“And you can do so much better,” adds his other friend.

I snort—I can’t help it—and eat another chip.

The one in the snap-back cap must’ve heard me, because he turns to look at me over his shoulder. “You think something’s funny?”

She’s the one who can do better, I want to reply, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. I don’t know this girl, but hearing them talk about her like…like…like she should be grateful for that sort of attention, really makes me uncharacteristically upset.

If they can’t see that she’s beautiful, the way her fringe cuts across her brows, the brush of freckles across her nose, the way she sighs in the library, running her fingers along the bindings of the books, when she thinks no one’s watching—

Stop it.

“Yo,” the guy says, turning around in his booth. “Do I know you? You look familiar.”

Shit.

I adopt my best American accent to reply, “I’ve got that face,” before I put a five on the table for the waitress, abandoning half of my plate of chips—fries—and slide off my barstool. Better I leave before I say anything I’ll regret, which will perhaps be just everything.

The walk back to the house is short, and when I let myself in Sansa is curled up on the couch with Elias. They’re watching that karaoke show again, and Elias doesn’t notice that I’ve returned yet.

So I creep back into the hall and follow it down into the library. I don’t quite understand why I feel so secretive, as if this place is private. As if I’m not supposed to be here.

Perhaps I’m not.

The library is dark, and more than a little unsettling, before I turn on one of the lamps on the end table. Orange-yellow light floods the room. There are stacks of books everywhere, piled haphazardly in a system I can’t begin to fathom. The wingback chair sits against the bookshelf still, her footprints in the red leather cushions.

She’d only managed to get a few of the books down, it seems.

It really is bad foresight that Elias didn’t even give her a step stool, but then I remember that I’m supposed to be helping her organize the library. I would have been said step stool, apparently.

On the balcony, she had laughed and said she didn’t mind being short. “Besides, it makes reaching upper cabinets a game of parkour.”

“I’d reach them for you, if you’d ask.”

“Would I have to ask?”

“No.”

With a sigh, I push the wingback chair to the side and reach for the books. I take them down, two at a time, and pile them up on the chair where she can see them tomorrow. Then I turn off the lights again and close the door, as if I was never there.

I DUMP MY BOOKBAG DOWN at the threshold of the library and run my fingers along the spines of the books like I do every weekday, saying hello to them. Nothing quite takes my breath away like the library every time I walk in. It’s the slant of the sun coming through the two large windows. It’s the way the light flickers off the motes of dust that drift through the room. It’s the smell of old paperbacks, filling every shelf like hundreds of secret stories from a galaxy far, far away, beckoning me to settle into every page, explore every planet, fall in love over and over again with Carmindor and Amara and Euci and Zorine and, yes, even Ambrose Sond.

Everything is as I left it, like time stops between my visits. There is nothing here but space, and words, and magic. A certain kind of impossible magic, where words people have written years and years ago exist still.

As I round one side of the library, I pause when I notice the books stacked in the wingback chair—the same ones I’d been trying to reach yesterday when Vance walked in and startled me.

I guess things move after all.

I flip open the iPad on the desk and begin my work—I go in order, systematically finding the next book in the series and noting how damaged it is. Some books are rare enough that it doesn’t matter how damaged they are—as long as they’re legible and still in one piece, they go into the system.

A knock on the door startles me out of my work, and Mr. Rodriguez pokes his head into the library. “I’m heading out for a bit to grab some groceries for dinner. Ravioli good for tonight?”

“You don’t have to feed me—”

“I know, but you’ve been doing such a good job, and I always make too much.”

“Well, if you put it that way—I can eat my weight in ravioli. Also, thanks. You know, for the help.”

“Don’t thank me, I always love feeding people.” He gives me a thumbs-up and leaves before I can explain that I was thanking him for getting the books down for me.

I finish my detailed work of volume 12 of the Starfield saga—The Cassius Sun—and place it on the shelf in order behind volume 11, and search for the dreaded number 13.

But…it’s not on the shelf, or in any of the cardboard boxes.

At first I think it’s just a gap in the books because of their different sizes, but the longer I look for volume 13, the more I begin to wonder if it’s even here at all. Most of the books are scattered across the various shelves—volume 1 might be beside the Noxian Guilt series (or volume 73, if you don’t section the series out into their respective arcs).

I look through the various shelves and a few of the cardboard boxes one last time just to make sure, but it’s not there.

Maybe Mr. Rodriguez has it? I mean, since he took the books off the top shelf last night, and I can’t very well ask him right now, since he’s not home.

The volume has to be here somewhere. Mr. Rodriguez had said that it was a complete collection, after all, but I can’t find it anywhere. Maybe he’ll know where it is.

I take out my phone out of my back pocket to call Mr. Rodriguez. It rings twice before he answers.

“Um, hi—I’m sorry to bother you,” I say, twisting a lock of my hair nervously.

He laughs into the phone—he sounds somewhere loud and busy. Then I hear the sound of my old manager over the intercom. Ah. The grocery store. My old nemesis. “No worries! What do you need?”

“Um, well—I can’t find one of the books? I’ve looked through all of the boxes and…”

“Hmm, maybe Vance borrowed one? I did see him sneaking into the library last night, so maybe he wanted a read.”

My heart sinks into my toes. “Oh.”

“It’s fine. Just pop up there and ask him for the book. He won’t bite.”

Right. He won’t be him. Me, on the other hand? He’d probably yeet me straight out the window if he could. “Oh, okay. Thank you.”

“I’ll be home in a while—good luck!”

Great, I’ll need it.

I hang up and shove my phone into my back pocket. Well, there’s one mystery solved. I guess I have to confront him in his own territory, which might just be the death of me.

But I will do anything for a book.

“Screw your courage to the sticking place, Rosie,” I tell myself as a pep talk, and pour myself a glass of lemonade just to…you know, prolong my imminent demise. I know I’m being overly dramatic, but I really don’t want to go upstairs to confront Vance, but then again I don’t…not…want to go up there. I’m a tiny bit curious. And besides, if he does yeet me out the window, I’ll just drag him with me.

I flip through one of the magazines on the counter—People and Star—as I drink my lemonade. At least one of them has a story about Vance on the cover, and I flip to the page even though I already know what it’s about.

WHEN IT REIGNS, IT POURS, the cheesy headline reads, detailing some rumors that have cropped up over the last week. About Vance losing a role in the next James Bond movie, about the (probably fake) talks of CW restructuring Veten Rule to write his character out of it. About Natalia Ford’s radio silence on whether Sond is returning for the third installment of the franchise—and whether the third installment will be the last thanks to a merger with Disney.

I wonder why Vance keeps them around. I get hives when someone subtweets about me. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have entire articles printed—mostly untrue, I assume—about me for the entire world to read.

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t care for me? Because he thinks I also subtweet and buy into all that gossip?

That’s silly, especially since he doesn’t even know me.

As I finish my lemonade, I realize I can’t prolong my appointment with the man upstairs any longer, and embark for the stairs on the other side of the house. I mean, I haven’t heard Vance since I got in today, so maybe he isn’t here, anyway! He might be out for a walk with his abs. Or running his glutes. Or, I don’t know, taking his pecs for a spin.

One can only hope.

I hold my breath and creep up the stairs.

When I reach the top, the entire floor is quiet, and I realize I don’t quite know which room is Vance’s. Which…I guess I should’ve asked Mr. Rodriguez about before we hung up. There aren’t that many rooms in the house, so it shouldn’t be hard to find. The first room on the left is sparse and neat, with a bed in the far corner, covers turned down and pillows fluffed. This must be Mr. Rodriguez’s room, neat and orderly just like him. There is a photograph of him and an older woman who looks like she might be his abuela, but otherwise the room is empty, save for the neatly hung clothes in the closet.