“Old or new, books are for reading. At least that’s what my grandfather has always said. There’s a group of Stewards whose job it is to repair or reinforce bindings or record the contents of damaged parts just in case any of the pages go missing, and a bunch of others whose job it is to collect the supplies to do it.”

“What was this place?” I ask. “Before your grandfather found it, I mean.”

“A network of forgotten streetcar tunnels.”

“Chicago never had streetcars.”

“Sure about that?” He smirks but must see my annoyance because his expression turns sympathetic. “Don’t feel bad. Even before the government started taking books away most people didn’t know the tunnels were here. And from what I’ve read, the city could never really use them. In a lot of places the builders made the inclines too steep and the ceilings too low for them to be useful. The whole project was scrapped. Bad for trolleys, but good for us, since my grandfather and his friends not only knew they existed, they were able to swipe all copies of the plans. Most of the entrances have been walled up with concrete over the years, but they found a few that weren’t and that discovery led them here.”

Atlas starts walking again, and I hurry to keep pace.

I shake my head, trying to clear the haze of disbelief and wonder. “I can’t believe this room was just waiting here all these years.”

“Actually, it wasn’t,” he admitted. “According to old newspaper articles the tunnels were created around the 1900s, but this room is a whole lot newer. As best as my grandfather and his friends can guess, this space wasn’t made intentionally. Walls caved in during a major flood back in the 1990s. The force of the floodwaters carved out this area and it was just waiting for the Stewards. Although it took a lot of work for them to get it ready to move in. My grandfather is lucky he had friends who understood architecture, construction, and drainage or were able to learn what they needed from the books they saved. Moisture is seriously bad for paper.”

“I guess that explains why the floor is tiled,” I say.

He nods. “They picked up scraps of tile where they could and laid the floor. They added pumps and dehumidifiers and a ton of other stuff that’s been updated and expanded over the years. There’s also a gigantic mechanism attached to thick steel-and-stone doors that can be triggered to lock down the tunnels that lead to the Lyceum. The Stewards thought of everything. They made what you see today.”

My mind races as I try to reconcile where I am with everything I’ve ever been taught. It’s—

I yelp as something brushes against my leg, certain it’s a rat like the one I saw in the basement room earlier. Atlas starts to laugh. Really laugh. A full, rich, contagious sound that makes me want to join in. But I am not going to give him the satisfaction as he squats and holds his hand out near a gap in the books on the bottom shelf.