Addie walked to the end of the entrance hallway and took in the sights. At the end of the hallway, the library opened up into the main dome that Addie had seen from the outside. On the inside, Addie looked up at the curving glass supported by crisscrossing segments of brass. She could see the Binary way up overhead. The ceiling reached so high that Addie wondered if Sen could fit inside the library. It hadn’t seemed quite so big from the outside, but being directly underneath it like this made Addie wonder how the whole thing could stay up without toppling over in the wind.

That wasn’t even close to the most amazing part, though. On the outer edges of the entire dome lay bookcases reaching up along the wall, leaning precariously as they got close to the natural curvature of the dome walls. The books on those shelves should have fallen down from gravity, but somehow they stayed perfectly tucked into their spots. Another layer of bookcases formed a ring around the outer wall, with just enough space to walk between the two sides. This pattern repeated itself, with bookcases forming rings around the entire room, each bookcase just as tall as the last. However, only the bookcases touching the curving wall of the dome leaned in that strange way.

Around all of the bookcases, halfway up the shelves, was a horizontal brass pole following the curvature of the room. At first, Addie thought it was something like a pole to grab onto to help people walk, but it was way too high for that. Instead, off to Addie’s right, was a wheeled ladder attached to the pole, using it as a railway to circle all around the room. It also attached to the ceiling with some kind of mechanism in the brass supports of the ceiling. That must be how people got books from the top shelf, but Addie wasn’t quite sure how it worked since it was only on one side. Just like the bookcases, the ladder curved as it neared the top shelf, so anyone standing on it would be leaning precariously backward over the edge if they tried to climb that far up.

“Christena,” Addie pointed at the ladder, “How come people don’t fall off that?”

“How about you ask one of the wandering librarians to ask if they can take you up the ladder?” Christena smiled. She wouldn’t suggest that if it was dangerous.

“Yeah, I want to try! Nettal, let's go together!”

A look of panic marred Nettal’s face as she frantically shook her head from side to side. “I don’t want to. It’s too high up. You don’t want to go up there either, do you, Lily?”

From her position where Christena was holding her against her chest, Lily also shook her head.

Addie puffed up her cheeks and pouted. “I’ll do it by myself then.”

“If you walk around intending to find one of the librarians, you’ll find one,” Christena explained simply. “Lily, Nettal, how about I show you both to the children’s fiction sections? We’ll take a look at the mechanical engineering section with Addie later.”

Addie decided to split off first, to look for one of the librarians. She took just a few steps forward, and immediately around the bend she spotted a young woman with blonde hair transferring books from a cart back onto one of the shelves. That seemed so quick!

Addie glanced behind herself to tell Christena and Nettal that they could watch her climb the ladder since the librarian was so close by. The moment Addie turned around, though, Christena and Nettal were gone. She didn’t see them at all. In their place, Squishy looked up at Addie with curious eyes.

“Where’d they go? It’s only been a few seconds.” Instead of waiting for Squishy to answer, Addie walked back around to find them herself. Within just a few steps, Christena’s maid uniform came back into view and Addie nearly walked right into her— surprised that she just appeared out of nowhere.

Immediately, Addie turned her head back around to look for the librarian, but she was gone again. The ladder was still there, though.

“What?”

“What is it?” Nettal asked.

“Huh, well I was going to ask if you would watch me climb up the ladder, but now the librarian is gone again.”

Addie turned her head as Christena started chuckling. “What? Why are you laughing?”

“Well, it would be no fun at all if I just explained it to you, would it? Explore! Let me know what you discover.” Fluffy nodded her head sagely from Christena’s shoulders.

“You are playing a trick on me!” Addie accused while pointing at Christena. “You hid behind an illusion, and the librarian was also an illusion too!”

“Well, if that was the case your spatial sense could tell you if she was real, right?” Christena suggested with a sly smirk.

“Maybe I will try that.”

Nettal looked back and forth between Addie and Christena for a moment, and then she seemed to smile in understanding.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Why are you smiling?” Addie asked.

Nettal shrugged, “No reason.”

Addie narrowed her eyes at Nettal.

“I’m not telling!”

“Fine. Don’t move I’ll be right back.” Without waiting for a response, Addie turned around and started walking back toward the librarian, with Squishy following close behind her.

Again, the librarian seemed to appear out of nowhere, just a few steps around the bend, still putting books up on the shelf. Addie took a moment to confirm she could still see the ladder, and then she focused on her passive spatial sense. She was real! Just to confirm, Addie focused her spatial sense into a cone, but that also showed that she was a real, living person.

Maybe Christena had figured out a way to counter Addie’s spatial sense. If that was the case, Addie knew what to do. She walked forward a couple of steps, and the librarian looked up at Addie as she noticed her coming down the hall.

“Hi, can I help you?”

Addie ignored her, and instead walked right up next to the librarian.

The librarian bent her back to meet Addie’s eye level and asked again, “Hi! I’m one of the librarians here. Were you looking for me?”

Since she had such a perfect target, Addie poked her right in the forehead. Addie’s finger met resistance. Her head was solid. Then, the woman stood up straight in surprise.

“What was that for?” The woman half shouted in the otherwise peaceful library, reminding Addie of the tone her dad might use when she got in trouble.

Addie decided to explain before the woman got any more upset, “I thought you were fake.”

The woman let out a huff, “Well, I’m plenty real. Didn’t anyone tell you not to poke people?”

Addie decided not to respond.

“Well, if you have no other business with me, I have a job to do here.” The woman looked back down at the book in her hand and started to find the right shelf to put it on.

“I’m sorry.”

The woman turned back to Addie, “Well, at least you have proper manners.”

“I’m Addie. Can you show me the ladder?”

She glared at Addie for a moment. “I suppose I could. We don’t want people messing around with it by themselves. Can you promise to listen to all of my instructions?”

Addie nodded her head.

“Ok, good.” The woman let a breath. Then, she put the book in her hand back down on the cart. In the same motion, she pushed the cart away from them, and it vanished almost immediately.

“Wait, where did it go?” Addie looked around the woman to try and see it.

“No one told you? This is the Library of Intentions. To a certain extent, it listens to what we request of it. Do you still want to go up the ladder or should I call someone over to give you a history lesson instead?”

Addie hated history lessons. They might even be worse than etiquette. But, this was magical history, so maybe she could ask about it again later.

“That’s ok. Can you show me the ladder please?”

“Follow me,” The woman commanded neutrally.

She took a few steps forward to the ladder and placed her hand at the base of it.

“These ladders are quite useful if you know how to use them. Don’t ever climb one without librarian supervision, though. There’s a certain amount of magic to them and we don’t want anyone getting hurt. Alright, go on then. Start with just four steps up the ladder. Remember, you can come down any time you want if you think it’s too high.” The woman put her hand at the base of the ladder, stabilizing it.

Addie had climbed trees ten times as tall as this ladder. She wanted to go to the top. Addie reached out her hands to grab onto the outer rails and stepped up onto the first step. After that, she took it one step at a time until she was four steps up. Already, her head was slightly higher than the librarian’s, so she had to angle her head upward to look at Addie.

“Good, now we will try some of the more basic maneuvers. Do you see that book with the red cover off to your right?”

Moving her eyes to the right, it didn’t take long for Addie to find the book. “I see it. But I can’t reach it. It’s too far.”

“That’s alright. Try reaching for it anyway.”

Using a secure grip on the ladder with one hand, Addie reached her other out to the book. With a smooth gliding motion, the ladder moved along the rails to the right, perfectly positioning itself so that Addie didn’t even have to move her arm. Her outstretched hand perfectly met with the spine of the red book. Addie put her arm back down so she could look at the ground. The librarian was still standing at the base of the ladder, supporting it from underneath. Squishy was sitting down next to her.

“Woah! It moved!”

The librarian smiled.

“Did you walk with it while it moved?”

“No, I didn’t want to walk, so I’ve just been standing here holding onto the ladder.”

“But it moved for me!” Addie looked at Squishy, “Did you see it move?”

“It was strange. The librarian is correct in that the two of us on the ground did not move at all. From my perspective, it almost seemed like the floor underneath us rotated alongside the ladder, but that’s not quite right either since the floor did not physically move. It is hard to describe.”

For a second, Addie wondered if she could ‘poke Nettal’s nose’ from up on the ladder as long as she intended to do so. Addie reached her finger out and mentally commanded the library: poke Nettal’s nose!

Nothing happened.

“Huh.”

Seeing how nothing happened, the librarian explained, “The ladder will only move if you are trying to do something related to the library. Do you want to try climbing toward the top? I can show you how it moves to the other side.”

Addie looked up the ladder to the very top. She saw how it bowed outward in line with the ceiling. By the time she got to the top, she wouldn’t be standing on the ladder, she’d be hanging from the rungs. The thought of it exhilarated her.

“I’m going to try now.” Addie declared. Even if she fell, she could always just use Realmspace to help her land.

She started climbing up the ladder, expecting gravity to start changing as she reached the bending section near the top, but nothing happened. She got to the very top, and she was still standing on it just as surely as she had been at the bottom.

“Squishy, can you see me?” Addie let go of both hands and waved. Still, it felt like she was standing on a regular surface.

“Yes.”

From Addie’s perspective, it almost looked like Squishy was standing on a wall instead of the floor. Addie shared the image of it over their bond so Squishy could see it, too.

In response, almost right away, Squishy sent an image from his perspective. According to him, it looked almost like Addie’s feet were comically glued to the top step of the ladder and somehow balancing herself entirely by her ankles so she wouldn’t fall over. The image made Addie laugh.

Despite being so far away down on the ground, Addie could hear the librarian’s soft-speaking voice normally.

“Do you see the lever on the left side? Try pulling it."