The Library of Fates
By Margot Harrison
On Sale: December 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781525804311
Graydon House Hardcover
Price: $30.00
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margot-harrison?variant=43819432935458
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Now September 26, 2019, 1:15 p.m. The Library of Fates lived tucked under the mansarded roof of a tall, charcoal- gray building in Harvard Yard. To a casual visitor, it was like any other library, lined with shelves for hours of pleasantly aimless browsing. But every student knew that if you came to the Library of Fates and asked for a book to guide you safely through turbulent times, the librarian would go straight to the shelf and put a book in your hands. And that book would change your life. Eleanor Dennet was that librarian now, but the knowledge felt hollow. Her predecessor, Odile Vernet— her mentor, her guiding star, her best friend— had died suddenly three days ago, and she could barely process it. Her throat still raw from crying, her brain still woozy from too much vodka, she stepped over the threshold of the library that had been her refuge for most of the past twenty-four years. On the surface, everything seemed the same: the dark oak paneling and moss- green area rugs and accents; the pearly glow that came through the recessed skylight; the sweet, faintly musty smell. The custodian had opened the curtains and blinds of the nine bay windows on each long side of the room. Sunlight bathed the books in a greenish haze and washed over the varnished seminar table and armchairs. The mural on the ceiling evoked the magic of stories. But something felt different here. Something was wrong. Then Eleanor saw him. From his seat in a green brocade armchair angled toward the window, he didn’t seem to have noticed her entrance. Barely daring to breathe, she took in black hair sprinkled with gray on the headrest and long lashes outlined on his cheek as he gazed down at a sheaf of papers in his hand. Daniel Vernet, Odile’s son. The last time they’d seen each other, in 1995, they’d been standing here in the library. Eleanor’s view of Daniel had been clouded by tears, but she would never forget his dark eyes gazing back as if she were a stranger. The bland way he’d smiled, as if she meant nothing to him after everything they’d been through. And here were more damned tears, rising and choking her. She would have to face Daniel eventually, to give condolences and make arrangements for his mother’s memorial. But not yet. She wasn’t ready for that. She darted to the window bay farthest from his chair, silent on the thick carpet, and slipped behind the floor-length curtain. Daniel sighed heavily. The papers crackled. Frozen in place, Eleanor watched through a gap as he stood up. He didn’t look his age, the lines of his chin and cheekbones still firm. A sharp click- clack of heels sounded on the stairs behind them. “Ready, Daniel?” asked a slightly accented voice that Eleanor recognized as Liliana, Odile’s housekeeper and close friend. Daniel nodded, but his gaze was still on the papers. “What the hell is this?” he asked. “What the hell?” As the older woman put a soothing hand on Daniel’s shoulder, Eleanor saw his body heave. Was he grieving his mother, then? Their relationship had never been smooth. Though Odile visited her son in Europe on occasion, it had taken her death to bring him back to the States for the first time in decades. Liliana gave Daniel a hug and led him toward the door. “Everything will work out. You’ll see. We don’t want to be late for our appointment.” “I’m just so confused!” Eleanor heard him still exclaiming as their feet thudded down the stairs. She emerged from behind the curtain and stood very still, waiting for the tension to dissipate and the atmosphere to settle. Listening for a faint but steady thrum on the edge of her awareness, a rumble that was neither pipes nor heating. Like Odile, Eleanor was attuned to the library’s vibrations, inaudible to most people. But now, standing dead center in the library, straining her senses in the stillness, she detected no reassuring thrum. Nothing. As if the library were an immense machine that had stopped running. Panic gripped her. It can’t be. She hurried to the oak door at the far end of the room and unlocked it with trembling fingers. Here in the librarian’s small office, The Book of Dark Nights was kept, secure in a safe, its pages alive with the power of the secrets trapped inside, for the library drew its power from the Book. As long as the Book remained there, the library would function. On top of the safe, she found a sticky note in Odile’s strong cursive: A place of pages, A subterranean secret, Where love is shared. One book brought you together. Start from there. Eleanor stared at it for a dazed second. Odile often left literary quotes on sticky notes, but this didn’t seem like the style of poetry she would read— or write, if Odile had been a poet. Then she knelt beside the safe to type in the code. Fumbling in her urgency, she had to enter it twice before the light turned green and she could swing the door open. Eleanor closed her eyes and said a silent prayer: Please let it be here. The Book had been stolen only once, and the results had been disastrous. Eleanor tried not to think about them as she reached into the safe for the cracked calfskin of the Book’s binding, bracing herself to feel the usual tingle as her fingers made contact. Needing to experience that uncanny suggestion that the Book was alive. To know that it was only Daniel’s presence that had made the library feel wrong. But there was nothing. She knew people saw her as Odile’s mousy, adoring acolyte, hidden away in the library like a relic herself. A perennial student who had never even finished her PhD. A wan spinster, a living history display. Here in the library was the one place Eleanor mattered. In these books is your future, Odile had told her long ago. In these books are all the tools you need to live your life to the fullest. But all that depended on the magic. And as she ran shaky fingers from corner to corner of the steel compartment, she found only shadows and a fine, powdery dust that came off on her fingertips. The Book of Dark Nights was gone. Excerpted from THE LIBRARY OF FATES by Margot Harrison, Copyright © 2025 by Margot Harrison. Published by Graydon House, an imprint of HarperCollins.
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