“Guess Diane Duane got the magic right,” she murmured, running her thumb over the familiar cover. The exact same edition sat on her own shelves at home. It had been one of her favorites as a kid too. “Good to know.”
She found other familiar friends on the shelves too, somewhat to her surprise. She would never have pegged Aodhan as a fan of Anne of Green Gables, yet he had an old paperback that had been read until it was almost falling apart. An even more tattered copy of My Side of the Mountain sat face-out on an ornate wooden stand, spotlit by dancing motes of magical light.
Why does he prize these particular books?Cathy brushed her fingers along the neat shelves, wondering. Is it rarity? I guess it must be pretty hard to get hold of kids’ books over here.
But he clearly didn’t value all kids’ books, because there were several other shelves of young adult fiction off to one side, in a much less prominent position. Whatever Aodhan liked about Animorphs, he apparently didn’t find it in The Hunger Games or The Chronicles of Narnia.
And there were some other oddities to his cataloging system. Mostly Aodhan seemed to organize his books by genre, with mysteries and thrillers and romances all neatly segregated… but why had he put The Black Stallion and My Friend Flicka alongside Stephen King and Clive Barker? What linked Misty of Chincoteague with IT, or Black Beauty with The Exorcist?
“Anyone reading through that shelf in order is going to need a neck brace from tonal whiplash,” she muttered. “That’s worse than that time in third grade when I asked Mrs. Peters for more books like The Secret Garden and she gave me Flowers in the Attic.”
The crow-cat gulped down a bite and cawed hopefully for more.
Cathy reached for another berry and discovered that they were all gone. That reminded her that really, she should have been gone at least an hour ago. A stab of guilt went through her at how much time she’d lost to browsing Aodhan’s shelves. She didn’t have time to read on a normal day, let alone when she was meant to be on a desperate quest.
She gathered up the finished breakfast things, stacking them on the tray. The crow-cat squawked, digging sharp claws into her shoulder as she turned to face the trunk.
“Oak?” It felt rude to address the tree so baldly, but she had no idea what title to use. Did an oak tree even have a gender? “Could you take me to Aodhan’s workshop, please?”
The tree obligingly opened up the portal again. Carrying both tray and crow-cat, Cathy stepped through and found herself in a shadowed, circular space. From the vast size and rough, curved walls, it must be another room set into the hollow trunk, but she guessed this one must be underground, below the main library. There were no windows. The only light came from fist-sized globes hovering in mid-air, casting a silvery radiance like miniature moons.
Like every other room she’d seen so far, shelves lined the walls, but here they held more than just books. A rack of crystals glinted at her, each one neatly labeled in Aodhan’s precise handwriting. Little glass jars held seeds, and feathers, and other things too obscure to identify. Drying herbs hung from the rafters, their fragrances mixing with the all-pervasive scents of wood and books.
Aodhan himself was seated at a large desk, slouched over a book with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. More books surrounded him, while Noodle lay under his chair, gnawing at a large bone.
At Cathy’s arrival, the puppy let out a bark of welcome, tail wagging. Aodhan, on the other hand, didn’t so much as twitch. He didn’t look up when the crow-cat swooped from Cathy’s shoulder to the stack of books at his elbow, or react when the griffin pecked at his sleeve.
Cathy hesitated, not wanting to break such intense concentration. She might have worried that he’d fallen into an inexplicably upright coma, except that she could see his eyes flicking back and forth as he read.
“Useless,” Aodhan announced abruptly. He slammed the book shut, dust puffing up from the yellowing pages. “For Herne’s sake, I want to make her less obvious. Not light her up like a Beltane bonfire.”
That, Cathy decided, was as much of an invitation to approach as she was going to get. “Not going well?”
He started at her voice, swinging round. It seemed to take him a moment to focus on her. The soft, silvery light couldn’t hide the shadows under his eyes or the disheveled state of his hair.
“Have you been working all night?” she asked.
He blinked at her. “What time is it?”
“Mid-morning, I think.”
“Then apparently yes.” Aodhan looked around vaguely. “I remember making tea at some point. Unless I only thought about making tea. Is there tea?”
“Here.” Setting down her tray, Cathy poured out the last of the herbal infusion. She handed him the cup. “Sorry, it’s cold. I think you left it for me some time ago.”
Aodhan took a sip, grimaced, and made a gesture over the drink. Steam began to rise from the cup. “That’s better. Have you eaten?”
“I was about to ask you the same question.” Looking round, she discovered the crow-cat pecking at a plate of sandwiches that had been abandoned on top of one of the piles of books. Shooing the little griffin away, she passed the food to Aodhan. “Looks like you made breakfast and then forgot to eat it.”
“Not an uncommon occurrence, I must admit.” Aodhan took a bite of sandwich, chewing with the brisk, mechanical stoicism of someone who resented having physical needs interrupt his reading time. “I’m sorry. I’d hoped to have good news for you when you woke up.”
“No luck with the spell?”
Aodhan scowled at the books. “Past mages were far more preoccupied with finding humans than concealing them. And unfortunately, I can’t just run a ritual backward to get the opposite effect. Although, now that I say that, perhaps…”
He trailed off, staring into space, sandwich dangling forgotten from his hand. The crow-cat, seeing an opportunity, sidled toward it.
“No,” Cathy told the griffin firmly. “Greedy thing, you’ve already had enough. Aodhan? You’d better finish eating that.”