2
Brushing away Julius’s hand, Subaru stood up on his own and faced the examination.
The duplicate monoliths now filled the white space, leaving the one that Subaru had touched at the very center. There were so many now that it would have been a pain to count them all.
“So this is the examination… That about sum it up, Shaula?”
“Is there any reason it shouldn’t? Let me see a bit of your cool side, Master.”
With Shaula’s easygoing support urging him on, Subaru scanned the room. Other than the monolith copies, there was no change in the vast white space. And looking closer, the new monoliths were not pure copy-pastes of the original. They had slight differences in size.
“Other than that, the only thing that could be called a hint is that voice, huh?”
Great hero destroyed by Shaula, touch upon his grandest splendor.
It had not reached his ears. Instead, those words had apparently been whispered directly to his brain. Subaru hadn’t even given any thought to who the voice might have belonged to, perhaps because there had not actually been a sound.
It almost felt like the voice in my head when I read to myself.
“If I had to describe it, I’d say it was my own voice… I guess that’s the exam question, then?”
“Sorry to interrupt while you are thinking, but there are a few points of interest. It would probably be worthwhile to hear those before facing the question itself.”
“So now you want to explain things first.”
Subaru frowned and stared at Julius, still sore about the minor prank. But Julius took it all in stride.
“I said seeing it would be easier than explaining it. That was all. I had not expected you to be so surprised, so allow me to apologize for that.”
“All right, all right! Sorry for being a scaredy-cat! So what are these points of interest?”
“Very well. Try touching the stone slab—or monolith, as you called it—right over there.”
“You really liked that, huh? I mean, it’s fine if you did…”
Julius was apparently enjoying his word choice more than he had realized. Subaru shrugged and walked over to one of the newly created monoliths.
“There’s not some kind of trap that will swallow up my arm when I touch it or anything, is there?”
“It will be fine. And if something like that was to happen, Betty will serve as your right arm for the rest of your life.”
“Ah, then I’ll be your left arm. So don’t worry.”
“That would mean I lost both arms!”
Spurred on by Beatrice’s and Emilia’s strong reassurances, Subaru worked up his courage and reached out to touch the monolith. He refused to be surprised no matter what happened—
“Whoa?!”
But he stood no chance. When his fingertip brushed the monolith, the black surface flashed brilliantly again. Reflexively covering his eyes, he shouted “Again?!” before cautiously reopening them.
“Huh? Where’d it go?”
“Heh-heh-heh, behind you, Master.”
The monolith that should have been in front of him, and every other one that had filled the white space before, suddenly disappeared. Shaula gloated for no reason while Subaru tried to understand what happened.
Turning around at her comment, he saw just a single monolith behind him. It was the original that had been there from the start when he entered the third floor.
“All the others disappeared. Meaning what?”
“It has returned to its original state. Meaning the examination has concluded as a failure, I would imagine. Of course…”
Walking past Subaru, who was dumbfounded, Julius approached the first monolith and touched its surface, and then the voice echoed in Subaru’s head again—
“Great hero destroyed by Shaula, touch upon his grandest splendor.”
At the same time as the question echoed in their heads again, new monoliths poured out of the original and scattered to their previous positions around the room. The examination had been reset.
“I see, so this is a retry. We can take the test as many times as we want.”
“At least, that is our observation thus far. Also, to be clear, going around touching all of them in succession using a process of elimination is not considered an acceptable answer.”
“Ah, so you guys tried a scattershot approach.”
Subaru read between the lines of Julius’s delicate explanation, and Emilia blushed.
I see. Trying to touch all of them is definitely something she’d think of. And if that didn’t work out, then…
“An answer arrived at without thought is apparently not sufficient for whoever set this problem.”
“Mm-hmm, there’s always teachers like that. Zero credit for answers that don’t show your work. It’s a good way to stop kids from cribbing from other people’s answers.”
Considering the whole point of a test at school, you could say that just an answer really isn’t enough. Though there was a time I complained about how tyrannical teachers were for using that sort of system.
“At this point, though, I think the teacher was right…”
“Sorry to interrupt while you’re taking another trip down memory lane, but this is sort of your time to shine, Natsuki. So get a grip, would you?”
“Er, uhh, sorry. But what do you mean by my time to shine?”
Anastasia put her hand on her hip as Subaru cocked his head. Her eyes turned toward Shaula.
“Oh… You’re telling me to ask her what the answer is?”
“I said it before, didn’t I? We’re counting on you. She wouldn’t talk to us.”
“That’s a little hard to believe…”
From what they said, Shaula was almost completely silent before he woke up, but from the moment he’d been awake, she couldn’t have been friendlier. Overfamiliar, even, so it was hard for him to imagine.
But even if she was willing to talk, there was another big problem with asking her.
“Hey, Shaula, you got any idea who it might mean by a hero that you destroyed?”
“Remembering the names of everyone you killed is for amateurs… A pro like me doesn’t remember anyone past the first hundred.”
Shaula flashed an energetic thumbs-up.
“Figures!”
That was pretty much exactly what he expected.
“However, if we leave it at that, the conversation cannot proceed. Ms. Shaula, do you really not remember anything? Even if it is just something minor?”
“I mean, you say that, but I just Hell’s Sniped everyone who got close to this tower, and the demon beasts outside cleaned up any corpses.”
“Hmm, that’s weird, isn’t it? The exam here is to get access to the tower’s archive, right? It wouldn’t make sense if the answer was something Shaula did after the tower was built. The answer would need to be something that happened earlier in the timeline.”
Catching the inconsistency in Shaula’s answer, Anastasia followed up.
True, if the answer to the question was from something that happened after the tower was being managed, then it would screw up the whole order of events. In which case the natural interpretation is that the ‘hero destroyed by Shaula’ comes from before the tower was built.
“So this is from before you were just wildly killing everyone who approached this place. Think back. Your memory is so bad because your breasts and bottom are absorbing all the nutrients, I suppose.”
“My mom picked this look for me. And even if you tell me to remember, I honestly can’t really think of anything. I mean, you’re asking about before this tower was made, right?
They gathered around Shaula, trying to jog her memory. Weighed down by all their expectations, Shaula just groaned. It looked like there was little hope this would lead to an answer.
“Assuming it’s not a lie, she was around four hundred years ago, wasn’t she? If we just list a bunch of famous people from back then, maybe she killed a couple of them?”
“What do you think I am, Master? I’m a gentle maiden who likes to nibble flowers.”
“That’s not a maiden; it’s a caterpillar.”
“Don’t go too far, Subaru. If she doesn’t want to remember, then we don’t need to force her…”
“Your kindness is a virtue and insanely charming, but this woman’s the type where the more you spoil her, the worse she’ll get! I can tell! I’m the same way!”
This definitely isn’t simply a matter of not wanting to remember. She just has a terrible memory. This is a delicate issue, since there are all sorts of problems that can come with repressed memories, but at least in her case, I don’t believe it has anything to do with that.
“Still, though, even if we know the hero who was destroyed, how do we get the monoliths to accept it?”
“True, Natsuki. Even if we get that part, what is touching his greatest splendor?”
Given that passing or failing the examination came down to touching a monolith, the way to answer the question in the end was to touch the correct monolith. The problem was how to find the correct one and how to answer.
Is it really going to come down to thumbing through Shaula’s memories?
“Buuuut we won’t make any progress just thinking about it like this. The half naked lady is willing to help, so it should be fine to ask her for anything we can figure out, if you ask me.”
Meili sounded fed up with the adults getting stuck going in circles at the very start of the problem. She was playing with Shaula’s hair while looking disinterestedly at the monoliths.
“There aren’t any cute demon beasts, and there’s not any progress, so it isn’t any fun here. Hurry up… I want to go back to the manor.”
Everyone was at a loss for words at Meili’s spoiled statement.
“What?” Meili adjusted her position as Subaru patted her head. “…What did I do?”
“Nothing. I was just thinking you were right. This place is covered in sand, and there are all sorts of crazy demon beasts outside. Let’s take care of everything, resolve all the problems…wake Rem up and find a way to help all the people who are in trouble, and then get out of here quick.”
Spinning our wheels and getting anxious without even trying anything is a waste of precious time. It feels like that is probably what whatever sadistic person set this exam wanted to happen.
“Master, Master. You know there’s actually a really easy head to pat right next to hers.”
“Like I said, I know you’re the type that goes bad when you’re spoiled. Starting now, I’m going full spartan on you.”
“Awwww.”
Shaula’s cheeks puffed out, and she started sulking in earnest. Though she would just forget about it and start humming again in under a minute, so she wasn’t too difficult to deal with.
“We have received a request from the young lady, so shall we at least try whatever possibilities are staring us in the face?”
“Yeah, that’s for the best. We can fail as many times as we want, so there’s no pressure. Most of the time in life you only get one chance, so this is mild compared to that.”
Thanks to Meili setting them in motion, Julius and Anastasia were in agreement, too.
Time to make Shaula remember whichever hero she destroyed.
“We’ll go with names we know… That’s a good starting point. So what about Reid, the first Sword Saint. Did you kill him?”
“Eeeeeeep!!!”
Shaula leaped back with a scream when Subaru tested out the first name that came to mind. Because of the sudden motion, Meili couldn’t hold on and started to fall.
“Watch out!”
Luckily, Subaru dove and caught her.
“Th-thanks, mister…”
“No problem. It seems like it was a little my fault, too…though…”
Carefully setting down Meili, Shaula had gotten smaller as she fled far in the distance.
“Was the first Sword Saint really that scary?”
“Not possible. He was the honored forefather of Reinhard and Sir Wilhelm’s Astrea lineage. There is no doubt when it comes to the quality of either his swordsmanship or his good character. In the stories that have been passed down about him, he certainly seemed to have an unfettered, broadminded personality and certain quirks that diverge slightly from Reinhard and the others… But were he not of upstanding character, that would mean the history of the Astrea family to this day has become twisted.”
“Okay, fair, but, at least for Japan, when you take a closer look at history, even skilled statesmen can look pretty terrible from different angles. Compared to that, I’d say this is a pretty mild sort of question…”
“Well, we won’t make much progress by simply speculating. Let’s have the woman who was a witness enlighten us. If you please…”
When Subaru imagined out loud what Reid might have been like based on Shaula’s reaction, Julius went off on a long spiel. And to top it off, he even walked all over Subaru’s attempts at managing expectations.
“Let us hear your impression of the first Sword Saint, Reid Astrea, Ms. Shaula. Allow me to ask your unreserved and honest opinion.”
“He was an absolute trash human being.”
“Allow me to ask your unreserved and honest opinion.”
“Don’t act like you didn’t hear her!”
Subaru pointed at Shaula as Julius tried to ignore the inconvenient answer she had just given.
“There you go, listen. The true history you wanted to know is right there.”
“…People of superior skill, be it greater or lesser, all have self-confidence. That is not something they should be blamed for. If anything, it is something to be proud of. For a man who left his name to history as the greatest swordsman of his time, that sort of behavior would be, well, considering the historical background, it is even suitable—”
“This is the first time I’ve seen you this desperate.”
Julius was faltering, seemingly unconvinced himself.
Ignoring the man who seemed to be feeling a little bit let down at the truth of the history he had admired, Shaula continued sharing what kind of man Reid Astrea was.
“Well, basically, he was a terrible guy. A personality like a brat who just got bigger instead of growing up. And he loved bullying weaklings. Though as far as that jerk was concerned, pretty much everyone was a weakling, so you could call it bullying the weak whenever he fought anyone. He totally wrecked me, too.”
No matter how many hateful memories spilled out, the darkness in Shaula’s demeanor did not fade. It was like a child who had been picked on recounting all the injustices their bully had perpetrated on them.
“I remember that jerk. It’s only natural that you forget the things you do, but it’s impossible to forget what was done to you…”
“If he could mistreat you, of all people, he must have been pretty monstrous. Either way, though, it looks like he’s not the hero this question means, so save it for later.”
“…………………Indeed. There are other things we should prioritize at the moment.”
It was hard to say whether it was due to a purely scholarly interest or just his own personal interest, but Subaru had a feeling Julius would not be much use for a while.
He felt a bit bad that Julius’s dreams had just been crushed, but they didn’t have any reason to care much about Reinhard’s ancestor at the moment. No matter how amazing the lineage might be, Reinhard was already more than amazing enough on his own, so Subaru considered that all just icing on the cake anyway. And at least when it came to the question of their fathers’ characters, Subaru was confident he was more blessed than Reinhard.
“In which case, if we leave guessing random heroes to someone more knowledgeable about that topic…”
“Understood. Allow me to humbly accept that duty.”
“I didn’t say you yet, but sure, have at it. Beako, can you help him?”
“Very well.”
Leaving the job to someone fired up for it was for the best. And as an assistant, Beatrice was a good fit with her four centuries worth of knowledge.
“Then what should we do?”
“Let’s give the surroundings a more thorough search.”
While Julius and Beatrice were pursuing the hero angle with Shaula, Subaru took a different approach. To start, he turned his eyes to the layout of the swarm of monoliths.
“They’re scattered, but is there some method to the madness? The first one is right in front of the stairs.”
“The one that gave the question.”
Though they weren’t particularly tightly spaced, Subaru took great care not to touch any monoliths as he, Emilia, and Anastasia began examining them.
They all are slightly different sizes, which might have something to do with it? We can’t touch them to measure the size precisely, but—
“At a glance…it looks like maybe seven or eight are around the same size as the first one?”
“Maybe? Yeah, I think so, too. The ones reeeally far away are all small, I think. Touching them will still restart the test.”
“Spoken like someone with experience… Ah, sorry, never mind.”
Emilia looked at him with sad eyes, so Subaru bit back his needless jab. Moving back in front of the first monolith, the three of them put their heads together.
“Great hero destroyed by Shaula, touch upon his grandest splendor… It feels like someone trying to sound epic.”
“It’s certainly an abstract sort of phrasing. But if this requires Shaula’s memories to solve it, then it’s a failure of a test, isn’t it?”
“I can’t really say I disagree.”
For something that calls itself an examination, if the solution requires relying on someone other than the exam taker—and not just someone else, but the person who is supposed to be managing the tower—then that’s totally unfair.
They were currently on friendly terms with Shaula, through no fault or effort of their own, and had managed to get into the tower without fighting her, but were it not for that, they could have easily been in for a brutal fight to the death. Even if they had succeeded, it was very possible they would’ve had to kill her just to gain access to this place.
“That would make it basically impossible to ever pass this examination.”
“If whoever set this up didn’t wany to let anyone pass, then that would be one way. Putting a powerful guardian as a first line of defense and then making it so that the exam was impossible to clear if that guardian was defeated.”
“But you don’t think that’s what this is. Right?”
“Well, yeah.”
Subaru smiled wryly with a nod as Emilia stared at him with eyes filled with expectation.
It was Subaru’s weak point. He had no defense against people like Emilia or Beatrice giving him that look. It was the same with Rem and Garfiel and Otto, too. And Petra and—there was no end to it if he really thought about it. Patlash and Ram were the only ones who didn’t do it.
“Hmm. With a few notable exceptions, questions like this are generally designed to be solvable. If you really wanted to hide something, then it makes no sense to purposely give anyone a chance to find it.”
“Right, so you’re saying this is something different?”
“Shaula said this is a great library where we could find anything we wanted to know or discover, right? That doesn’t sound like the sort of thing she would say off the top of her head. More like something she was told herself once. In which case it was her master who made this place and left it in Shaula’s care. In other words, her master intended for it to serve as a library from the beginning.”
And the more Subaru tugged the thread of that possibility, the more their current situation felt unnatural.
The creator of the Great Pleiades Library must have intended for it to be used. That explained the examination and Shaula’s watch.
“So from the start, it’s something only people who can get along with Shaula can use?”
“But Shaula was told to take out everyone who approaches the tower.”
—Right. Shaula was under strict orders to erase everyone who approached the tower without exception. Us being on good terms with her is a complete coincidence.
It’s way too limiting to assume that anyone who doesn’t luck into those exact circumstances isn’t allowed to challenge this tower.
“If that was it, then the requirements are strength, luck, and the charm to get on Shaula’s good side? That’s pretty unreasonable, if you ask me.”
“…Yeah…”
Not being able to beat Shaula or kill her, or failing to get her help, all mean losing the right to challenge the Great Pleiades Library.
It’s not exactly logical, but that seems like the only conclusion from what we know so far.
But Subaru could not bring himself to just accept that, either.
“Mm. Hmm.”
“Emilia?”
“There is something that reeeally bothers me. It might not have anything to do with anything, but…”
“If something’s bothering you, just say it. It’s not like my theories are guaranteed to be right, and coming at it from different angles is generally a good idea.”
“Really? In that case…this examination really feels a lot like the trials.”
Subaru and Anastasia both went quiet at that. For different reasons, though. Anastasia because she did not understand the comparison, and Subaru because he did.
“Getting in my way again, Echidna…”
“I don’t think Echidna has anything to do with this examination… But you reeeally seem to hate her.”
“If you ever meet someone who seems like a savior only for them to turn out to be the mastermind behind it all, you’ll end up like me, too.”
Ever since the events at the Sanctuary, Emilia and Subaru had only talked about the Witch once or twice. And when he brought up the content of the trials, Emilia struggled to answer, so he had refrained from probing any further.
The one thing they both shared about it was that “Echidna is an evil, sadistic bitch.” Emilia had a more roundabout, polite way of saying it, but that was exactly how Subaru put it.
I noticed it when the examination was first brought up, but especially once the test started, it felt like the trials. So maybe a part of the system, or even a big piece of it, is the same as that tomb.
“Thinking back, the trials could be attempted an unlimited number of times, too.”
“And the examinations here are for the third, second, and first floors, so there are three of them, too.”
Subaru and Emilia looked at each other, realizing the similarities were piling up.
The existence of the Sage and a four-century time span. Naturally thinking about that brought the witches to mind, too. What were the odds that they had no connection at all?
“Yeah, but even knowing that much isn’t going to give us an answer here.”
Emilia quickly stopped that line of thought. Even if her hunch was right and there was a connection between the tomb and their current situation, it had little to do with the question they needed to answer.
And we still have to ask Shaula the name of whichever hero she destroyed—
“…Or maybe not?”
“If we assume this is something that is supposed to be solvable, then it can’t be done without Shaula. But what if that thought itself is wrong?”
This is the Sage’s tower; that was the Witch’s tomb. If there is a shared point between the two of them, other than the sadism of the people setting the tests, it’s that there is a margin of thought possible.
The Witch tested people through her Trials, but she didn’t set a challenge that was impossible. So if the Sage is testing people through these examinations, too, the challenge shouldn’t be impossible, either.
“There’s a chance we can clear this tower without Shaula…”
“If you’ve thought of something, Natsuki, then—”
“Shh.”
Seeing Subaru slip into thought, Anastasia started to say something before Emilia stopped her.
Putting her finger to her lips to silence Anastasia, Emilia looked at Subaru, her eyes filling with confidence. Subaru hadn’t even noticed what had transpired; his brain was already in high gear.
Anyone facing this test likely had to get through Shaula to enter the tower. Her presence can’t be crucial to passing this.
“We mistakenly believed that Shaula was responsible for Flugel’s achievements. The Sage’s greatest accomplishment is sealing the Witch together with his comrades. But the Witch of Jealousy would never be called a hero, and she wasn’t destroyed, either.”
I can discard the possibility that our priors are mistaken with that. There’s a chance that there was some other hero’s tale that Sage Flugel pinned on Shaula, but if that’s the case, it’s weird neither Julius nor Beatrice have thought of it already.
And inevitably, another potential explanation rose to the surface.
“What if there’s a Shaula that Shaula doesn’t know about?”
They had brought up that possibility earlier in a different situation.
Subaru’s thoughts weren’t becoming circular, though. It was the opposite. Discarding one hypothesis became evidence pointing toward another, which was that—
“Beako! Can you come here a sec?”
Julius was talking with Shaula, desperately struggling to pry open the door of her memories together with Beatrice. When she heard Subaru’s shout, her ears perked up.
“Betty likes the look on your face.”
“Don’t you always like it?”
“This time is especially good.”
Subaru held out his hand to her as she said that without any shame. Beatrice took his hand and looked at him with her cute, round blue eyes. They made it clear she was asking him what she should do.
Subaru nodded and said, “It’s simple—I want to jump high up for a bit using Murak.”
“…Don’t tell Betty you’ve given up and are trying to break through the ceiling.”
“Don’t sound so exasperated. Of course not. I want to be able to look down at the monoliths from above.”
“Look down at the monolith…”
Behind Subaru, Emilia murmured as she looked back at the monolith.
Beatrice did not understand the reason, but she did not ask anything else. Exhaling slightly, she pulled Subaru’s hand closer, tighter.
“Murak.”
A faint light purple surged in reply to Beatrice’s incantation and shrouded Subaru’s body. It was a spell that dampened the effects of gravity and sharply enhanced agility. A light hop was enough to go up a yard in the air, and a full-strength jump—
“Here…we…go!”
Still holding Beatrice’s hand, Subaru’s body leaped high. He was around six or seven yards up, but his body did not crash into the ceiling that should have been there.
It was as if the ceiling simply didn’t exist in the infinite white space, like the whole floor of the tower had been expanded. Because of that, Subaru could look down at the entire room from above.
“Just like I thought.”
“Did you get what you wanted?”
“Yep. This is the worst kind of terrible.”
Subaru’s cheeks twisted as he nodded at Beatrice’s question. Falling gently, Subaru carried Beatrice like a princess all the way down.
“I know the hero’s name.”
“Really?!”
Subaru shared his confidence to Emilia, who had watched his leap from start to finish. Emilia was stunned, and Anastasia’s eyes widened.
“I’m not going to doubt you now, but…how did you get the answer, Natsuki?”
“It’s nothing that special. You guys not managing to solve it isn’t because you were bad or missed something. There are hardly any people who have a chance of answering it.”
That was why he had said it was the worst kind of terrible.
Making it past the obstacle of Shaula, understanding the actual contents of the question, and just the fundamental ability to know the answer, between all of that, the people who could do it were already badly limited.
“The hero destroyed by Shaula? His name is Orion.”
“Orion…?”
Everyone looked at Shaula with a dubious look when Subaru said that name. But Shaula herself shook her head vigorously.
“Never heard of the guy! Seriously, I don’t know who you’re talkin’ about. Even if I did kill him, anyone who didn’t make it here can’t be a hero, right? So it’s not my fault. How do you like that defense?! I’m smart!”
“Which is exactly why we suspected this obviously not-so-smart person might have simply forgotten, but it’s not that, either. The Shaula in question isn’t talking about her in the first place.”
“I’m the only Shaula! It’s the name I got from Master!”
“I’m saying there was a story behind the name your master gave you.”
Putting his finger on Shaula’s nose, Subaru pushed her back as she tried to argue. And then Subaru walked over in front of the first monolith.
“The origin of the name Shaula… Is that another thing that only you know?”
“It’s not just me. But back where I’m from, there is a star called Shaula. It means needle, but it’s not just any needle. It’s a scorpion’s tail.”
She insisted that her hairstyle was a scorpiontail. Whether that was a hint or just her natural airheadedness is up for debate, but either way, there were a couple of things to link Shaula, scorpion, and needle together.
“According to legend, the great hero Orion was getting full of himself, so the gods chose a scorpion to deal with him. Once it jabbed him, he died and transformed into stars in the sky. And for its achievement, the scorpion was also turned into a constellation. It’s said that even now, Orion is afraid of the scorpion and runs away from it in the night sky…”
“When Subaru breaks it down so much, even a heroic tale ends up sounding disappointing,” Beatrice quipped.
“Anyway, there’s this concept of constellations, images of people or animals or whatever traced by the stars. They’re also called asterisms. And so, if you look down at the monoliths from above…”
That was why he had used Beatrice’s magic to lighten his body to reach that critical vantage point.
The black points of the monoliths in a sea of white—ordinarily, the colors would have been flipped, but the black stars in the white world connected, forming an asterism that Subaru knew well.
There were seven other monoliths the same size as the original one, for a total of eight.
The number and distribution of them matched the main stars of the constellation of Orion. And if that connected with the “touch upon his greatest splendor”…
“The first monolith is in the center. Basically around where Alnilam would be. So if we trace out the constellation from there, then…”
“Then?”
“Grandest splendor is a bit of a trick question. The truth is stars have a different way of shining. Some are just constantly bright, but others flicker. Because of that, depending on how you look at it, there are two most splendorous stars in Orion…”
When looking at it from above, there was Betelgeuse in the upper left, Orion’s right shoulder, and Rigel in the lower right, Orion’s left leg.
Rigel was constant, but Betelgeuse had a variable light.
Answering both wasn’t a clean solution to the problem, but—
“If it was me, I would choose Rigel.”
Betelgeuse brought to mind unpleasant memories of someone with a similar-sounding name.
So Subaru touched the monolith that represented Rigel.
“ ”
The next instant, the room was enveloped in a brilliant white light.
Sound and color and everything else were blown away, and finally—
“…Ohhhhh…”
When the light cleared, they were standing in a space hewn from stone—in the middle of the tower, surrounded by massive walls of books.
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