Robin swore and yanked his hand back as the book bloody well bit him. It rustled its pages menacingly, but at least this one didn’t fly snapping off the shelf to chase him around the stacks.

The bard was deep in the most accessible of the restricted sections held within Noviel’s library. There were all manner of tomes and scrolls, enchanted portraits and glowing globes of crystal; magical knowledge came packaged in a wide variety of containers.

Many of them hostile, apparently.

There was an amulet around his neck that was supposed to levitate in front of him and lead him to the knowledge he was seeking, but it was proving more effective in theory than in practice. The books (and other things) here often had minds (and sometimes even feet) of their own, and rearranged themselves as best suited their moods.

The stacks themselves were even worse. This much magical power and knowledge in one place practically warped reality into non-Euclidean forms. Robin swore he saw himself walking into another aisle just as he walked out the one he had been searching. When he went to check, he found that the aisle he saw himself entering was the very one he had just exited.

There had been no curve in the path he walked. None he could detect anyway.

Magic.

It would be all too easy to lose oneself here. Especially if you lost your amulet. Robin reached up and gently tapped at his, floating back and forth in front of him, as if it, too, was on the verge of being lost.

Not what you want in a magical guide device.

Robin shouldn’t have been surprised. Not only was he searching out hidden knowledge of past masters of the illusory arts, but his quest had flat-out told him it would be difficult, albeit in a slightly indirect manner. If it were easy, there would be no reason to make ‘Locate the sources in question’ a line item on his quest log.

So here he was, battered and bleeding from an indecent number of paper cuts, looking through the stacks for a series of books on illusion magic that clearly were less than keen on being found.

He was so frustrated, he was almost ready to ask the librarian on duty for help.

Almost.

The librarian currently on duty in this section was Vryngylla.

In fact, every time he had come to the library to search the restricted section she had been on duty, or appeared to replace the duty librarian so quickly after he arrived that he suspected she was stalking him on purpose.

Probably in case he dropped any more knowledge that might advance her career.

Asking Vryngylla for help would be at least as unpleasant as slogging through these stacks for another, oh, hour at least. Though he did have other stuff he wished to do. Was it worth asking her?

Robin sighed and sent a mental directive to the amulet around his neck. It quivered in excitement and began strongly pulling him back toward the circulation desk at the centre of this mad place.

That it could find.

The circulation desk was a floating ring of wood, ancient and dark. Runes and sigils were sunk deep into its scarred surface, though they could hardly be seen beneath the stacks of books and scrolls and orbs and mirrors.

Vryngylla could clearly be seen, though. The librarian stood on a step-stool or small ladder of some kind and watched him approach, even as her hands never ceased their sorting and filing. As Robin watched she brought a twisted branch, still bursting with living leaves, to her mouth and whispered something to it. The branch sprouted butterfly wings in blue and black and fluttered off to reshelve itself.

‘Ah, Mister Marq, how can I help you?’ Vrynylla asked, with a voice so light and sweet you could have slapped it on a plate and called it fairy cake.

If you didn’t mind an arsenic centre.

‘I’m looking for works on illusion magic, to help improve the effects at my theme evenings,’ he began.

‘Yes. Very commendable. Your art is impressive. I attended the one you did just a few days ago. The blood and roses affair.’

Vryngylla attempting to flatter him was somehow even more unnerving than her ill-will.

‘Thank you,’ he said, plastering a tepid smile on his face. He was here for her help after all, and insulting the woman would not accomplish that goal.

As tempting as the thought was.

‘The amulet provided seems to be having trouble locating the sources in question,’ he offered, extending the offending magical item in his hand.

Vryngylla examined it, even going so far as to take out an enchanted jeweller’s loupe to study it more closely. As she worked, she surprised Robin by beginning to chat with him. Even more surprising was the topic.

‘I heard that the raid went well. The Head Librarian managed to retrieve the text that was stolen from you.’

‘Oh?’ Robin blinked. He shouldn’t be surprised. The Head Librarian was efficient, ruthless, and more than capable of working fast. Of course he’d go after that text and go after it hard. ‘Did the team he sent face any trouble?’

‘Trouble? Hardly.’ Vrygylla barked out a short, ugly laugh. ‘The Library took a personal interest in the matter and sent their finest. It was likely a very fast, very efficient bloodbath.’ She paused before adding, ‘I heard the gang leader escaped, however. And I suppose I don’t know how many gang members who weren’t present managed to escape.’

So Dag was still out there. Robin would have to be on the lookout. If the man was hurting and hunting for a way to get some security back he was likely to try and squeeze Robin for all he was worth. Though without his backup and the cover of the Head Librarian shattering a small-time street gang, Robin might, if push came to shove, be able to get away with dealing with Dag in a more permanent manner.

Though the thought of killing someone still made him queasy in general. It was one thing when he was fighting for his life, or his opponent was some mindless monster in a dungeon, but Robin still didn’t love the idea of ending sapient lives.

‘Everything seems to be in working order,’ Vryngylla said, removing the loupe from her eye and passing the amulet back to Robin. ‘Are you certain you checked that the item in question is included in our stacks, is accessible with your current permissions, and that you framed your request clearly and distinctly in your mind?’

The woman’s smile was pitying. She clearly thought the fault was with Robin, not the bleeding amulet or the thrice-accursedly-clever books.

‘As sure as I can be.’ Robin opted for a diplomatic phrasing.

‘Perhaps you should go through each stage again, as I described them. There’s nothing wrong with the amulet. If you still can’t find what you’re after, come back and I can run an in-depth search with the mirror. I’d do it now but I’m afraid it’s already occupied.’

If that was her attempt at an apologetic smile, Robin would hate to be someone she’d truly wronged.

‘I’ll give it a go.’ He forced unnatural cheer into his voice. ‘I suppose I’m just not used to libraries where the books move about quite so much.’

‘Our collection is exceptional in many ways.’ The librarian smiled smugly. ‘But I’m sure you will eventually find what you’re after. It might just take a little time. I find things are always in the last place one looks, after all,’ Vryngylla said sententiously.

That was it. That was a step too far. He couldn’t let that one pass.

Robin opened his mouth to puncture her pomposity by pointing out that yes, naturally things were always in the last place one looked. You’d hardly keep looking after you found whatever it was, would you?

But her words sparked a thought that stopped him. He was going about this all wrong, treating it like hunting down a regular book. This was a tome (or something) containing secrets of masters of illusion magics. There was a certain mindset that came along with that.

It wouldn’t be in plain sight. It would be disguised—or more likely disguise itself—as the last thing a seeker would be looking for.

Robin made a noncommittal sound and smiled at Vryngylla. The librarian smiled back, even as her hands began sorting the vessels of knowledge in front of her once more.

He wandered off into the stacks. He felt like he should be out of her direct line of sight before he began his search again. Her eyes bored small holes into his back for far more steps than he thought they had any right to, but this place didn’t seem to have more than a passing acquaintance with the laws of physics.

When Robin felt the weight of that gaze disappear, he relaxed. He moved through the stacks aimlessly, just thinking. If he were an illusionist, hiding his secrets from the world, how would he do it?

His first thought was disguising it as something teaching the secret magical lore of Urkhan. It was a natural impulse. What could be more diametrically opposed to the freedom and creativity offered by illusion than the god of petty tyrants? It certainly fit with his experience so far.

But no. After Rhyth was lost at the hands of that deity, that would be a terrible place to hide it. It would place the knowledge right in the path of the very individuals most likely to destroy or misuse it. While the idea of hiding in plain sight like that appealed, as did the irony, Robin’s gut told him it wasn’t the right answer.

He played the item entry over in his mind once more. Maybe there was something there he had missed? He’d checked for illusions, but there were subtleties to the art that he had yet to master so something might well have slipped past him.

To make doubly sure, he flicked through the gestures of [Lesser Phantasm] and conjured a replica. His memory and the magic made sure it was a precise duplicate. No. Nothing obvious he had missed.

What had Vryngylla said? It was available in the stacks, yes. It was accessible to him with his current permissions, yes. Frame it clearly in his mind.

Robin looked at the illusory catalogue entry. Something about it was tickling the back of his brain. Oh!

He blinked.

Right there, in front of him, was something that both did and did not exist. An illusion, completely lacking in physical reality, yet communicating knowledge nonetheless. What if the book or whatever he was seeking was the same?

It was worth a try.

Robin took a deep breath and concentrated, framing his desire clearly and distinctly in his mind.

In response, the amulet around his neck quivered, began to levitate, and commenced pulling him into the stacks, showing none of its earlier hesitancy.

He was onto something!