It was too quiet.
No younglings practicing flight patterns at dawn. No reckless spirals. No shouted corrections. The airspace above the territory had thinned over the years—not suddenly, but steadily, like a tide receding inch by inch until one day you noticed just how far the waterline had retreated.
“The book was supposed to be there,” I said. “It was listed.Logged precisely between two titles I will not dignify by repeating. And yet, it was not there.”
Caliban didn’t look up from the stack of correspondence he was sorting. “So, it was missing.”
“It wasnotmissing.”Missingfelt too final, like I’d gotten so close to something I was so sure would bejust what I neededonly to be turned away. I couldn’t accept that. “It was… absent.”
He didn’t hide his smile well, which I chose to ignore.
“The worst part,” I continued, “is that I felt close. I don’t get that feeling often. But something stirred when I entered that library. A pressure along the old magic lines. A sense of proximity. Then I went to the shelf and—nothing.”
Caliban folded his hands. “Did you speak to a librarian?”
“Yes. She was…” I paused, searching for a neutral word and failing miserably. “Efficient.”
“Oh. You mean charming.”
“I did not say that.”
“You didn’t need to.” He took a sip of his tea, looking far too pleased with himself. “So. Efficient and charming. Did she help?”
A memory flickered in my mind: her steady focus, her quick thinking, her patience when explaining the cataloging system to a man who had mastered six ancient languages but struggled with a basic computer.
Humans still unsettled me in ways I could not fully articulate. My father had treated them as variables because they were unpredictable. Soft in some ways, dangerousin others. He believed exposure bred risk, and risk bred loss. I had learned to observe them from a distance and only interact when necessary. I had learned to trust tradition, not people.
It struck me then that I hadn’t felt wary inside that building. Not once. And I think Artemis Ripley was to thank for that.
That should have concerned me more than it did.
“She tried,” I said simply. “But the book wasn’t checked out. It wasn’t in repairs, or on transfer. It simply wasn’t there. She promised to keep looking.”
Caliban nodded. “Good. In the meantime, I’ll contact some collectors.”
I pushed my hands through my hair. “Do you think one of them has it?”
“One of them haseverything,” he said dryly. “They hoard more than dragons do. At least dragons appreciate what they guard.”
I sighed. “This book shouldn’t be in someone else’s hand.”
“No,” he agreed. “Which means whoever is hiding it has a reason.”
My jaw tightened. That was the part that gnawed at me—the idea that someone else had found the same trail I was following and decided to bury it deeper. But why?
Caliban reached for his correspondence folder. “I’ll draft the letters now. You… try not to spiral.”
“I don’t spiral.”
“You do, justsilently,which is worse. Loud spiraling is at least easier to interrupt.”
He wasn’t wrong. I resented that.
I grunted. “I’m going to cross-reference Caballero’s other works. There must be threads I’ve overlooked.”
“And your advisory council meeting?” he asked pointedly.
The council had grown more restless in recent months because of the strain on our borders and the shrinking shields. Too few hatchlings survived to quiet anyone’s fears for our collective future. Hadrian handled those meetings better than I did. He knew how to provide certainty, even when the facts did not support it. He reminded my clan more of my father than I did, which comforted them. Familiarity and all that.
