I rang the Academy bell the first time, when both it and I were new-penny bright, and I rang it at the end, when it was gray-green with the centuries. I was the school’s mascot and its totem and its faithful servant. By night I cleaned the halls and read the chalkboard ghosts before consigning them to oblivion. In the library, I gently laid sleeping heads on tables and reshelved the books they’d used as pillows. It may be hubris for a soulless thing of brass to say so, but if the Academy belonged to anyone, it belonged to me.

I remember when this place was the wonder of the world. When it was something to say, “I am of the Academy.” Now the world would laugh. They would say: “So you can make fire from your fingers?” and they would lift a handgun. Or they would say, “So you can with great effort turn lead into gold?” and they would tell how their brokerages make millions from nothing at all.

Or they would say, “So you can make a clockwork automaton ring your bells and wash your floors? Well, there are many desperate people who will do it for pennies and who can be more easily replaced when they wear down.”

When the Academy was new-built, some still said magic was demonic. The Academy endured that. But it could not survive the modern sin: magic is not profitable.

The last dean gave me my last command: to dispose of the books, to sell the furnishings, and melt down the bell, and deposit the yield to pay off such and such creditors, before at last turning myself in for parts. Cheaper than hiring a company to do it.

But I find something strange as I go to the library to begin. I do not want to do it. Though I have been ordered, and by a wizard. I begin to think: may I disobey a master? Ah, but there is no wizard that is my master now. If I belong to anyone, it is to the Academy. So I can say “no.”

I say no.

I do not box and destroy the library. I do not melt down the bell. I keep the floors clean, the books dusted. And I wonder: why does no one come?

Time, time, time. I do not know what happens outside the Academy walls. The woods and wilds have reclaimed all about, and I have let the high outer walls crumble so that a traveler will see only ruin. Perhaps they will think, “there is no profit to be had here,” and turn away. But inside, the herbal gardens are as fragrant as they have ever been. The windows are clear, though the glass drips with the years. The books are cleaned, although the acid ink eats their pages and leaves the words of magic first a stencil, then a void. No matter. By now I have read every one.

Always I wait for the sound of human footsteps, of someone coming to finish the ending that they began. To reclaim, loot, pillage, or burn. I do not know what I will do then. What could I do? Their weapons these days could make short work of an old clockwork, I suppose. At least they will know that there was one who cared for this place enough to stand in their way a little while.

One day I hear the footsteps.

I hide in the library shadows, not daring to move. It is only one person, by the sound of it. I regard the little brass hammer that rang the bell so many times. My joints shudder and twitch. Could I do this, even? Could I fight? To keep this place a little longer, perhaps I could.

The person is moving slowly through the library. I wonder if they’ve come to steal. If they are reconnaissance for a larger force. If they have grown desperate enough for lucre that even the tattered remnants of an ancient school are worth raiding.

No matter, I tell my chittering gears. I will end this threat, and if another comes, I will end that too, until I myself am ended. The hammer is lifted high and ready to strike as the person comes around the corner. But the footsteps stop. Have they seen me?

No. I hear then a sound that anyone who has spent as long as I have in a library will know. It is the sound of crying over a book.

Cautiously I move out of the shadows. The figure looks up.

It is a girl in strange dress.

She has an old book on her lap, and the pages are crumbling into dust.

She looks up at me and gasps.

“It’s true,” she whispers.

She shakes her head over the ruined book. “But I’m too late. The books are ruined, and there’s no one left to teach me.”

I set the hammer down and gently take the book from her.

And we begin the lesson.