The guest book was organizing itself. Not just its usual golden threads connecting signatures, but actual categorization - pages rearranging themselves by date, location, and something else that made the paper shimmer like starlight.
"Fascinating," said their newest guest, adjusting spectacles that seemed to be made of pure knowledge. "I haven't seen a self-cataloging volume since the Great Library of Chronos started walking."
"I'm sorry," Pip blinked, "since the what started what?"
"The Great Library of Chronos," Ms. Pamela Codex repeated, her librarian's satchel occasionally rippling with what looked like excess dimensional space. "Surely you've heard of it? One of the first buildings to follow your inn's example. Though we prefer to call it 'peripatetic architecture' rather than wandering. Sounds more professional."
Lady Corvina materialized so quickly she left several feathers hanging in mid-air. "The Great Library wanders too? But I've never found any records of other mobile institutions except..." She trailed off, staring at symbols appearing in the guest book's margins that looked eerily similar to ones she'd seen in the ancient archives.
"Except the ones in the First Chronicler's records?" Ms. Codex smiled. "Who do you think taught the First Chronicler their classification system?"
Felix played a curious chord that made both the guest book and Ms. Codex's satchel hum in harmony. "You're not just here to return an overdue book, are you?"
"No," the librarian admitted, reaching into her satchel and pulling out what appeared to be several cubic feet of scrolls from a space that should have held inches. "I'm here because the patterns are changing again, just like they did when the inn first chose to wander. And this time..." She unrolled a scroll that showed magical ley lines writhing like disturbed serpents. "This time it's not just the lines of power that are shifting. It's the spaces between them."
The inn creaked ominously, and every book in the building – including those still in Ms. Codex's apparently bottomless satchel – fluttered their pages in alarm.
"The spaces between?" Lady Corvina asked, her quill hovering expectantly. "But that's where we travel. The paths between fixed points..."
"Precisely," Ms. Codex nodded, pulling out another scroll that opened into a three-dimensional map of shimmering pathways. "The wandering ways, the roads between, the paths of possibility - they're becoming unstable. And not just for buildings. For all wandering things." She glanced meaningfully at Lady Corvina's feathers.
Felix played a sequence that made the map's paths visible in golden light, just like the threads in their guest book. "These look like... song lines. The old traveling patterns."
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"Because that's exactly what they are." Ms. Codex began laying out more scrolls, creating a web of information around them. "Bards, shapeshifters, wandering spirits - they all followed these paths long before buildings learned to walk. Your inn was just the first structure to understand what they already knew: some magic needs to flow free."
Lady Corvina's form flickered between raven and human as she studied the patterns. "These symbols... they're not just marking locations. They're marking transformations. Changes. Like..."
"Like a raven becoming a woman? Or a building becoming a wanderer? Or perhaps..." Ms. Codex adjusted her knowledge-spectacles, "like a chronicler becoming something more?"
The guest book suddenly flew open to its oldest pages, where the First Chronicler's entries glowed with familiar iridescence - the same shimmer as Lady Corvina's feathers.
"Oh," Lady Corvina said softly. "I always wondered why I was drawn to record-keeping AND shapeshifting. They seemed so different..."
"But they're not," Pip realized, reading from her aunt's journal as new words appeared. "They're both about change. About transformation. About helping things become what they need to be."
"The First Chronicler wasn't just a keeper of records," Ms. Codex explained, producing a final scroll that showed a figure shifting between forms just like Lady Corvina. "They were a guardian of change itself. As all true chroniclers must be."
The inn hummed with recognition, and every book in the building opened to pages showing moments of transformation - guests finding new paths, spaces changing to meet needs, magic adapting to serve.
"But why tell us this now?" Felix asked, his music catching the tension in the librarian's manner.
"Because the paths are failing faster than we thought. The spaces between are becoming..." Ms. Codex hesitated. "Unpredictable. We need chroniclers who understand both stability and change. Who can record not just what is, but what must become."
Lady Corvina's quill began writing by itself, recording this moment even as she lived it. "The First Chronicler in the archives... they were preparing me, weren't they? All those records about the inn's transformation..."
"Were lessons," Ms. Codex finished. "Just as your aunt's research into wandering buildings is more than mere curiosity. There's a storm coming, my dears. One that will shake every path and challenge every fixed point. We need those who can help others transform. Who can chronicle the change without trying to cage it."
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Guest Book Entry: "Pamela Codex, Peripatetic Librarian: Some books wander so others may find their way. Some readers must become part of the story they record."
New Verse of Felix's Inn Song: "Where paths untrod and stories new, Meet ways of ancient lore, The Last Stop Inn keeps changing still, Through every shifting door..."
Lady Corvina's Chronicle Entry: "Personal Note: Identity of Chroniclers revealed as guardians of transformation! Must reassess entire approach to historical documentation. Query: Are all shapeshifters potential chroniclers? Additional Note: Beginning exercises in conscious recording of change patterns. Final Note: Rather excited about expanded role, though slightly concerned about increased responsibility for fabric of reality."
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Later, after Ms. Codex had returned to her wandering library (through a bookshelf that definitely hadn't been a door before), Lady Corvina sat surrounded by her floating records, watching them shift and reorganize like feathers in flight.
"You know," she said to Pip, "I always thought I was recording the inn's story. But maybe I'm actually helping write its next chapter."
The guest book's pages rustled in agreement, its golden threads pulsing with the promise of changes yet to come.