Whatever the library's pages had been searching for that night, they'd gone still again by the time Algor and I made it back up through the stacks, the grey light settling into its usual indifferent glow as though nothing had happened at all — which told me less about the danger having passed than it did about how little the library felt obligated to explain itself. Zereth met us at the upper threshold, already alerted by whoever kept watch over the entrance, and took the news of a self-reading library with the same flat composure he'd have given a report of rain.
"I'll have the lower stacks sealed until Algor can determine whether it's safe to return," he said. "Anything else, My Lord?"
"Get Krix. Now, not in the morning." The phrase came out of me before I'd fully decided to say it, an echo of the last time I'd used those exact words, and Zereth's brief pause told me he'd caught it too.
