Father Reven Reposo was dying, and the rain wouldn't let him do it in peace.

  He stumbled through Myreth's midnight streets, one hand pressed against ribs that ground together with every step. Blood soaked through his robes and the bandage under his porcelain mask, mixing with rainwater that fell in sheets so heavy he could barely see three feet ahead. Fog coiled through the alleys like something alive, distorting familiar landmarks into alien shapes.

  Behind him, the inquisitors were closing in.

  He could hear their boots on cobblestone, their shouted orders cutting through the storm. They'd burned him. Broke him. Asked their questions with hot iron and patient cruelty.

  But none of that hurt as much as the silence.

  Morvexis, God of Plague, had not answered his prayers in three days.

  The divine connection that had sustained Reven for twenty years, that had flowed through him like a second heartbeat, was simply gone. Severed. As if his god had looked at him and decided he wasn't worth the effort anymore.

  Betrayed by mortals. Abandoned by my god. What a spectacular way to end.

  His vision blurred. Not from blood loss, though there was plenty of that. This was different.

  The foresight.

  Reven's divine boon, the one gift Morvexis had given him that still worked: he saw death approaching. Always had. A split-second warning that let him dodge the blade, step aside from the arrow, run before the fire consumed him.

  It had saved him seventeen times.

  But this vision was wrong.

  No inquisitors. No assassins. No executioner's block or burning pyre.

  Instead, he saw a bookstore.

  Reven blinked, tried to clear his head, but the vision persisted. An old Victorian building with tall windows and a wooden sign swaying in the rain. The image was so vivid it overlaid reality itself.

  He looked up, squinting through the downpour.

  The bookstore was there.

  Right in front of him.

  Reven stopped walking.

  That wasn't there before.

  He'd walked this street a hundred times. There had been a tailor shop on this corner, then an empty lot after it burned down last year. But now there was a bookstore, standing as if it had always been there, old and weathered and somehow wrong in ways he couldn't articulate.

  The windows felt like they were watching him.

  The wooden sign read: Library of Noctis.

  Terror crawled up Reven's spine, primal and absolute.

  Behind him, the inquisitors shouted. They'd spotted him.

  Ahead, the bookstore waited.

  Death or uncertainty.

  Certain doom or possible doom.

  What a choice.

  Reven's legs moved before his mind could stop them. He stumbled toward the bookstore, every instinct screaming at him to run the other way, but where else could he go? The inquisitors would catch him in minutes. At least this way, his death might be interesting.

  He reached the door and grabbed the handle.

  It was unlocked.

  The door swung open with a soft chime, and warmth spilled out into the rain.

  Reven stepped inside.

  The contrast was immediate and jarring. Warm golden light replaced the cold darkness. The smell of tea and old parchment overwhelmed the scent of blood and rain. Tall bookshelves stretched toward a ceiling he couldn't quite see, their shelves packed with volumes that whispered to each other in languages he didn't recognize.

  The space felt calm. Ordered. Safe.

  Which meant it was lying.

  "We're closed," a voice said from deeper inside.

  Reven turned toward the sound and found a man sitting behind a desk, sipping tea like it was a perfectly normal time to be awake.

  Levi Warwick looked up from his cup and immediately regretted leaving the door open.

  Midnight visitor. Bleeding everywhere. Definitely going to ruin the new rug. Why is my life like this?

  "Actually," Levi said aloud, setting down his tea with careful precision,

  "We're very closed. Extremely closed. Closed in ways that defy conventional understanding of the concept."

  The man in the doorway swayed, dripping blood and rainwater onto the floor in exactly the pattern Levi had been dreading.

  Levi sighed. "You're bleeding on my rug."

  "I apologize," the man said, his voice surprisingly steady for someone who looked like he'd been tortured recently. "I'll be dead soon. Then I'll stop."

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Oh good. Gallows humor. My favorite.

  Levi stood up, studying his unexpected visitor more carefully. Mid-forties, maybe. Burn marks on his hands and neck. Broken ribs from the way he was breathing. Some kind of priest based on the tattered robes, though Levi couldn't identify the denomination.

  And his eyes.

  There was something in his eyes that made Levi's newly acquired Emotive Insight flare with warning signals.

  This man had seen his own death.

  "Come in," Levi heard himself say. "Before you collapse and make an even bigger mess."

  The priest stumbled forward, moving with the careful deliberation of someone who knew their body was held together by willpower and spite.

  He made it to one of the chairs in front of Levi's desk and collapsed into it with a pained grunt.

  Levi sat back down and picked up his tea, taking a sip to buy himself time to think.

  Okay. Bleeding priest. Midnight. Looks terrified of something that isn't the people chasing him. This is fine. This is a normal Tuesday. Except it's Thursday. Which makes it worse somehow.

  "Why are you here?" Levi asked.

  The priest laughed, a broken sound that turned into a cough.

  "I don't know. I was running from inquisitors. Then I saw this place. Or rather, I saw myself dying here, so I thought I'd save everyone the trouble of a chase."

  Levi's hand froze halfway to setting down his teacup.

  "You saw yourself dying here," he repeated slowly. "As in, a vision? A prophecy?"

  "My god's gift," the priest said.

  "Was. Past tense. He's stopped talking to me. But the foresight still works, apparently. Shows me when death is near. And it showed me this." He gestured weakly at the bookstore.

  "You. This place. My death."

  Oh no. Oh no no no. Please don't let this be another genre shift. I just finished dealing with cultivation books. I don't need prophecy mechanics.

  "That's concerning," Levi said with impressive understatement.

  "For you or for me?"

  "Both, probably."

  The priest studied him through pain-glazed eyes.

  "You don't seem surprised. Most people would panic if a dying man told them he'd seen a vision of his death in their establishment."

  "Most people don't run a good library," Levi said. "You develop a certain tolerance for weird."

  "Good library" the priest repeated. "Of course it is."

  Levi set his tea down properly this time. "Let's back up. You said you have foresight. How does it work?"

  "Simple. When death approaches, I see how it happens. Usually gives me enough time to avoid it. Dodge the blade. Step aside from the poison. Run before the building collapses."

  "How many times has it saved you?"

  "Seventeen."

  "And this time it showed you dying here."

  "Yes."

  "But you came anyway."

  The priest smiled grimly.

  "Behind me were inquisitors who've been very creative with hot iron. Ahead was uncertain death. I chose the mystery."

  Levi leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. His Emotive Insight was going haywire, showing emotional threads in colors he'd never seen before. Fear, yes, but also resignation, curiosity, and something that looked almost like relief.

  This man wanted to die.

  Not in a suicidal way. In a tired way. In a "I've run too long and I'm ready to stop" way.

  Great. Therapy at midnight with a prophet who wants me to kill him. This is definitely going in the 'weird Thursday' category.

  "For what it's worth," Levi said, "I have no intention of killing you."

  "Visions don't lie."

  "Maybe. But they can be metaphorical. Maybe you die symbolically. Maybe the 'you' that walked in here dies and someone new walks out. Prophecies love that kind of wordplay."

  The priest considered this, then shook his head. "It was very literal. I saw myself on your floor. Broken. Not breathing."

  "Fantastic," Levi muttered.

  Movement caught his eye. Luna had appeared on the windowsill, her green eyes fixed on their guest with unsettling intensity. Her tail flicked once, twice, and Levi could feel the predatory awareness radiating from her.

  The priest noticed her too. His face went paler, which was impressive considering he was already the color of old parchment.

  "That's not a cat," he whispered.

  "She's complicated," Levi said. "Luna, please don't eat the guest."

  Luna blinked slowly but didn't look away.

  "She's protective," Levi said. "You're safe as long as you don't cause trouble."

  "Safe," the priest laughed bitterly.

  "I'm in a bookstore that shouldn't exist, talking to a man who claims to run a library, being watched by something that wears a cat's shape the way I wear these robes. And I'm supposed to feel safe?"

  "Would you prefer to go back outside?"

  The priest fell silent.

  Levi stood and walked to a small cabinet, pulling out a first aid kit. He returned to his desk and set it down.

  "Sit," he said, gesturing to the chair. "Let me at least bandage you before whatever's going to happen happens."

  The priest looked at the kit, then at Levi, clearly torn between suspicion and desperate hope.

  "Is this salvation or execution?" he asked quietly.

  "I genuinely don't know yet," Levi admitted. "But either way, I'd prefer you didn't bleed out on my new rug. It was expensive."

  The priest laughed despite himself and slowly, painfully, began to remove his torn robes.

  Levi started cleaning the wounds with practiced efficiency, his mind racing through possibilities.

  He sees his death here. Luna's watching him like she's deciding whether he's threat or food. And I have no idea what to do with a priest whose god abandoned him.

  Also, I really need to stop getting midnight visitors. This is becoming a pattern.

  "What's your name?" Levi asked as he wrapped bandages around broken ribs.

  The priest met his eyes. "Father Reven Reposo. Last priest of Morvexis, God of Plague."

  Levi's hands stopped moving for just a moment.

  "God of Plague," he repeated flatly.

  "Yes."

  “Just my super good luck huh”

  Of course. Why would it be anything normal like God of Flowers or God of Pleasant Afternoons?

  Despite the pain, despite the fear, Reven smiled. "You have a gift for dry humor in the face of absurdity."

  "It's a survival mechanism." Levi finished the bandaging and stepped back. "There. You'll live. Probably. Maybe."

  "Thank you."

  "Don't thank me yet." Levi returned to his chair and picked up his tea, which had gone cold. He stared at it for a moment, then looked at Reven.

  "So. Father Reven. Last priest of the Plague God. Running from inquisitors. Abandoned by your deity. And you've walked into my bookstore because your foresight told you this is where you die."

  "That's an accurate summary."

  "And you're okay with this?"

  Reven was quiet for a long moment. "I don't know what I am anymore. Three days ago, I was certain of my purpose. Now I'm nothing. Just a broken man waiting for the end."

  Levi set down his tea and leaned forward.

  "Here's what's going to happen," he said. "You're going to sit there and rest. I'm going to figure out why the Library brought you here. Because that's what happened. The Library of Noctis doesn't just appear for anyone. It chooses its patrons."

  "Patrons?"

  "People it thinks need something. Usually knowledge. Sometimes perspective. Occasionally therapy."

  "And sometimes death?"

  "That," Levi said, "is what we're going to find out."

  Reven stared at him. "Who are you? Really?"

  Levi smiled, the expression not quite reaching his eyes. "Just a librarian."