Seventeen

When Eleanor got downstairs with Thea in tow, the others were already in the Great Room with Bartimaeus, gathering up their things to leave.

“Thea, are you okay to go now?” Eleanor asked. The girl hadn’t said anything, just stared down at her shoes. She nodded without looking up. “Everyone else?”

“Let’s get this over with,” Pip said.

“Barry and I will hold down the fort,” Ben said.

“Can you check in on my family?” Otto asked.

“We’ll keep an eye out for them. Don’t worry,” Ben pledged. He put his hands on Eleanor’s shoulders, stooping down to look her in the eye. “Eleanor. Be careful, okay? I need you to come back. I need you to bring Jenny and Naomi back. I need my girls.” His voice cracked.

“I will,” Eleanor promised him. She wrapped her arms around him. He felt different from the last time she’d seen him—less substantial, less soft—but his hugs were still the very best.

“I’m hitching a ride, too,” the cat-of-ashes declared. Eleanor looked at her in surprise. She yawned. “Someone’s got to make sure you humans don’t cause any more time paradoxes with all your blundering around. If anyone asks, I’m spying on you.”

Eleanor snorted. “Fine. The more the merrier.”

The kitten-of-ashes hissed from her spot in the hedgewitch’s bag. “Have some respect for your elders, puffball,” the cat-of-ashes snapped, and the kitten flattened her ears back and hunkered down.

“Be safe, kiddo,” Ben said. He reached out and ruffled Eleanor’s hair, and then he gave her a friendly little push, like he was sending her on her way.

Eleanor took a steadying breath. And then, blinking away tears, she turned and reached for the Wending.

Library, library, library, she thought, trying to fill her mind with that one, singular thought. But others snuck in. Mom—the Stories—time’s broken—Thea—

THE LIBRARY OF ENDERSEA, she thought firmly, and the road rippled out from her fingertips, unfurling through the Great Room.

The road was paved with white stone, and to either side of it was white sand, gleaming in the sunlight as a sapphire-blue sea lapped at its shores. The path led up toward towering white cliffs, where seabirds wheeled and called to each other in an excited gabble. At least it looked more pleasant than the Pallid Kingdom.

“Here we go again,” Pip muttered. She took Thea’s hand and walked past Eleanor. Otto and the hedgewitch followed, the kitten-of-ashes still safely stowed in the hedgewitch’s bag. Eleanor cast one last glance back at Ben and Bartimaeus. Ben raised his hand in a wave and cracked a smile that looked out of practice.

“See you soon,” Eleanor pledged, and started to step onto the road.

Her heels had barely crossed the barrier between one world and the next when Ben and Bartimaeus began to fade from sight.

In seconds, Eden Eld was gone. There was only the blue sky and the white sand. And a single building, crouched against the pale stone of the cliffs.

“Is that . . . the Library of Endersea?” Pip asked.

“That can’t be it,” Otto said. “It’s tiny.”

“It’s distinctly unimpressive,” the hedgewitch agreed, giving it a skeptical look.

“It’s the only building I can see,” Eleanor pointed out. “And it is right by the ocean. End of the sea, and all of that.”

“I guess we’d better check it out,” Pip said with a shrug.

Eleanor had thought the building might be more impressive up close, but as they approached it turned out to be the opposite. The closer they got, the more unassuming the building seemed. It was blocky and dull, with a flat roof and small, dirty windows. Behind them, the waves lapped against the sparkling shore. In front of them, paint flaked off the door and drifted slowly to the ground.

“That can’t be it,” Otto said, but Eleanor pointed. A sign stood in front of the building, weathered from the sand and wind and sea spray.

It read endersea municipal library.

Eleanor looked back at the others and spread her hands in a what-can-you-do gesture.

“I was expecting a cathedral of knowledge. This is . . . not that,” the hedgewitch noted as they stood on the walk outside the door. There was a book return slot on the side of the building, and flyers in the front windows advertising a summer reading program (the prize was listed as A TRUTH WHICH HUMAN MINDS CANNOT COMPREHEND and a $25 gift card to Applebee’s).

“Do we go in?” Pip asked.

“We go in,” Eleanor said firmly.

She pushed through the door and was immediately greeted by a blast of cool air that smelled intensely and unmistakably like books. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, but when they did, she couldn’t quite understand what she was seeing. The outside of the building had been small, but the inside was enormous. They stood on a marble floor in a room paneled with rich oak. Benches lined the edges of the room, and across the lobby was a huge desk, piled with cloth- and leather-bound books.

Pip gave an impressed whistle that echoed off the vaulted ceiling.

“This is more like it,” the hedgewitch said approvingly.

Eleanor couldn’t disagree. This definitely felt more like a place that would have magical books and endless stores of secret knowledge. She made her way up to the desk. It was as tall as she was, and she had to stretch up on the tips of her toes to reach the bell resting at the edge, a tiny plaque in front of it reading please ring for assistance.

The bell made a pleasant little chime that took a while to fade. Eleanor stepped back, and back again, so that she could see over the desk to the doors on the wall behind it.

“Do you think we should wait, or just go in?” Otto said, but before Eleanor could answer, the doors swung open and someone—or something—stepped through.

The being striding through the doors had to be at least ten feet tall. He was towering and spindly looking, with a vaguely human-shaped body—at least, as far as she could tell with it being under long blue robes—but a head that looked distinctly goatlike. He was carrying a number of books in his two right arms, while a third arm on the left gripped a clipboard. A small, battered plastic name tag pinned to his robes read the librarian, and below that, he/him. He peered over half-moon spectacles at them.

“Yes?” he said.

“Are you the librarian?” Eleanor asked. What she’d immediately thought to ask was Are you going to eat us? but that didn’t seem polite.

“No, I am the Librarian,” the creature said.

“Isn’t that what I said?” Eleanor stammered.

“It’s capitalized. You didn’t capitalize it,” the Librarian said, blinking at her. Eleanor wasn’t sure how he could tell whether she’d capitalized it, since she’d been speaking out loud, but she decided not to argue.

“I’m sorry. The Librarian, then,” she said, and he gave an approving nod. “We’re looking for the Prime Stories.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Which ones?”

Eleanor frowned. “All three of them?”

“Three? You think there are three?” the Librarian said with a warm chuckle. “Young lady, the Library contains the largest collection of predatory Stories in all the worlds. Here, let me get a better look at you.” He came around the side of the desk. A fourth hand appeared from under his robes, and he raised it to adjust his glasses. “Ah. You are the Gray Tales, if I’m not mistaken. Warrior, witch, and world-walker.” He pointed at each of them in turn.

“That’s right. And we’d like to see them. Us. The original Stories, or whatever,” Eleanor asked, trying to sound confident and trailing off helplessly. “They’re, like, actual books, right?”

“Like actual books, yes,” the Librarian repeated, as if speaking to a particularly dim-witted potato.

Eleanor gave the Librarian a bright smile. “Yes. We’d like to see our Stories, please.”

“But of course,” the Librarian said with a flourish of one hand—Eleanor thought it might have been the one that had been holding the clipboard a moment ago, but it might have been a new one altogether. Then, suddenly, the Librarian froze. “Is that,” he said, enunciating each word with painful precision, “a cat?”

“Yes?” Eleanor said, looking over at the cat-of-ashes, who was sitting well off to the side, grooming herself with apparent disinterest.

The Librarian drew himself up. “We do not allow pets in the library.”

The cat-of-ashes stiffened. “I am no pet,” she said in a low, dangerous purr.

“Mew,” the kitten-of-ashes agreed, equally affronted.

The Librarian sniffed. “Nonetheless, cats are not permitted. Many of the books are allergic. The rest of you may follow me. I will show you to the proper section.” He beckoned them with long, many-jointed fingers.

“Are you okay staying out here?” Eleanor asked the cat-of-ashes.

The cat-of-ashes lashed her tail. “Fine.”

“You’ll have to—”

“I’ll watch the puffball,” the cat-of-ashes snapped. The hedgewitch set the kitten-of-ashes down, and the kitten immediately skittered across the marble floor to attack her older self’s tail. “Don’t take too long,” the cat-of-ashes said resignedly, pinning the kitten to the floor with one massive paw.

“Thea, do you want to stay with the cats?” Eleanor asked, but Thea shook her head mutely. “Stick close,” Eleanor told her, and hurried to follow the Librarian.

Beyond the doors, a dizzying landscape of books spilled out in every direction. The group had stepped out onto a landing. To either side stairways swooped up and down, leading to more and more levels. The library was circular, with shelves spiraling inward. From their vantage point, Eleanor could see only the beginning of the spiral and the hallways that led toward the center, but somehow she could sense the way it wound inward. The center, she was certain, held something important.

The center was where they needed to go.

But the Librarian instead led them along the edge of the spiral, staying against the outer wall of the library. At regular intervals, hallways led farther outward into rooms labeled prophecies—false, and promises—broken.

“You said there were other Stories,” Eleanor said as she trotted to keep up with the Librarian’s long strides. The hedgewitch, holding Thea’s hand, lagged behind. “What other Stories? We thought it was just the three of us. How many more are there?”

“See for yourself,” the Librarian said. He had stopped in front of an archway, above which read in golden letters stories—personified, manifest, and infectious.

Beyond the archway was a room the size of the Great Room at Ashford House. In the center of the room was a long wooden table, several chairs set beside it. Every wall was covered in shelves from floor to ceiling, and every shelf was filled with books—thick ones and slender ones, leather books and three-ring binders, loose papers bound with twine.

“These are all Stories?” Eleanor asked in wonder, turning slowly. “Like ours?”

“Each volume represents a Story, yes, but their similarities to yours vary wildly,” the Librarian said. “Is it such a surprise? Everyone tells Stories. Some of these came into being only once and ended. Others, like yours, are more persistent, recurring. The Gray collection should be . . . ah, here we are. A three-volume set.”

He crossed the room in two enormous strides. Two arms appeared from under his robe—one on the left, one on the right. With one he extracted three thick tomes from the shelf, stacking them in the crook of his other arm. Eleanor counted his arms—there were six, now.

“How many arms do you think he has?” Otto asked under his breath.

“Always one fewer than I need,” the Librarian replied dryly. He set the books on the table in a line, then tapped each cover with one long finger. “Warrior. Witch. World-walker. You are free to peruse them, but you must leave by closing.”

“When is that?” Eleanor asked politely.

“The end of time, and not a moment later,” the goatish creature said sternly. “Also”—here he pinned Thea with his gaze—“no touching the books if your hands are sticky. Now, I will leave you to it. If you need me, you need only say the words ‘assistance, please.’ ”

He gave them a polite nod and departed, gliding out at a serene but rapid pace.

“What a remarkable creature,” the hedgewitch mused. She extracted her hand from Thea’s and drifted toward the shelves, eyeing the other Stories with interest.

“So what do we do?” Pip asked. “Burn them? Tear the pages out?”

“We’re not supposed to damage library books,” Otto reminded her. She gave him a withering look.

Eleanor held up a placating hand. “We should take a look at them first. Besides, I’m guessing we’re going to have to get out of here fast after we do destroy them, and we want to look for information to help us fix time and beat Mr. January, too, right?”

The three of them, Thea in tow, approached the table where the Librarian had left the books. They were massive, as thick as Eleanor’s hand was long. Instead of a usual binding, they had metal hinges, and latches to hold them shut. There were no titles on the covers, just symbols. The one on the left showed a flower with vines curling around it. The second, a sword that was instantly recognizable as the one at Pip’s hip: Gloaming. And the third had a pattern of lines that might have been branching roads.

Eleanor moved to the end of the line, undoing the latch on her own Story, and hauled the book open to a page in the middle.

The text looked handwritten, elegant letters flowing over the page, interspersed with a few small illustrations. It described the travels of a young man it called “the weaver of roads.” Eleanor flipped through a few pages, skimming the tale as the young man visited strange worlds and kingdoms. Then the letters began to fade, until by the end of the next page they had vanished completely—and a new story faded in, this one about an old woman setting out from her home after her husband died, wanting to see the world.

“It’s everyone who’s ever been the world-walker. All of their stories,” Eleanor marveled, reading snippets out loud to the others.

“This one, too,” Otto confirmed. “Wow. There have been a lot of hedgewitches.”

“I bet you a hundred bucks there are way more Jacks than that,” Pip said. “Yours mostly fade out. Look at this.” She flipped through, showing page after page that cut off abruptly—usually when the current Jack was eaten by a dragon or crushed by an avalanche.

Otto ran his fingers along the pages with a frown on his face. “I don’t think these are the real Stories,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Eleanor asked, alarmed.

“They don’t feel magical. And look. Inside the back cover.” He flipped to the end.

Tacked inside the back cover of the book was a little label. archival reproduction. In even smaller text below it read the library assumes no legal, moral, or magical responsibility for the consequences of improper reading, copying, or reviewing of dangerous texts.

“These are all just copies,” Otto said in frustration, gesturing around at the walls.

The hedgewitch, who had been idly flipping through a slim volume titled The Skin Thieves, made a humming sound in the back of her throat. “I think that might be for the best. These things obviously need proper handling. Too dangerous for the public.”

“What’s in that one?” Otto asked curiously, but she shuddered and snapped it shut.

“You may be the hedgewitch now, Otto, but you’re still only thirteen. You do not need to see what’s in that book,” she said firmly, putting it back on the shelf.

“So what are we supposed to do?” Pip asked, throwing her hands into the air. “Destroying the copies won’t do anything.”

“I guess we can ask for the originals,” Eleanor suggested. “What were we supposed to say?”

“Assistance, please,” said Thea helpfully, and a split second later the Librarian was there, gliding through the door. He’d set down the books he had been carrying the last time they saw him and had all his arms hidden under his robes.

“How may I assist you?” he asked.

“Ah. Well, thank you very much for showing us these books,” Eleanor said. “But they aren’t quite what we’re looking for.”

“No?” he said. “They are the records of your Stories. I am certain of that.”

“We need the originals. The actual Stories,” Eleanor said.

The Librarian frowned faintly, one furry ear flicking. “The original manuscripts are not available to the public,” he said.

“But we’re not just the public. They’re our Stories.” Pip sounded affronted. Eleanor had once found a library book in Pip’s room that was three years overdue because she hadn’t gotten around to reading it yet. Pip was not the ideal library patron.

“Your Stories are living Stories. That means that they are still in the process of being written,” the Librarian said. “It makes them extremely volatile. Only experts can handle such temperamental books, much less make the necessary updates.”

“What experts? Can we talk to them?” Otto asked.

The Librarian’s nostrils flared. Now he was definitely getting annoyed. “Absolutely not. The Editor’s work is delicate, and she does not like to be interrupted.”

“We couldn’t even take a look?” Pip pressed.

“No, you may not. The Editor is not to be disturbed under any circumstances. Now if that is all—”

“Yes, of course. We’re very sorry for bothering you,” Eleanor said quickly. “We’ll let you know if we need anything else.”

“The youths these days,” the Librarian said to himself, and wafted out of the room with an air of deep aggrievement.

“I guess we have to find the Editor,” Pip said.

“I think I know where she is,” Eleanor replied. She crooked a finger to indicate the others should follow her, and walked out of the side room, back to the landing that wrapped around the outside of the library. She pointed across the way, to the huge spiral of shelves.

“What we need is in there,” she said. “Right in the center.” It sang to her, a humming along the threads of the world. There was something there. A secret way. The world-walker knew the way to secret things, and so Eleanor knew as well, as vividly as she knew her own name.

Except that wasn’t exactly true.

Because for one terrifying moment, as Eleanor looked toward the spiral and saw, somehow, the whole interior of it, all the pieces that were hidden from her eyes, she knew the spiral far better than she knew her own name.

For one moment, hardly the space of a heartbeat, she didn’t know her name at all.