“I hope the maps are good where you are.”
Autumn at the NYPL was nothing like autumn at Haberson Global. All of Haberson’s internal systems had been run by a smart computer, from the lights to the thermostat to the humidity in the air to the grocery orders for the free gourmet cafeterias, and it all adjusted with the seasons. It had never been too sweaty there in June, nor too dry in November. If the outside weather suddenly shifted, the computer would adjust, raising or lowering the temperature across the entirety of the facility so all employees remained comfortable.
But autumn at the NYPL was like being tossed from a boiling furnace into an icebox and back, a hundred times a day.
The hallways were always so frigid, icicles practically grew from the corners where the walls met the ceiling. It was all that marble, and the centuries of settling and resettling the old building had done. In the copy area, people actually held their breath when they went in to retrieve their print jobs, because the vents gushed such scalding air straight onto the machines, the smell of burnt ink pervaded the whole room.
And in Felix’s office, it was practically a steam sauna.
He loosened his tie and tried to sit in his chair without letting his back touch the leather, lest he stick to it through his shirt. He’d taken to eating his lunches outside, hip propped against one of the lion statues that flanked the building while the snow swirled around him, just to relieve the flush on his skin. There was a collections meeting after this, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to talk himself into putting his blazer back on for it without fainting.
It was funny how much things had changed since the spring.
William Haberson’s—Wally’s—trial was ongoing, and it would likely be years before everything he’d done was fully uncovered, but Haberson Global already no longer existed as a company—some of the smaller branches had been spun off or purchased by competitors, but the tech juggernaut that had previously ruled the industry was no more than a ghost, even more than Wally himself was.
Once the dust had settled, Francis retired from Harvard University to become the new chair of the NYPL. He nominated Dr. Tamara Jasper-Young to take up Swann’s mantle as the new director of the Map Division, and she won by a stunned, unanimous vote. The publicity the library received from her mysterious, miraculous return to the world saw every research room and reading table packed to the brim, and its rotating exhibitions docket and invitations for joint initiatives from fellow museums and universities overbooked for years—if there had been any worry about funding for the NYPL before, it now seemed like something Francis would never have to consider again, for as long as he was in charge. Ramona, Eve, and Humphrey all returned to their jobs, but now, a week never went by without at least one of them dropping by the library for a guest lecture or a visit.
And as for Felix, he had found himself in Dr. Daniel Young’s old office.
He’d upgraded the ancient computer as quickly as he could—the NYPL’s first geospatial librarian needed adequate tools to do his job properly—but he’d kept the majority of the books, and most of all, the delicately painted letters that spelled out the former head curator’s name and position on the door, for now at least. He liked looking at them every time he arrived in the morning and left in the evening. It made him think of both Drs. Young he’d known so well—Daniel and Nell. A good reminder of how far he’d come and who he had to thank for it, in the end.
Every time he sat in that chair, he wanted to reminisce for the entire day. But there was still that meeting he needed to put his jacket back on for despite the overenthusiastic heating system, and he’d barely gotten through the morning’s stack of messages in his in-box. The sheer volume of paper would have made him furious at Haberson Global, and it was doing the same to the rest of his newly hired but very familiar team of geospatial librarian specialists, Naomi and Priya, but Felix loved these old, hallowed halls for what they were—that he could convince Francis to finally, finally let IT streamline all departments into one email server, and everyone still just kept sending handwritten notes anyway.