Addie looked up where the top of the ladder attached to the ceiling. Just like the librarian said, she could see a lever on the left side of the mechanism. She reached her hand up to pull the lever.

The mechanism started unfolding at the place the ladder connected to the ceiling, various long pieces of metal unfolding. The ladder started moving with a lurch, and a spike of adrenaline shot through Addie’s chest making her reflexively grab onto the ladder with both hands. The ladder changed orientation until it was completely perpendicular to the ground and no longer at an angle. Then, in motion with the gears and bits of metal at the top, the ladder turned around 180 degrees causing it to now face the other side’s bookshelves. The ladder lurched, making Addie’s stomach drop momentarily as its angle changed again, so the top of the ladder leaned against the top of the bookshelves. Finally, the ladder quit moving as the mechanism at the top folded back into itself.

“That was wild!” Addie shouted.

“Quiet in the library!” The librarian whisper-shouted up at Addie.

Addie flinched at the reprimand. “Sorry.” She said demurely.

“That was so fun!” Despite whispering, the excitement from her tone carried her voice all the way down to the librarian and Squishy.

The librarian smiled. “I’m glad you had fun.”

Glancing back up at the mechanism at the top, Addie decided to inspect it with her spatial sense to see if she could understand it.

She could see through the mechanism’s internals with her spatial sense, but she decided it didn’t make it any easier to understand. It was just full of gears, metal rods, and other flat pieces of brassy metal.

But beyond the ladder’s mechanism, something interesting revealed itself. The glass dome ceiling wasn’t actually a ceiling at all! Addie could see through it with her spatial sense, and there was some kind of hidden attic up there.

Addie briefly shared the image with Squishy, and she spoke silently to him over their bond, “I’m gonna go up there.” The mystery was eating away at her. She couldn’t possibly leave it unexplored.

“Wait for me,” Squish responded. His ears angled up toward her, and then he broke out at a run, quickly leaping up each rung of the ladder with the same ease he climbed a tree.

“No bonded animals on the ladder!” The librarian insisted from down below.

Her command didn’t matter at all though. Addie and Squishy were already exiting reality.

With little fanfare, the duo arrived in a dimly lit room. Now that they were in the dome, surprisingly, the floor underneath Addie’s feet was not made of glass. Instead, the same stone architecture used by most of the town made up the flooring.

It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the lighting. Addie expected the new ceiling to be made of glass, but it was stone too. Addie spared a moment to wonder how the library could look like it had a glass ceiling, even though it couldn’t be. She could even see the binary through the fake skylight!

A voice reached out through the room just as Addie was inspecting the ceiling, jolting her out of her thoughts. “Come here, girl,” A man’s voice commanded.

Addie looked up and saw an old man hunched over with a cane. He wore similar librarian robes as the wandering librarian ran into earlier, but his robes had various adornments that made it seem fancier. He had gray hair and a long beard with a matching color.

“Don’t keep me waiting. Come here,” He waved Addie over.

Despite his eerily flat yet commanding tone, for some reason, Addie didn’t feel the least bit alarmed. He almost seemed familiar, somehow. She walked up closer to him.

As soon as Addie got within arm’s reach, the man pulled out a book from within his robes along with a feather pen. Addie didn’t see any inkwell at all, yet the tip of the feather glistened wet with black ink.

He started writing down in the book while he mumbled, “Red hair, blue— no scratch that out, twinkling starry eyes upon a blue canvas. Yes, that’s better.” He looked back up at Addie’s face for a moment, then returned to the book, “Round unassuming face.”

“Hey!” Addie protested.

He ignored her and continued writing, “Freckles on both cheeks, gentle jawline, small nose, and slightly abnormal looking ears.”

Addie hurriedly reached up and touched her ears. They felt normal to her!

Still hunched over his book, the old man moved his eyes back up to Addie, “Name?” He asked simply.

“Um, Addie I guess.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“No family name? What about middle names or titles?”

“Addeline Lomain, but I prefer just Addie.”

He looked back down to the book and started writing again, “Addeline ‘Addie’ Lomain. Has insecurities about her name and prefers people use ‘Addie,”

“Hey! I don’t have insecurities about my name! I just like Addie more,” she grumbled.

The man looked back up at Addie with a scrunched nose. Then he crossed something out.

“May have a habit of lying to herself. More observation needed.”

Addie huffed and crossed her arms.

“Exactly 34 soul cracks, two bonded animals— spatial attributed and soul attributed magics. Soul cracks may be indicative of a greater potential for powerful soul melding. More observation needed.”

“Soul melding? What does that mean? And how do you know all that about me just from looking at me!?” Addie nearly shouted as she narrowed her eyebrows and frowned in outrage.

Again, he ignored her and instead asked a question of his own, “Tell me, does your second bonded use those soul cracks to live within your soul?” Before Addie could even answer, he started writing something down in his book as he murmured, “Fascinating.”

“Record indicates that specimen is—” he paused for a moment and leafed backward a few pages, “—Human number three thousand, eight hundred and sixty-four to reach hidden library.”

With a slam, he closed the book shut. Then, he tucked away the book and pen back into his robes.

Finally done with all of that writing, the man put his full attention on Addie’s increasingly upset frown and body language.

“Well go on then,” He said.

“What?”

“You must have questions, yes? Go ahead, ask.” He clarified.

“Why are you so rude? I don’t like you.”

“I am rude because knowledge has no feelings. Your second sentence wasn’t a question.”

“Hmph!” Addie turned her chin up at him.

“Fine, who are you, anyway?”

“The librarian.” He said simply.

“I already knew you were a librarian. You’re wearing the same clothes as the last one I saw.” Maybe coming into this attic was a mistake. This weird old guy really bothered Addie.

“No, I’m not ‘a’ librarian. I’m ‘the’ librarian. The Grand Librarian.” He once again stated with fanfare, no emotion in his tone at all despite the grandiose-sounding title.

“Huh. Well, that’s still not what I meant. What’s your name?”

“I forgot.”

Addie shook her head slightly, baffled. “You forgot? How? How do you forget your name?”

“You must have forgotten some things too, no? Otherwise, you would not have those cracks in your soul.” He waved at her, “Come, sit. Ask me all your questions whether it be about fact or fiction, I will answer.”

Where there hadn’t been one before, a simple wooden chair sprang into existence just as the grand librarian tried to sit down.

After he finished sitting, a small table, just wide enough for two people appeared in front of him. Even though Addie should have been standing right next to him, somehow, when the table appeared it didn’t crash into Addie. Instead, it moved in between the two of them as if there was always enough space for it.

Then, another chair sprang into existence right behind her legs, causing her knees to buckle and forcing her to sit down.

Although it surprised Addie, the chair didn’t hurt her at all, and she landed on the soft cushion upon the wooden surface deceptively gently.

Addie sent a quick soul ping to Squishy, and he rebounded one to her. She instantly knew where he was from that. She looked just underneath her chair and reached out to scoop Squishy up. She put him in her lap, his stomach and chest against her lap with his front paws dangling off.

“I’m not sure what to ask.” Addie frowned and looked down at Squishy in her lap. Maybe she just didn’t know where to start.

“Perhaps, it would ease you if I started by answering something you already asked. You are interested in soul melding.” He spoke that last sentence like a fact, not a question.

Addie cautiously nodded her head.

“Very well. Particularly powerful bonded pairs may develop a technique as soul melding. It requires delicate control and absolute trust in one another to successfully manage. However, in your case, it looks like a hack job brute force attempt by someone barely managing to avoid a cascade. Rest assured, it may aid you in the future. Perhaps it is aiding you right now, as I suspect. Tell me, where is your second bonded?” His tone was flat throughout the entire explanation, making his various points feel disjointed.

Addie didn’t want to think about her bird right now. She felt her bird flinch at Addie’s thought, still deep within her soul cracks. It didn’t matter to Addie at all if the soul cracks somehow could aid her. She just wished she hadn’t been hurt in the first place.

“If you won’t ask me a question, I will ask you one. If you could reverse time, would you?”

Scrunching up her nose, Addie asked, “Why would I do that?”

“I’m just curious. Since you seem so upset by your new soul markings, would you get rid of your second bonded if you had the chance?” It almost sounded like the strange old man was talking about something as simple as the weather. He didn’t care one way or another at all.

Addie could feel her bird’s fear at the question. Unspoken, but understood, the bird seemed to ask, would you get rid of me?

“I wouldn’t,” Addie said tersely. This callous man didn’t care that she had been hurt at all. “I don’t like you.” She repeated.

“That isn’t a question.” He paused for a second. “You say you wouldn’t go back and get rid of your current bonded, so why are you upset? Things worked out, did they not.” Somehow, that last sentence didn’t feel like a question with his flat tone.

“They didn’t work out. I could have been bonded to birdie and my soul could be healed like normal.”

“But you gained power from it, did you not? Tell me, where is the bird right now? I don’t see her.”

Addie pointed into her chest, “She’s here.”

“Correct. She is melded within you. Can she leave? Does her being hidden within you give a certain tactical advantage? What about a magical one?”

Addie ignored him.

“Why haven’t you tried? Think on it and tell me when you find the answer.”

Just as suddenly as they had first appeared, the table and chairs vanished. Somehow, the chair disappearing underneath Addie didn’t cause her to fall, instead, it was as if she had been standing all along— with Squishy displaced near her feet.

She looked back over to where the old man had been, but he was gone.

Then, as suddenly as she arrived, Addie was cast out from the library’s attic through no magic of her own. For a brief moment, she recognized the sensation as being similar to when Realmspace ejected her from its domain. Then, the sensation passed as she returned to reality.

Her footing wobbled for a moment as Addie reappeared on the top rung of the ladder with Squishy right next to her.

The young woman wandering librarian commanded Addie from down below, “Don’t make me repeat myself! No bonded on the ladders! Both of you, get down!”

That was weird. Did she not see Addie disappear for half an hour? Addie was surprised the woman was still there.