The Metropolis Series #3: Quinn and Cassandra
interlude iv: a favor

PHILIP DESCENDED into the Archives. He had done so multiple times for all sorts of reasons: to arrange the Author’s drafts, to conduct research on the Metropolis, or to find a corrupted colleague’s records so that Mr. Simon could fix them.

But that day was different.

The stab wound on his shoulder stung as he climbed down the ladder. That girl from the Spanish House, Tamara, had patched it up well, but the knife had gone in a little too deep. The pain reminded him of the day Cassandra, the Girl Beyond Bounds, had finally been defeated. The monsters that surrounded the walls of St.

John’s had turned back into regular, confused Metropolitans. It took a while for them to clear away from the campus, making reaching the Archives a nightmare for him.

There was something he needed to do. Before Quinn destroyed her records to put an end to the Girl Beyond Bounds’ power, she had asked a favor from him.

“When all this is over,” she’d said to him, “can you go back to the Archives for me?”

Then, she gave him a piece of paper. It looked like she’d torn it out from one of those dreaded composition notebooks mandated by St. John’s. She’d told him not to unfold the paper and look at its contents. When he asked her what it was for, she simply said this: She believed that there was a chance that destroying her records wasn’t the end for her. She’d manifested the Author’s powers, after all. She couldn’t let something like that go to waste.

But she asked him to wait a while. She wanted to make sure that the Girl Beyond Bounds could no longer return, that her essence had been erased from the Metropolis forever.

When Philip told Mr. Simon about Quinn’s last request, the old Archivist didn’t know what to say. The outcome was unknown, but he said that there was no harm in trying it out. Nevertheless, there was one thing he could assure him of: The Girl Beyond Bounds was gone. She holds no record in the Archives anymore.

So, Philip took Quinn’s note and placed it on a shelf between two of the Author’s old notebooks. He wasn’t sure what it would do.

All he could do was wait.



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