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Bookstore Gift Shop

Getting through the first door is as easy as turning the handle.

The second one requires a biometric scan.

The third one is the tricky one. It’s solid steel, bereft of locks and latches, scanners and handles. It’s simply inscrutable.

“Today’s Wednesday, it’s still a month until All Owls Night. Okay.” Kelly’s scowl smooths out. “Three little fishies and a mama fishy too . . . la la la something, something, and they swam and they swam all over the dam. Boop boop bidam badam boodum boooo.”

The door opens on the last long syllable.

Josh splits a stare between Kelly and the door. “You people are really strange.”

“We’re individuals.” Kelly rolls his shoulders, settling his denim jacket more comfortably. He steps over the threshold, stops short. “Admittedly some of us are more individual than others.”

“So this is what really happened to the library at Alexandria.” Josh nods as though it makes perfect sense. “Someone stole it all away and hid it under a hillside. Then they kept adding to it.”

“Close,” Kelly admits. He snaps his fingers and summons an orb of witch light, sends it soaring to fool around with the shadows hiding the ceiling and the upper ranges of the shelves stretching from the floor. Although the floor at the moment is more speculation than fact, lost as it is under the floodtide of paper and ink, the piles of books that hint there might be furniture underneath.

Kelly sighs. “You may have noticed that Nichtthane’s have an obsessive tendency. With Frost, it’s books. Which are far more affordable than high-fashion footwear or pony cars and take up a lot more room. Like twenty-seven of them at last count.” He squints across the room. “A-ha.”