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A single large desk sat in the center of the room on a square rug,with a chair pushed in on each of the four sides. The desk was laden with papers and pens. On the circular wall of the room Cassie saw a variety of things—maps with pins in, photographs that showed Drummond and other people looking happy around a dining table or seated in the library downstairs. There was an oil painting of the house in an ornate frame, a series of three small frames in a line displaying pressed flowers. Overhead a number of large light bulbs hung from cords at various heights from the rafters of the roof. Where the rest of the house had felt neat and tidy and ordered, this secret room felt cluttered, orrelaxed. This space felt more lived-in than even the library at the bottom of the hidden staircase.
Cassie absorbed all of this, but her attention was drawn to small wooden cupboards that were dotted randomly around the circular wall of the tower, between the pictures and windows and maps. Each of the cupboards had a Roman numeral stenciled on the front in faded gold. There were twenty cupboards in all, and the arrangement and numbering made Cassie think of some strange advent calendar.
“This is the secret library,” Drummond said, spreading his arms as he walked around the table.
“Those are the books?” Cassie asked, pointing at the cupboards.
Drummond nodded. He leaned against one of the windowsills. Cassie saw a set of binoculars sitting there. Drummond picked them up and then gazed out at the world, in the direction of the tarmac drive leading down to the trees. She wondered what he was looking for.
“You have twenty?” she asked, her eyes moving from cupboard to cupboard.
“No,” Drummond said, placing the binoculars down again. “Not all of them are full.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key ring. He identified a key and then walked over to the cupboard hanging nearest him on the wall—number seventeen. He unlocked the cupboard and opened the door. Cassie saw a small shelf with a thin brass wire retaining frame. A single book leaned against the frame. Drummond picked it up and carried it over to the table in the center of the room. He placed the book down and then walked to a different cupboard on the other side of theroom—number twelve. He repeated the process of opening the door and removing the book and placing it on the table. Both of the books were the same size and shape as the Book of Doors. He lifted his eyes to her, an invitation.
She approached and gazed down at the two books.
“What are they?” she asked.
“Examples,” he said. “Two of the books from the Fox Library.”
Cassie picked up the first book. It was light and insubstantial, almost weightless, just like the Book of Doors. The cover was a mosaic of many bright colors, like a floor covered in flower petals or confetti.
“What does it do?”
“That’s the Book of Joy,” Drummond said, moving back to the window. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “It lets you experience true joy. It removes all doubt and unhappiness and pain from your mind.”
“Wow,” Cassie said. She flicked through the pages briefly and saw texts and sketches in a variety of colors.
“It was sent to me by a friend in London,” Drummond said, looking at the book in Cassie’s hand. “For safekeeping.”
Cassie nodded and returned the Book of Joy to the table. “And this?” she asked, lifting the second book. The cover was colored bright red and orange, angry tones.
“The Book of Flame,” Drummond said. He shrugged. “Pretty obvious what that one does.”
Cassie flicked through the pages, seeing similar text and sketches to what was in the Book of Doors, but this time the contents were scribbled in deep red ink, and the pages seemed almost browned in some way. As if they were wood, maybe.
“How many books do you have?” Cassie asked. “If not twenty, how many?”
“Seventeen,” Drummond said.
“Seventeen?” Cassie gasped, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise.
“The Fox Library was the biggest single collection of special books anywhere in the world,” Drummond explained. “The biggest I am aware of, anyway.”
“What do the others do?” Cassie asked, her eyes skipping around the numbered cabinets. She was excited, thinking about all the wonders that might be possible.
Drummond shrugged. “Lots of different things. Some of them I don’t know. They have never revealed their secrets. We know they are special books, because they have all the qualities—the weight, the text—but they are maybe just waiting for the right person to reveal what they are. But the other ones... well, they do lots of things. But that’s not the point.”
“What’s the point?” she asked.
“The point is I need to protect them. That’s why I am showing them to you. Imagine what would happen if these fell into the wrong hands? So much power here. And they are so important. I can’t stand the idea that someone would just take them and use them like tools, like weapons.” He pulled a face, as if he’d eaten something that tasted awful.
Cassie looked down at the book in her hand and then placed it back on the desk, alongside its sibling.
“They are so important, Cassie,” Drummond said, his tone gentler now. “My friends, other people like me, we loved the mystery of them, what they could tell us about the world and creation. The history.”
“The history?”
