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“This is Cassandra,” Flynn says to Helen. “She has an inoperable brain tumor.”
Cassandra would protest Flynn’s utter disregard for confidentiality if she thought it would have any effect.
“Inoperable? Really?” Helen already looks thoughtful. “Send me her medical records. I’ll see what I can do.”
***
Kate and Ezekiel take an instant liking to one another, much to everyone else’s horror. Approximately thirty seconds after they are introduced, she takes him by the hand and drags him into an office where they can talk privately.
“I’ve heard of you,” Kate tells Ezekiel. “You’re rumored to be the best thief in Australia.”
Ezekiel’s smile is smug. “It’s good to know my reputation precedes me.”
“I also heard you worked for MI6.”
The smile drops away. “Um. Yeah. About that.” He really doesn’t want to get into a discussion about that right now, so he hurriedly changes the subject. “Did you just want to hear about my fascinating exploits? Or was there another reason you wanted to talk to me in private?”
“There was another reason,” Kate admits, but he can tell that she’s humoring him for now.
“This is a Garodoxus,” she says, turning to a computer and pulling up a file to show him. “Very rare. It possesses the ability to manipulate electromagnetic radiation really delicately, which could revolutionize a whole bunch of tech fields if we could study it. Magnus has been dying to get her hands on one for years.”
“Let me guess,” Ezekiel smirks. “You’ve found one. And you want my help to steal it.”
She nods. “It was captured by hunters and sold on the black market to some rich collector who won’t know how to take care of it properly. We’d be doing it a favor bringing it here.”
Ezekiel waves a hand before she can continue explaining what a noble deed they would be performing. “I’m in,” he assures her.
***
Eve joins Helen for a cup of afternoon tea. It’s all quite civilized.
“Jenkins said to tell you that he’s sorry he couldn’t come with us, but he’s got a nasty cold. And he gave me this to return to you.” Eve hands Helen a leather-bound book with writing on the cover in a language she doesn’t recognize.
Helen’s fingers trace the grooves in the spine. “I’ll give you the next in the series for him before you leave,” she promises.
Eve thanks her. “So, you’ve known about the Library for awhile,” she muses, taking a sip of the strong tea.
“Yes, since I was a child,” Helen says. “My father and the Librarian at the time shared a mutual interest in finding the hidden entrance to a certain place. The Librarian disappeared shortly afterwards - I never knew if he had found it or had gotten himself killed on some unrelated quest.”
Eve makes a mental note to look up records on the Librarians of the nineteenth century. “And Flynn?” she asks.
“I met Flynn nearly ten years ago in Turkey,” Helen tells Eve. “I was chasing rumors of a Şüräle, and he was hunting for some votive statues rumored to actually grant their worshippers’ prayers. He’d only been the Librarian for a few months, I think.”
Eve nibbles on a scone. “Did you find the…thing?” she asks, not wanting to attempt that pronunciation.
“Only after it found Flynn,” Helen answers. “He had almost been tickled to death by the time I got there.”
“…Tickled to death?” Eve repeats.
“Şüräle are a bit like mischievous forest sprites,” Helen explained. “They like to hide things, trick people, make them lost. Tickle them.”
“Of course they do,” Eve sighs, and Helen laughs.
“Mind you, I haven’t had to rescue Flynn in over a year now. Having all of you around has been good for him,” Helen says. “He’s more grounded than I’ve ever seen him.”
Eve snorts. “Grounded is not a word I would use to describe him.”
Helen takes Eve’s hand and squeezes it. “Something I’ve learned chasing Abnormals around the world?” Helen says. “Sometimes, it’s cruel to keep beings locked up in the Sanctuary. Let him run, Eve. He’ll always come back to you.”
***
The big guy takes Jacob on a tour of the Sanctuary’s extensive art collection, complete with fond recollections of how Magnus acquired many of the paintings. Jacob is particularly interested in the Abnormal art - both the pieces painted by Abnormals, and those depicting them.
“Fylopens can see radio waves,” the big guy explains, directing Jacob’s attention to a cityscape bursting with light. The plaque names it, “Vancouver.”
Jacob’s favorite is a never-before-seen da Vinci portrait of a young winged man with the most exquisite turquoise feathers he has ever seen.
They’ve been wandering around together for hours when they turn a corner and nearly collide with Kate and Ezekiel, who are struggling beneath the weight of a large cloth-covered cage. Worrisome screeching noises emanate from it.
“What are you two doing?” the big guy growls, looming over them, and they exchange a guilty look before pasting on innocent faces. Ezekiel’s only partially masks his terror, Jacob notes with amusement.
“We were just bringing this to Magnus’ lab for her,” Kate tries, but even she is no match for the big guy’s glare.
Helen herself shows up an instant later, with her customary inexplicable awareness that someone is causing mischief in her home, and demands to know what is going on. The expression on her face when she sees what they have brought her is the same mixture of disapproving and delighted that Eve often wears around Flynn.
“Thank you but don’t ever do it again?” Ezekiel guesses.
“Got it in one,” Kate agrees, and high-fives him when she thinks nobody is watching.
***
Will tracks Flynn down on the second afternoon. It’s not hard to find him - he’s in the Sanctuary’s library, surrounded by rare books that even the Librarian has never seen before.
“I heard you used to train with Excalibur,” Will says, startling Flynn, who nearly knocks over the table in his hurry to get to his feet.
“What? Sorry, yes,” Flynn says, picking up a book that went flying.
Will hands him another, which had landed nearby. “I’ve been wanting to learn sword fighting,” he says, “but Magnus laughs at me enough as it is.”
“I’m kind of busy,” Flynn hedges, obviously wanting nothing more than to disappear back into his work.
“Tell you what,” Will offers. “I’m the one picking the movie we’re all watching on Friday. You give me a beginner lesson some time this week, and I’ll let you choose instead.”
“You have a deal,” Flynn says.
***
Henry can’t figure out how Kate and Ezekiel managed to get past his security, so Cassandra offers to take a look at his algorithms. By the time Will pokes his head in to ask if they’re planning on coming to dinner, they’ve upgraded the Sanctuary’s physical and digital security systems, created a worldwide tracing program for sentient artifacts, and worked out the basic principles of mathemagics. Henry looks somewhat dazed and very much in love. Cassandra is already talking about what they can do tomorrow.
***
Rescuing Flynn, who was swimming (naked) with Sally the mermaid and got trapped in her tank, is not the low point of Eve’s day. Although it does bring up some feelings that she will need to examine more closely at a later time.
That honor belongs to the hour she spends putting out the fire that Ezekiel started somehow, which spread to the archive backup room before anyone noticed. It also applies to the twenty minutes afterwards spent lecturing Ezekiel on the dangers of touching unfamiliar pieces of equipment while he picks ashes out of his hair and grins at her, unrepentant.
She remembers yet again why she never wanted to have children.
***
Helen asks Cassandra to come to her office for a consultation. “I’ve found an experimental procedure,” she tells Cassandra. “It’s not without its risks. But if it works, you would be cured.”
“What kind of risks are we talking about here?” Cassandra wants to know.
“The usual ones associated with brain surgery,” Helen says calmly. “Impaired vision, coordination, memory, or cognitive function. Seizures, coma, death. Plus, possibly, an involuntary urge to chase butterflies in the springtime.”
Cassandra swallows. “And the odds?”
Helen smiles gently. “Better than you’ll get anywhere else. But not as good as you would probably like.”
“Can I have some time to think about it?”
“Of course,” Helen says. “But you better than anyone know that you can’t take too long.”
Cassandra nods and manages to hold in her tears until she’s alone in her guestroom.
***
“Thrust! Parry! Parry! Lunge!”
Jacob extends his head through the doorway, and then immediately withdraws to avoid getting it chopped off by the enthusiastic would-be knights in full plate mail swinging their swords around like madmen.
“Magnus wanted me to get you, Will,” he calls from the safety of the hallway. “She said something about Nikola Tesla and a casino heist?”
The clanging subsides, and Jacob feels safe enough to try entering again. This time, he finds both Will and Flynn leaning against a table, exhausted but grinning.
“Duty calls,” Will sighs. “Thanks for the lesson. Let me know what you decide on.”
“Will do!” Flynn grabs a bottle of water and gulps about half of it down at once. He indicates the blunt training sword Will left behind, and asks Jacob, “Wanna have a go? I don’t feel like getting out of this armor just yet.”
Jacob shrugs and picks up the sword.
***
Movie night, consisting of a Lord of the Rings marathon, is a huge success. At least, until Flynn tries to dramatically recite the story of Luthien and Beren in Elvish and has to be sat on by Eve in order for him to stop.
Helen fondly recalls her first encounter with Tolkien, then still a student at university. Apparently hobbits are real, and mostly live near the Forest of Dean.
“You know what I never understood?” Ezekiel says. “What’s even the point of the wizards? Like, they’ve got all this power but they’re not doing anything helpful with it.”
“How can you even say that?” Jacob exclaims, and the two of them spend the rest of the night bickering about the roles of the various races and their symbolic importance, with occasional interjections from Henry.
Once it becomes clear that nobody is going to shut up anytime soon, Cassandra quietly turns off the television and deals out the Cards Against Humanity pack that Kate hands her.
***
They leave shortly after Cassandra’s surgery, as soon as she’s recovered enough that demolecularization won’t scramble her brain even further. Eve makes Ezekiel turn out his pockets as they’re getting ready to go, and again just before they step through the back door. She lets him keep a bauble that he insists was a gift from Kate, which doesn’t look too vital to the running of the Sanctuary. Besides, Jacob is also now the delighted owner of a Sanctuary relic - in his case, a small painting presented to him by the big guy, which nearly made him cry.
Helen kisses each of them on the cheek and tells them they’re welcome to come back any time. Will and Flynn do a complicated handshake that ends with finger guns, leaving everyone else shaking their heads in bemusement, while Kate and Henry just wave.
“Tell Jenkins he still owes me a snapping turtle,” Henry calls after them as they are swallowed by the light. Eve gives a thumbs up in acknowledgement.