Isaac greeted his brother warmly, genuinely glad to see him even under the circumstances. "How are you doing? Still chasing Hilda?"

Chris winced dramatically, holding onto his back. "Of course not - I'm getting too old for all that nonsense."

Lola, still eating the candy he'd given her, cocked her head curiously and asked, "What do you mean?" Chris masterfully changed the subject with breakneck speed and zero subtlety.

"Anyway, what are you all here for?"

Isaac sat down, easing into the comfy chair with a grateful sigh. "I need you to Appraise something for me. And before you say anything, I am going to pay you."

Chris shrugged. "You don't have to. Neither of us is exactly poor, you know. What do you even have that requires Appraisal?"

Lola pulled the Codex out from under her arm and set it on the table, its eye looking at everything around it, and seemed to pay special attention to the fire slime. Chris's eyebrows jumped, and he leaned in closer to take a better look. "Where'd you get this? It looks rather expensive, and the eye isn't at all in keeping with either of your usual tastes."

As always, Chris didn't miss anything. Isaac responded, rubbing his forehead slightly to deal with the headache the book had been giving him all day. "The cover's new, but that's it. It already had the eye when the library gave it to us, and Lola wanted it so badly I didn't exactly have a choice. It's a grimoire, but I don't know what rank it is, or where it came from, or even how it absorbed all those spells from Antoine's spare spellbook."

The last part seemed to grab Chris's attention more than the rest. "It absorbed spells?"

Isaac nodded as Lola explained. "I wanted to write some spells in it, but when I started, it just went woosh and sucked all the starter spells out of her book."

Chris pulled out a pair of spectacles (which he didn't need - he just thought they made him look smarter) and took a closer look. "What does Codex mean?"

Lola grinned hugely. "I named it!"

Chris raised his eyes to Isaac and whistled lowly. "You must have quite the migraine there."

Isaac winced. "You have no idea."

Sitting back in his chair, Chris began talking, more to himself than his two guests. "Spellbooks aren't anything special. They're more-or-less tutorials, textbooks really, on how to cast spells. Basic stuff, nothing too crazy, but they require some serious knowledge to use well. You've got to know how to cast, you've got to know what you're doing, and you've got to know the structure of the spell, which requires a good memory and a high IQ stat. Grimoires, on the other hand, are more like tools. Write a spell in one of those, and all you have to do is channel your mana through it and say the spell. Easy as pie, except you need mana-infused ink, a good pen, and a whole lotta time to put spells in it. A grimoire with an eye? That means it's likely been previously owned, and someone or another poured some serious magic into that sucker. Given how much it's been looking around while we're talking, I'd say it's got some minimal intelligence, but it's impossible to tell how much without doing a proper Appraisal, which is of course why you're here. Is that about it?"

Isaac laughed. It was a strained laugh, but a laugh regardless. "Chris, you amaze me sometimes."

His brother leaned back, smiling widely. "I know everything about everything when it comes to this. It won't even take a minute." He pulled out a grimoire of his own, a deep purple book wrapped in gold designed to look like ivy. Flipping through it for a moment, he found the page he was looking for and began muttering spells. Different energies began to flow from his hand up to his neck, and through to his eye. As the spells began stacking, a variety of runic circles began to expand in front of his face, telescoping outward until there was practically a rainbow of mana floating in front of his eye. Lola had never seen anything like it, and her eyes were wide with wonder.

Chris leaned forward and looked at the book, and it seemed for a moment as if the book disassembled itself before him, every skill and statistic laid bare. After an intense moment, he sat back and sighed. Pulling out a small, flat bottle from his jacket, he took a long drink and grimaced. Mana potions worked well, but they tasted like how burnt cabbage smelled. Even worse, adding sugar or any other sweeteners nullified the result.

Isaac and Lola both were staring at him expectantly. "Well?"

Chris sighed again and put what was left of the potion back in his jacket. "I'm not going to sugarcoat this, all right? But you can't go ballistic."

Isaac tensed in spite of himself. "What is it?"

Indicating the grimoire lying on the table, Chris said bluntly, "That right there is a Living Book."

His brother stood up abruptly, ugly red magic rushing to his hands. "Is it-"

Chris stood quickly, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, Isaac. I know you had a bad experience with the Compendium, but this thing doesn't have a bad spell in it. Matter of fact, I'd say it hasn't been alive for very long at all."

Lola was leaning over the Codex, eyes shining. "He's alive?" Chris nodded sagely, and the young girl looked up at him. "So he's a super-duper grimoire?"

He blinked. "He's a wha-" He caught Isaac's expression and smiled immediately. "He sure is. The most super-duper grimoire I've ever seen." That much was true.

Isaac sat back down, still a little tense. "What do you mean, it hasn't been alive that long?"

Chris shrugged again. "I don't know much about this kind of book. The only information I have on this sort of thing is what I know from the Compendium, and I'd like to think that not all of them are the same. What I can tell you is that it's only level one, and I don't think that it could have done very much with that low of a rank. Not to mention its spells are incredibly basic - you could find them in just about any spellbook in Careolis. What I don't completely understand are its Perks."

Isaac was interested despite himself. "It has perks?"

Chris thought about it for a moment. "I've heard of one of them before, but I'm not familiar with the other. What I can tell you is that it possesses Bibliophile, which would explain the whole-" He gestured wildly. "-wooshing thing. It's actually the same perk Antonie has."

Isaac thought about it for a moment, then responded, "How do we know for sure it's a Living Book?"

Chris laughed. "You're right. It's not something that appears on its status board, but I don't know very many books with an intelligence stat of seventy-five."

Isaac's eyes widened. He didn't know very many people with that high of an intelligence. He looked down at the Codex distrustfully. "Why hasn't it responded to anything we're saying?"

Chris indicated the book. "When I checked its mutations, I did see the Magic Eye. What I did not see was a Magic Ear or anything along those lines. I'm pretty sure that it can hear us if we make physical contact, though."

Isaac's eyebrows furrowed. "What kind of logic is that?" Chris just shrugged.

Lola placed her hands firmly and the book and stared it in the eye. "Hello, Codex! How are you doing?"

The eye fixated on her and blinked. Chris grinned. "See what I mean? Talking normally, no response. Physical contact, immediate response."

Isaac frowned. "Well, I'm going to need to ask some questions before we do anything else."

He raised his hands in a defeated gesture. "I didn't see a mouth on that mutations list either, but I know something we can do that's been proven to work."

Touching the book with a gloved hand, Chris said easily, "Hey, Codex. Can you hear me okay?" The book's eye spun in its socket and looked straight at him. Isaac shivered. He didn't understand how Chris managed to talk to it so casually. It was as if he talked to books regularly.

"Good, you can hear me. What I'm going to need you to is respond, all right? The only thing you can move is your eye, but we can work with that no problem. Yes is one blink, no is two. Easy, eh?"

The book blinked once and Isaac jumped forwards, placing a hand firmly on the grimoire. "Listen carefully. Do you have any plans regarding my daughter?"

"Dad!" Lola cried in annoyance. He turned to her unapologetically. "Daddy's got to be sure, honey." He spun back to the book in time to see it very deliberately blink twice.

Chris cut in before Isaac could interrogate the book any further. "Have you been alive for longer than a month?" Two blinks. "A week?" Two blinks again. "...Today?" A single, quick blink.

His brother was taken aback. "You mean to tell me this thing - a Living Book, of which there is only four or five in known existence - is barely a day old, and we just happened to be the ones to buy it?"

Lola picked up the Codex, hugging it tightly. "So you're super-duper and rare!"

Isaac briefly considered taking Lola and leaving the country, and the book, and going as far away from both of them as he could. "How do we know it's not lying? With an intelligence stat like that, it could be messing with your Appraisal spell!"

Chris chuckled quietly. "Appraisal isn't just one spell. It's a series of stacking several different detection and magic enhancing spells on top of one another, and even with the assistance of a grimoire, it's pretty complicated. You could mess up really easily if you don't have my kind of experience, but I do have my experience to go off of, and I can confidently guarantee you that the only thing in existence that can block my Appraisal method is the Magelord crown." He said it with assuring certainty and then ruined it slightly by adding, "Well, and maybe something made by Noah Cosmic, but that sort of thing is rare beyond belief. You'd have better odds of winning the Braxton tournament blindfolded."

He considered the situation. "What if we just got rid of it?"

Chris's eyes widened until they were huge. "You remember how rare these books are, right? I don't have to shove you down a staircase again?"

Lola looked up curiously. "You pushed Father down a staircase?"

Isaac waved it away. "Think about it from my perspective. My daughter purchases a Living Book, and yes I do know how rare they are, names it, then repairs it to a professional level. After all of this, how could I not try and just cancel the whole situation?"

Chris folded his spectacles and put them back in his jacket. "I don't think you're quite appreciating the opportunity you've got here. If Lola Named the book, then it's permanently bound to her. All of its spells will fail if used on her without her permission, its attitude is adjusted to like her more - everything is stacked in her favor. Heck, if she used its Bibliophile on your spellbook library she could become the Magelord without a problem, once she gets older."

Lola looked at him with excitement. "Really?"

Isaac stood up, annoyed. "No! She's my daughter, Chris! Even if that book somehow can be trusted, I refuse to let this situation devolve any further. I will not allow my daughter to become a wizardess - it's one of the most dangerous professions in the world!"

Lola looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "But you said I could go to Weatherton..."

The man froze, recalling what he'd said and regretting it deep inside. So he thought about it. He really thought deeply about it, before coming to a conclusion.

"No. I'm sorry, but I will not allo-"

[Deviating from desired timeline! Reduction of parental willpower recommended. Course... complete. Repairing and rewinding... complete!]

He considered it, thinking hard. Chris sat back down and sighed. "Look, it won't be nearly as dangerous as you say it's going to be. Will it be tough? Of course, it will, but nothing in life comes easy if it's going to be worth it. It seems crazy that all this is happening in such a short time, but this could be an incredible opportunity. I know you're trying to protect her, and I don't blame you after what happened to Colette." Isaac raised his eyes. He knew his brother well enough to know that he wouldn't bring up his wife without a good reason. "Weatherton wouldn't be a bad idea, either. With a grimoire like that and her own way of doing things, I wouldn't be surprised if Lola graduated high school as the valedictorian, much like yourself."

Isaac tried to complain, lifting his hands in a defensive gesture. "It's too late to enroll her - the new semester starts in under a week!"

Chris chuckled quietly, and not unkindly. "It's never too late to enroll Lola when you know the people you do. I'm not joking, Isaac. You know as well as I do that I would never do anything to hurt Lola on purpose, and deep down, I think you know this is the right thing to do as well. Using the Codex, Lola could grow - would grow - into an incredible young woman that you'd be as proud to call your daughter as you are now, if not more."

He sighed deeply. "In the end, it is still your decision. I can only give you advice and hope you listen."

Lola held the book up, the eye set in the front looking around curiously. Isaac contemplated it, and then leaned forward, raising a finger. "On one condition. We do this my way. I'm going to be casting anticurses, defenses, wards, everything I can think of and everything you can think of to make sure this is as safe as possible."

Lola cried out in excitement, and Chris pulled him out of the chair and into a hug, whispering into his ear, "You won't regret this, brother. I promise you won't."

Isaac hoped that was true.