the singularity behind her.
If they didn’t act soon, the Library of Exhalations would implode in a duet of regret and horny subtext.