‘Sister Cassandra’ trotted beneath the gateway. Alika followed, glancing over at the Scribes’ two taut ropes, still tied to the post. She decided not to try and untie them: this was unknown magic, and she didn’t want to mess with it in case the ropes decided to tie around her instead.

Alika and Snow stepped beneath the white wall and into the City of the Scribes.

Even at night, the city was alive. Spired towers and rectangular buildings rose up all about the city, organized into complex geometric patterns. There was no shortage of Scribes running around the city from tower to tower, building to building. Each of them wore the same robes as the two guards had, their heads shaved, but carried a myriad of different colors on the ropes tying their robes. Many had a book in hand, reading as they walked, their faces illuminated by light streaming out from their books’ pages.

“Where are they going?” Alika whispered. “They seem so busy, but they’re not hunting or sailing or talking.”

Snow shrugged and pointed at one — a spectacled Scribe who seemed as deep in thought as the others. She waved a hand at him, but he didn’t even bother to look up from his book.

“Let’s follow,” Snow suggested, trotting off after the Scribe.

Alika trailed close behind her, waddling from side to side. She’d watched Yarik long enough to know that this was absolutely not how humans walked. Hopefully, none of them would notice: they seemed way too focused to be able to.

The two followed the Scribe into one of the buildings: a huge, ornate hall, tall enough for a fully-grown dragon to glide through. Alika’s eyes had to adjust, as light poured in through windows — even though it was dark outside. If they were looking for a night, it wouldn’t be here, where even the setting sun couldn’t stop the Scribes.

The hall itself was lined with wooden desks, a Scribe sitting at each of them. Books and parchment covered the desks, and many of the Scribes were busy scribbling down with black-feathered quills, all in silence but the sound of ink being applied to paper.

Alika suddenly stumbled and fell, letting out a small squeak. She’d stubbed her talons — or her toes — on a stray book. The nearby Scribes swiveled their heads to her, placing fingers over their mouths in unison. Her heart pounded, expecting them to reveal her disguise, but they quickly returned to their work.

The Scribe that the two were following didn’t stop, turning around a bend at the end of the hall. Snow pulled Alika forward, and Alika only paused as they passed beneath the arms of a giant bronze statue of a winged human woman with dragon fangs. A cloth had been wrapped over her eyes, and in one hand she held up a pair of scales, while the other hand was busy placing an oversized sword that had been impaled through a heart on one side of the scales. A long, feathered quill rested on the other side of the scale, seemingly weighing it down.

Seeing how the Scribes’ ropes had come to life, Alika passed hurriedly beneath the giant statue. She didn’t doubt that if needed, it would stir.

The Scribe that they were following had turned down a tight, circular stairwell at the end of the hall, and they followed him down. It led down to a hallway lined with white stone, a multitude of doors on either side of it. Glass windows allowed them to peer into each room, though, at this point, Alika was unsure if she would recognize the Night of the Scribes if it was right under her snout.

While many of the rooms they passed were empty, a few had been filled with Scribes, all seated and, with great interest, watching a single Scribe lecture to them or occasionally draw on a slab of black stone. Alika wasn’t so sure what could be so interesting until she spotted a lecturing Scribe with a huge, shining diamond in his palm.

The Scribe used his other hand to draw glowing symbols around the diamond, whispering to it as his students looked on in earnest. The symbols curled up around the diamond, sticking to it like sap. Once they faded, all that was left was a pocked black rock: the diamond had been transformed into coal.

Magic. That was what they were so interested in: the Scribes were being taught magic.

Alika saw it more and more, all around her as the two traversed the maze of tunnels beneath the City of the Scribes. She paused to watch a room of younger Scribes at one of the blackboards, with the smallest one scratching runes into it. The runes peeled away and burst into multicolored light, while the robed Scribes around clapped, cheering and patting the scribbler on her back.

Alika stared as they continued to work spells, fascinated until someone grabbed her arm, and she felt claws on fur. She twisted around, pulling away before the illusion could break.

“C’mon!” Snow whispered. “No time to watch!”

The two ran after the Scribe, who still hadn’t noticed that he was being followed. He showed no sign of slowing down until he reached a wooden door: the tunnels’ exit. Eyes still on his book, he held it open, allowing an unnerved Snow and Alika through.

The three came out into a chamber so huge that Alika was shocked that it managed to fit inside the walled city. A library stretched out beneath them, above them, and all around them. The floor of the library — or at least, Alika thought it was the floor — was multiple stories down, and filled bookshelves lined every inch of it. It was a literal maze that had been vaguely formed in circular rings around the centerpiece of the library, Scribes wandering through with their books, stopping to read at desks that had been scattered about the book maze.

The rest of the chamber wasn’t exempt from the creeping invasion of literature. Stacks of books abounded on floating shelves that formed rivers in the sky, slowly drifting around the library. Small rowboats moved around the air, bobbing up and down. Many had one or two Scribes on them, steering them up toward the floating stacks, grabbing books as they passed.

One of the floating boats wandered up to the platform, and the Scribe that the two had been following stepped off the ledge and into it, nose still in his book. Before Alika and Snow could think about following him, the rope around his waist had unraveled and grasped around a small wooden wheel. The boat rose up into the floating sea of books and Scribes, and their guide was gone.

Alika peered over the edge of the platform. There were no stairs down, and it was a far drop.

“Jump on!” Snow laughed, leaping over the platform’s edge. She landed on a rising boat, carrying her up.

Alika clenched her fists and jumped after Snow. She scrambled as she hit wood, clinging onto the boat, breath unsteady as the boat bobbed. She felt strangely nauseous as she looked down, the floor of the library seeming so far.

“We can steer this thing manually,” Snow surmised as she turned the boat’s wheel. The boat rotated around, moving away from the platform and down toward the center of the library. “I think if I push the wheel in it goes down, and if I pull it out, it goes up.”

Snow pulled the wheel towards herself. The boat did not go up. It continued to sink.

“Other way around?” she asked Alika, pushing it in.

The boat began to plummet, and Alika screamed.

Snow pulled the wheel out again, chuckling nervously. The nearby Scribes had turned to them, all with fingers over their lips.

“Sorry,” Snow whispered. The boat continued to drift downward, heading toward the center of the library. “I’m pretty sure this wasn’t made for dragons.”

Alika shifted her weight, and the boat rocked with her. She gulped.

They landed at the centerpiece of the library, grinding into the floor with an angry creak. A huge brass orrery rose up before them, an enormous golden orb as large as Alika in the center casting light across the library. Seven orbs of different colors slowly orbited around it, smaller orbs turning around those, all of them set on top of a huge, circular mirror. A vertical pole pierced the center of the golden orb and the mirror, running through two rings and two disks: a white one of each above the mirror, corresponding to black ones beneath it. At the top of the pole resided a small glowing orb, pouring violet light down upon the rest.

Alika’s eyes focused on one of the seven orbs rotating around the golden one — the second farthest from it, with two moons and a pair of slanted rings around the orb.

The library boat suddenly shook, grinding into the ground once more. It seemed almost angry.

“Sorry,” Alika said to it, climbing off with Snow. The boat began to rise again, the wheel turning on its own.

As the two wandered through the library maze, Scribes collected books and pushed past them. Alika watched one Scribe who had a book open at a desk, reciting from it while holding a silver goblet in one hand. The water in the goblet suddenly froze over, frost forming on the metal surface. A few more words, and it transformed back into water. Nodding to himself, the Scribe placed the goblet back on the desk and wandered away.

Once he was out of sight, Alika ran up to the desk, peering over the book. Ink had been scribbled all over it, the figures completely meaningless to Alika.

“I can’t read it,” Alika said, poking at the pages with a finger.

Snow laughed, rotating the book around on the desk.

Suddenly, the symbols all made sense, and Alika clutched her head, staggering back. “I know what it means!” she exclaimed. “It’s like it’s projecting words into my mind whenever I look at it!”

“It’s just my translation magic,” Snow explained. “What you’re doing is called reading.”

Alika squinted at the words, turning back and forth to the goblet. Putting them all together, it seemed like they formed instructions. She wrapped her fingers around the goblet, splashing a bit of water on herself as she tried to hold it up.

“This goblet I hold, let warm turn to cold,” she spoke, reading from the page.

She squinted at the goblet, watching the surface of the water. She stared, as if her gaze alone would change it.

“This goblet I hold, let warm turn to cold!” Alika said again, louder.

And then… the surface of the water hardened. It was just a thin surface, barely visible, but it was there.

“I did it!” Alika exclaimed. “Look!”

She placed the goblet down on the table for Snow to see. Snow peered over and nodded.

“You’re a natural,” Snow deadpanned. “Look at all that ice.”

“Really?” Alika grinned, stepping away. She’d performed magic! She felt suddenly light-headed and wobbled a little bit before regaining her stride.

“I know who to come to when I need an escape from the brutal Tasish summers,” Snow replied. “Now you just have to do that on a scale as large as you, and who knows! Maybe one day you can freeze all of Tasien!”

Alika picked up on the sarcasm. She crossed her arms and turned away. “You don’t have to be so mean, you know. Not all of us are like you.”

“It was a joke! I’m not—” Snow bristled. She shut her eyes, and let out an exhale of air. “No, you’re right. That was mean of me. Sorry.”

Alika stepped away from the goblet. She walked away from Snow and began to wander through the maze of books, turning seemingly at random between the bookshelves. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but she felt that there was something important she was supposed to do here, as if a strange force were pulling her along an invisible rope, leading her through the maze to some mysterious treasure.

“Alika, where are we going?” Snow asked. “Are you mad at me? I said sorry, alright?”

“Shh,” Alika said. “I’m concentrating. I’m using magic to find our way.”

“I don’t think that’s how—” Snow huffed. “Okay. Sure, lead on.”

Alika shut her eyes, turning from bookshelf to bookshelf. It was as if she were falling forward, just using gravity to guide her. She held her arms out, blindly wandering the maze, just following instinct. She was almost there, she knew it, almost to where she was supposed to be, where the lines of fate would mee—

“Ow!” Alika winced, slamming her snout into a wooden door. She rubbed it as she backed away, slightly confused at the perceptual distortion caused by Snow’s illusions.

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“Well, good job,” Snow sighed. “We made it out of the maze.”

Alika looked up. True to Snow’s words, she somehow had managed to get them to the edge of the library. Here, the bookshelves climbed up the walls of the library like ivy, covering every patch — every patch, except for this door.

The door was large, so large that even a fully-grown dragon could fit through it with ease. A thick iron handle was attached at Alika’s head height, simple and bold. The door itself was similar: it seemed out of place in the chaotic and ornate library of the Scribes, just a huge door tucked away against the bookshelves, almost as if someone had hidden it here.

A simple glyph had been carved into the wood and painted with silver, oval shapes embedded within each other in the shape of a slitted eye, wide open and staring at Alika. Words had been written above it in a language that Alika was certain wasn’t that of the Scribes. It was only thanks to Snow’s magic that she could understand what was written.

The Library of Ansila, it read.

Alika reached her hand toward the handle, feeling her talons stretch beneath the illusion. The cold metal pressed against her palm, and she began to pull down.

“You are not supposed to be here.”

Alika whipped around, letting go of the handle. A Scribe stood behind her and Snow, her voice powerful and commanding. Though the Scribe was as bald as the rest of her kind, runic tattoos covered her pale and wrinkled skin, morphing with each movement of her face. A pitch-black rope ran around her waist, twitching with the Scribe’s eyes. Her voice was that of cruel authority, as if she could command the Dreamer herself.

“We were asked to retrieve a book,” Snow lied.

“Hmph!” The Scribe tsked, shaking her head disapprovingly. “Children, both of you! If you were supposed to be here, I wouldn’t have been able to stop you! Now shoo, shoo! If I find you here again, you’ll be library boats for a year!”

Alika shuddered, remembering how the boat had moved beneath her. Her curiosity of what was behind the strange door remained, but she preferred to remain animate. Plus, they were here to find the Night of the Scribes, not another library,

The Scribe whipped around, cupped her hand, and gestured them toward her. Snow followed. Not knowing how else to avoid blowing their cover, Alika did as well.

As the Scribe led them back through the library maze, her brown robes shifted along her back. Two raised lines ran vertically down from her shoulders, the robes rubbing and occasionally catching on them.

The Scribe brought them into a small open area, where a number of Scribes were busy studying their books.

“Kids these days,” she grumbled. “Bah! I never should have promised that foolish lizard a room. All it does is lead to trouble!”

“Um, excuse me—” Alika said.

The Scribe turned around, almost knocking Alika back with her glare. “Please excuse me, Mother Superior Pythia!” she reprimanded Alika. “Remember your manners and your rank, Brother Bromius!”

“Please excuse me, Mother Superior Pythia,” Alika said through gritted teeth, clenching her fists. “I was wondering if you could tell me where the Night of the Scribes is?”

The library, somehow, went even more silent. A few of the Scribes dropped their pens, the sounds of their clattering echoing through the bookshelves. A book fell down from the floating stacks, almost concussing Pythia.

“Probably shouldn’t have asked that,” Snow gulped.

“We are not to speak of the Mistress Below!” Pythia squealed, the runes on her face forming angry lines, if lines could be angry. Her face puckered into a sour fury. “Brother Bromius! What has gotten into you today? Are you possessed?”

“We’re just trying to find this Mistress,” Alika huffed. “For a… treatise. We’ll be right on our way if you take us to her.”

Pythia gasped the musty library air, and the rest of the Scribes followed suit.

“I have half a mind to do just that!” Pythia replied. “If you weren’t so good at your meditations, I would!”

“Mother Superior Pythia, Mother Superior Pythia!” a familiar voice sounded from up above, emanating from one of the library boats.

Pythia turned her head upwards. “Yes, Brother Bromi—”

A familiar Scribe stood on a descending library boat, anxiously shuffling. Pythia froze in silence, and Alika could practically hear the gears in her head grinding.

“Sister Cassandra and I spotted a boat entering the sea caves!” Brother Bromius announced, peering over the edge of the boat. He frowned as he saw Snow. “Sister Cassandra? I thought I was the one altering the Mother Superior while you took care of it.”

Brother Bromius’s gaze turned toward Alika. He blinked.

“Is this some sort of prank?” he asked. “I’m not sure I understand it.”

Pythia’s head swiveled around on her neck, twisting back to Alika, her eyes filled with fury.

“You,” she spat, her hands shaking and twitching.

“Um, I’m the real Bromius?” Alika suggested half-heartedly.

Pythia let out a furious screech, so loud that it shook more books free of the stacks, falling around at their feet. She raised a hand and snapped her fingers, the sound reverberating through the library. A whoosh of power blasted away Snow’s illusion magic as if it were leaves in the wind, leaving behind the dragon and the fox for all to see.

Pythia pointed at Alika and spoke a word that Alika couldn’t understand, but was certainly not well-intentioned.

“Run!” Snow yelled, though Alika was already running, sprinting after the fox into the maze of bookshelves.

Alika’s paws pounded against the floor, leaping over fallen books, dodging as more plummeted out of the sky. The shelves themselves seemed to shake with her voice, and Alika could hear the sound of a crowd of footsteps as the Scribes chased them.

But magic or not, the Scribes were human — and easily outpaced by a sprinting fox and dragon. Alika twisted and turned through the bookshelves with Snow on her tail, left and right, left and right, Scribes disappearing in the distance behind her, hidden between the empty spaces on the shelves. They needed to find their way back to that door, but no matter where Alika turned, the walls of the library never seemed to get any closer.

Alika shut her eyes, trying to do what she had once before. Where was it? Where was the door?

“Alika, look out!” Snow shouted.

Alika heeded Snow’s warning too late, and her snout slammed into a wooden shelf. It collapsed around her with a thud, and open books lay around her, splayed open across her fur.

“Get up!” Snow said, dragging away a few heavy tomes in her jaws. “C’mon Alika, walk it off!”

Alika groaned as she got back to her paws, her vision still blurred. She waddled down a path between the shelves, only to find that it was a dead end.

“We need to turn back,” Alika muttered. “We can’t go this way.”

Snow perked up one of her ears. “No choice. They’re almost here.”

As the Scribes stampeded toward them, Alika looked back at the dead end. Was it just her, or was the bookshelf closer?

Alika closed her eyelids and counted to three in her head. When it was over, her eyelids snapped open.

There was a small shudder of motion as the bookshelf returned to a halt. It was closer to her.

Alika roared, placing her forepaws on the bookshelf and shoving it to the ground. Books spilled out across the ground.

“They move!” Alika snarled, stamping over the shelf and into the path beyond. “She’s moving the stupid shelves!” She glowered at the bookshelf, poking it with a talon. “How dare you block our way!”

“Well, maybe don’t call them stupid,” Snow yapped, her other ear perking up. “Deer dung! They’re here!”

A mob of Scribes paraded around the corner, shouting as they approached Alika and Snow, Pythia standing in the front, Brother Bromius at her side. Bromius leaped forward, placing his hands together and blasting a continuous beam of light from them at Snow.

Snow yelped, leaping to twice Alika’s height in a miraculous feat of fox acrobatics. The beam of light hit the floor, leaving behind a small crater. Bromius didn’t have time to realize what was happening.

Foxes that go up must go down, and with a three-tailed somersault, Snow landed on Bromius’s face, claws out. He shouted and squirmed as she clutched ahold of it, blindly twisting around, the beam of light still blasting from his hands.

Alika yelped, ducking to the ground as Bromius turned, the beam of light sailing over her head. Each bookshelf it touched split into, the top half sliding off and crashing into the floor.

Snow grabbed Bromius’s scalp with her paws, and he turned around more, the beam of light turning on the other Scribes. There was a loud gasp that came from the mob as they all ducked in unison, placing their hands over their heads as if that would protect them — all of them except for Pythia.

When the beam reached Pythia, her left hand shot upward, grabbing it. With a shake of her hand, she wriggled the light beam as if it were a solid rope, yanking Bromius and Snow towards her, her other hand outstretched.

Snow leaped from Bromius’s face, her tails stretching out as she sailed over the mob. Those Scribes who had dared to look upward saw as Snow twisted herself around mid-air, sticking out her tongue at Pythia beneath her.

Pythia extended out her right hand in a rapid slicing motion, and a high-speed thesaurus shot out from a fallen shelf, slamming into Snow’s ribcage.

“Snow!” Alika called as the fox sailed out of her view. There was a thump in the distance as the thesaurus crashed into the library walls.

Pythia ripped out the beam of light from Bromius’s hands, cracking it like a whip. Her other hand moved, and the split books and bookshelves creaked and groaned, pulling themselves back together. Pythia’s head swiveled toward Alika like an owl, her body following suit.

Alika was already running, leaping on top of and over the fallen bookshelves as they rose, cutting off the Scribes from her path. She heard them shift behind her, opening back up.

This time, only Pythia stepped through, while the rest of the mob dispersed. Alika’s heart raced as she saw the ancient Scribe behind her — unlike the sprinting Alika, Pythia’s steps were calm, nothing more than a brisk walk. Never had Alika thought she’d be so terrified of a single human, but she had the instinctual feeling that she was being hunted.

Alika turned another corner, then another. Bookshelves loomed over her, forcing her to change her direction and skid to avoid crashing into one. But whenever she looked back, no matter how fast or far she’d gone, Pythia was there.

Alika's breath sped up. Why had Irmiq led them to this horrible place? She didn’t have time to despair or consider the fates of her friends, not with Pythia on her trail. She looked up toward the stacks of books above, platforms jutting out from the sides of the library. She had to get up there, had to get out of the library.

One of the library boats was drifting down toward the bookshelves, out from the river of boats further up. Alika’s wings twitched. Maybe if she got on a boat, maybe, just maybe, she could get to one higher up. A few flaps of her wings, a little glide, that’s all it would take.

As the boat sunk, Alika knew it was now or never. She jumped in the air, landing on top of a bookshelf. It began to topple as soon as she was there, but Alika wasn’t planning to stay for long. She stretched out her wings and leaped toward the boat.

Her foreclaws grasped its side, her glide too short. She grunted as she scrambled aboard, flailing around her hindlegs in the air. Finally, she managed to put one paw onto the wood and lifted herself up.

The boat began to slowly sink. Time was running out. But when Alika looked up at the boats above her, they all seemed so far. This wasn’t gliding, this was flying. Were her wings strong enough? How could she reach them?

Alika glanced down. From up on the boat, the short drop-down suddenly seemed like a chasm. What if she couldn’t make it? What if she crashed?

Alika took a deep breath, steeling herself, and stretched out her wings. There was no choice. She had to do this. She had to —

Before Alika could jump, the boat flipped. Alika squealed, flailing as she plummeted. Her body twisted instinctively, and the ground hit her moments later, pain aching through her legs and knees as her talons slammed down. Somehow, she’d managed to land on her paws.

But her luck had run out. Alika stood in the center of the library, beneath the rotating orbs of the orrery. The bookshelves had all enclosed themselves in a circle, leaving her only one exit.

And unfortunately, Mother Superior Pythia stood in the middle of it.

There was no more flight for Alika: now, she could only fight.

Alika opened her jaws, rearing back on her hindlegs. Flame formed in the back of her throat, her talons twitching and wings stretching out as she loomed over Pythia.

Pythia looked up at the dragon’s jaws, and Alika let it loose.

Alika poured fire down upon the Scribe, oranges and reds flickering and it spread out in a cone beneath her, warm air pushing back against her wings.

And then, it was gone. With a quick whip of her hand, Pythia sucked the fire out from Alika’s jaws, moving and twisting it into a ring of flame above her head. The Scribe effortlessly moved a single finger, and the fire rotated around.

Alika had never stood a chance.

Pythia snapped, and the fire condensed into a swarm of black and yellow wasps, buzzing furiously. Her finger lowered, and they flew at Alika.

Alika roared in pain as hundreds of tiny stingers stabbed all over her body, painful pricks in her wings, legs, and underbelly. She swatted at one near her snout, only for it to sting the sensitive underside of her paw. She reared on her hindlegs, flapping her wings and twisting.

Alika tried to look toward Pythia, barely visible through the swarm. The Scribe had an amused smile on her lips, the runes tattooed on her face jiggling.

Alika pounced as a hundred stings pierced her skin, smoke pouring from her jaws. She had to stop this at the source.

Pythia waggled her finger, and a curtain of wasps was suddenly between her and Alika, forming a black curtain. Alika’s talons reached forward through the curtain, pulling it with her as she brought a paw down toward Pythia. The curtain, no longer made of wasps but of a crinkly clear film, wrapped around Alika’s snout and body, holding her back, her claws just inches away from Pythia’s face.

Alika collapsed to the ground as the film wrapped tighter, constraining her throat and covering her mouth and nose. She tried to rip it off with her talons and saber fangs, but it wouldn’t tear. The film clung tighter, choking and constricting her. She couldn’t breathe.

Alika tried to stay calm, holding her breath, but it was almost impossible with the feeling of the clear wrapping trapping her. Her eyes watched as Pythia loomed closer, and Alika tried to strike out at her.

Pythia clenched her hand into a fist, and the wrapping pulled Alika’s paw up against her underbelly. Alika writhed, flailing as her limbs were scrunched together, the film crushing her.

Suddenly, the ground shuddered. A crack had formed in the stone floor under Alika. Black smoke rose in wisps from it, tendrils reaching out and grasping around Alika’s torso.

Pythia stepped back and released her hand. The wrapping released, and Alika could once more breathe — only for the black smoke to cover her face.

Terror struck through Alika: pure, sheer, terror. Her heart began to pump overtime. Her eyes watched Pythia’s blurred figure through the smoke. Another crack opened up in the stone, and then a third, and a fourth. The black smoke began pulling Alika down. It smelt of death and darkness, and Alika felt her insides curling up in resistance to it.

“It seems that the Mistress Below wishes to speak to you after all. A pity. I would have dealt with you more mercifully,” Pythia said, speaking the dragon language perfectly. “Give her my regards.”

The floor opened up beneath Alika. She reached out her claws, grabbing onto a ledge of the stone. She had to escape. She had to. This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be the end.

The tendril around her waist pulled tighter, and the stone decayed, crumbling away. The last thing Alika saw as she plummeted into the abyss was Pythia’s scrunched-up face, shaking her head as if she felt sorry for her.