Story/Novel Title: The Library of Lost Souls
Genre: Fantasy Romance / Mystery
Author: PARK JIAN (ME)
CHARACTER PROFILE | Introducing This Chapter
Wren Calloway ~ Keeper of the Archive Wing
Basic Information
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Wren Calloway |
| Nickname | Rarely uses one; a few old friends once called her “Cal” |
| Age | Unknown — appears to be in her forties, though she’s clearly kept the library far longer than that |
| Date of Birth | Not recorded |
| Pronouns | She/Her |
| Sexuality | Prefers not to say |
| Nationality | Unknown — has lived within the library longer than she’s willing to admit |
Appearance
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Hair Colour | Silver-grey, always pinned back tightly |
| Eye Colour | Pale grey, almost colourless |
| Height | 5’7″ |
| Weight | Slim, upright, precise in every movement |
| Distinguishing Features | Permanent ink stains on her right hand; a ring of small keys hangs at her hip; a faint scar at her collarbone she has never once explained |
Personality
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Introvert or Extrovert | Introvert, deeply guarded |
| Best Traits | Disciplined, quietly caring under a cold surface, knows the library better than anyone alive |
| Worst Traits | Rigid, hides behind rules instead of facing her own grief, shuts people out the moment she feels anything for them |
| MBTI Type | ISTJ |
CHAPTER
THREE
The Woman Who Wasn’t There a Second Ago
The silence stretched too long to be normal.
Javiar was still watching her, waiting for an answer that wasn’t coming, his easy smile long gone. The candles above them had stopped flickering, but the air still felt charged, like the moment right before a storm breaks.
“Firasha.” He said her name carefully this time, like he was setting something fragile down. “How do you know my last name?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Nothing true would fit, and nothing false felt strong enough to survive the way he was looking at her.
“I—”
“She read the guest ledger.”
The voice came from somewhere between the shelves, calm and dry, a heartbeat before a woman stepped out of the dark like she’d been standing there the whole time, simply waiting for someone to notice her. Silver hair pinned back so tight it looked painful. Grey eyes that missed nothing. A ring of small keys hanging at her hip, catching the candlelight when she moved.
Firasha had never seen her before in her life. And yet something in her chest recognized the voice instantly — the same one that had spoken from nowhere all night.
“Excuse me?” Javiar turned toward the woman, startled.
“The guest ledger,” she repeated, unbothered, like she was explaining something to a slow child. “Everyone who visits signs it at the door. Firasha reads fast. Retains everything. Comes in handy, working here.” She gave Firasha a look that lasted less than a second, but carried an entire warning inside it. Play along.
“There’s no ledger by the door,” Javiar said slowly.
“There’s always a ledger by the door.” The woman’s voice didn’t change at all, didn’t so much as flicker with doubt. “You just weren’t looking for one.”
Javiar glanced back toward the entrance, uncertain now, some of the sharpness draining out of his expression and settling into confusion instead. Firasha watched him try to decide whether to trust his own memory or a stranger’s confidence, and understood, with a small twist of guilt, that confidence usually won.
“Huh,” he said finally. “Guess I missed it.”
“Most people do.” The woman folded her hands in front of her, patient as stone. “It’s late. The library closes to visitors soon.”
It wasn’t an order, not exactly, but it landed like one. Javiar looked between the two of them, something still unsettled behind his eyes, though he was already stepping back toward the entrance.
“Right.” He glanced at Firasha one last time, and for a second the warmth came back into his face, uncertain but real. “I’ll see you around, mystery girl.”
“Maybe,” Firasha said again, and this time it hurt more to say it.
He left. His footsteps faded down the aisle, out through the gap in the wall, back into the ordinary rain-soaked world he had no idea he was running out of time in.
The moment he was gone, the woman’s whole posture changed. The patience dropped away like a mask coming off.
“You opened his book.” It wasn’t a question.
Firasha’s hand tightened around the spine still hidden behind her back. “You knew I would.”
“I hoped you wouldn’t.” The woman crossed the space between them in a few short steps and held out her hand, palm up, waiting. “Give it back. Now, before it gets worse.”
“You lied for me,” Firasha said instead, not moving. “Why?”
Something flickered across the woman’s face — gone too fast to name, but Firasha had spent her whole life reading the small cracks people tried to hide, and she recognized this one. It looked like grief wearing the shape of irritation.
“Because the last person who stood in that boy’s place, saying that boy’s name, in that exact tone of voice you just used,” the woman said quietly, “did not survive finding out what this place actually is. I would rather lie to a stranger than watch that happen twice.”
Firasha’s chest went tight. “What’s your name?”
“Wren.” She said it like it cost her something. “Wren Calloway. I keep this wing of the library, which means I clean up messes exactly like the one you just made.” She held her hand out again, more firmly this time. “The book. Now.”
Firasha finally passed it over, and the moment it left her hands, she felt the loss of it somewhere behind her ribs, sharp and unexpected, like giving away something that had already started to feel like hers.
Wren tucked the book against her chest, careful in a way that didn’t match the sternness in her voice. “You know what happens when a story like his gets touched by someone like you?”
“No,” Firasha admitted. “Nobody’s told me anything.”
“Then let me be the first.” Wren’s grey eyes held hers, steady and unflinching. “Nothing gets rewritten in this place for free. Every page you try to add to that book, something else has to be taken from somewhere else. A memory. A year. Sometimes a person.” She paused, long enough for the words to settle like stones. “So before you decide to fall in love with a boy who’s already halfway finished, you’d better decide what you’re willing to lose to keep him.”
Behind her, deep in the shelves, one single candle guttered out — and did not relight.
If saving Javiar meant losing something of her own, was Firasha already too far in to walk away — or had that choice been made the moment she opened his book?
