Note: Apologies on the late upload; writer's block, procrastination, and some other factors have conspired to make this fic not achievable within October, as originally planned. However, have a super-long chapter to make up for the delay! (The super-long chapter that kept expanding is a large part of the reason for the delay. Sigh.)

It's possible that the fourth part will be up late on Halloween or early on November 1st. Not at all sure that I can manage that, but I'll try. Sadly, that leaves not much time to appreciate this piece before things change….

"If we're gonna do this, we need to get a move on," John said, checking his SIG before tucking it away again.

Harold straightened up and nodded. "Yes, of course. Elias, do you need to grab anything before we go?"

A quick headshake. "I was prepped before you two got here." He glanced down at Nathan. "Sorry—you three."

Not looking at Elias, Nathan rubbed his little chest with one fist—I'm sorry. The burlap of his face was crumpled up, a troubled expression, as he waved his hands near his temples, palms out, negating the motion with a shake of his head (don't worry).

Picking the Book up off the table, Harold frowned down at his friend. Eye contact was a big part of sign language, even if Nathan's eyes were merely big black buttons, but Nathan was signing without looking at anyone in the group. He even offered a directional sign pointed at no one in particular: one fist cupped in the other hand, thumb up (help you).

"Come on, Gram, we gotta go," John said in his no-nonsense tone, and scooped the doll up to his shoulder with one quick motion. On the way up, Nathan tapped his wrists together (be careful), but then he had to hang on as John headed for the door.

Odd. Well, at least he echoed the group's sentiment: Not a person in this room would let Harold walk into danger without doing their utmost to help him. And he would certainly be as careful as he could, given the circumstances.

The supplier turned out to be holed up in an abandoned school, somewhat incongruously named Hope Elementary. At the end of the hallway was a seemingly innocuous door with a fading sign: Custodian's Closet. Harold easily noticed the traps that would trigger if they tried to open it or break it down—but Elias merely strolled up to the door and tapped out a greeting.

"School's closed," came a voice from the other side. "No trespassing!"

"Open up, Raul," Elias called out, cheerfully. "I never properly thanked you for providing that ship in a bottle that trapped my father." He shot Harold a mischievous grin as a series of locks began clacking open on the other side. "Raul's got the connections you need to pick up high-grade mnestics. Or amnestics, personal or wide dispersal… interrogation drugs, recreational noms… or just about any other anomalous substance you might find yourself in need of."

The door opened; Elias entered fearlessly, greeting Raul with a cordial nod of his head. "Hello, Raul."

But when John cautiously stepped into the room, glancing around for threats, he suddenly stiffened up and went statue-still, staring straight ahead.

Alarmed, Harold stepped around him; his powers flashed a warning before he could lay eyes on the threat, even within his peripheral vision. But the warning also indicated that the sight hazard wouldn't be triggered by him.

Off to his right, Raul scoffed. "I'm not surprised that you're alive, Elias, but I never thought I'd see you running with these Foundation types."

"Harold is a friend," Elias said calmly. "John as well; he saved me from getting trapped by my own merchandise. Harold," he said, not taking his eyes off Raul, "is our friend all right?"

"It's not directly harmful or permanent," Harold mused aloud, studying the poster that had caught John's gaze. It hung from the ceiling, positioned to be the first thing you saw upon entry, if you looked straight ahead: a large black pattern across tan paper, circular and maze-like. The Foundation symbols in the corners meant nothing to him, and he doubted that he'd have even noticed them were it not for the mnestics coursing through his system.

John, of course, had been trained to respond to Foundation cues in certain almost instinctive ways. Which seemed to be how the design operated, triggering a compulsion to contemplate the patterns, so thoroughly that the effect couldn't be stopped even by breaking line of sight.

"This pattern traps Foundation agents?" he confirmed.

"You bring Foundation agents into my place of business, I defend myself," Raul said. "They're known to not look kindly on the peddlers of anomalous merchandise."

Harold turned to regard him. "But he hasn't been one of their agents in nearly five years."

"You don't retire from the Foundation," Raul countered. "And you'd be a fool to think he has."

"Hmm," Elias said. "That's possible, of course. Then again, these two have been instrumental in helping me dodge around the Foundation's movements. Even rescued me from The Order."

"Their sting operations get craftier," Raul said, unrepentantly.

"Given the amount of anomalous tech I moved when I was in full operation, and the fact that I had so many repeat buyers, it's a stretch to think that the Foundation had that much information on me and didn't put it to use. And, even if they were waiting for a bigger haul… when I went out of circulation last year, I wouldn't have been any further use to their operation. They would have brought me in."

"For questioning, perhaps," Raul allowed. "But if they already had so much information on your operations, perhaps they would not have wasted resources trying to get more information on you."

"And saved my life, kept me in one of their own safe houses? Come on, Raul. There's a limit to reasonable paranoia."

"You're hardly going to convince me of this, old friend. For all I know, you've been compromised yourself. Absent for months? Anthony and Bruce both mysteriously missing? If you—"

Suddenly it was Raul who had gone utterly still, eyes locked onto Elias's hand; Harold hadn't even seen Elias pull a weapon.

"I'm afraid we don't have time to convince you of the truth," Elias said, still with that incongruous amiability, "but I should warn you, Raul, that using the memory of my dearest friends is not a way to get on my good side… and certainly not when you're threatening other good friends of mine. Now, if you would be so good as to release John, and then supply us with enough Tier Fours to last a week…"

"Elias," Raul said, softly, as if he hesitated to even breathe, "we are surrounded by sensitive anoms. If you… disturb them—"

"You think I haven't learned to control this thing?" Elias asked, almost surprised. "It's a little more difficult than it looks, but it's got some pinpoint accuracy. I could take out the pupil of your right eye without even touching your brain. I could shave your eyebrows from here."

Raul swallowed.

"Harold, have you figured it out yet?"

"The pattern needs to change," Harold said. "It's like a mental program; John's been told to study the pattern, and needs to be given different orders. It'll wear off in a few hours, but—"

"We can't wait that long. Raul?" Elias said, the threat in his voice coming a little closer to the surface.

"All right," Raul said dully. "Just flip the poster over."

Harold double-checked the new pattern, verifying that it wasn't harmful, before he set it up so John could see it. A second later, John was blinking, and looking around with the efficiency of an agent well trained in recovering from disorientation. Harold sighed with relief.

At Elias's command, Raul retrieved two bottles of something like eye drops, milky blue. With John keeping an eye on their host, Harold sat down and carefully leaned back so that Elias could get the drops in. Normally, he would handle such a task himself, but he'd found it particularly difficult to control his blink reflex when he was the one controlling the eye drop, and they needed to make sure that no one got an overdose—one drop per eye, not more.

The liquid felt icy, but not unpleasantly so. As he blinked them in and glanced about the room, he noted a few doors that he hadn't seen before—or, more precisely, hadn't paid attention to. Antimemetic shields for Raul's more important stock.

Raul was glowering from his chair. "They're addictive, you know," he said, after they all had their doses in. "When you finally need to go off them, it's not… gonna… be… fun." There was a dark amusement to his almost sing-song warning.

Looking down at the bottle, Harold frowned. "I knew that before taking them… but it's not as though we have a choice."

Raul blinked at him, then narrowed his eyes incredulously. "You've had these before? And you're still willing to take them?"

"We're all used to dealing with pain," Harold said with a frown. "And the immediate threat is far more pressing than the side effects; we'll deal with them when they come."

He'd known the list of side effects for multiple types of Tier Fours, but now, looking at the milky blue liquid, he knew these particular side effects at a far more immediate level—no longer mere book-learning.

"What side effects are we talking?" John asked Raul.

"Oh, blindness… nausea… palsy…"

Harold huffed with mild amusement. "Hardly. This substance allows you to see what you would normally ignore; when that goes away, the withdrawal symptoms kick in. You'll see things that aren't actually there, have that pins-and-needles sensation across your shoulders, and have to deal with face-blindness for a few weeks. Won't be able to recognize even your closest friends, not by facial features. If you try to push back the withdrawal effects by taking additional doses, it just gets worse."

"Oh?"

"Taking a second dose before the first one's about to wear off makes you functionally illiterate with any form of written language, though that's thankfully not permanent. Once you hit the fifth consecutive dose, your brain starts going a little weird… humans won't look like humans anymore, and many normal objects will look alien. You know how if you look at enough iterations of the same word, the word stops looking like a normal word anymore? It's like that.

"By the eighth dose, your brain has been irrevocably changed, and you'll fear the sight of eyes—any type of eyes, even cartoon eyes or everyday objects that appear to be eyes. Like shoelace holes. And the face blindness becomes permanent."

"Nasty stuff," John mused, as he kept an eye on Raul; Harold was busy setting reminders on his phone and John's.

"How long before we need to take the next dose?" Elias asked.

"Twenty-nine hours, give or take; it changes a little with weight and hydration."

In addition to making an alarm on his phone, Elias wrote the info down on the side of his arm. "In case something happens to the tech," he pointed out, sensibly.

Harold made a moue and put a note on the inside of his cuff as well.

"It's too bad to lose him; I rather liked Raul," Elias said as they headed back down the hallway.

"He won't deal with you anymore, after this?"

"Oh, he'd deal with me as readily as anyone else… if I could find him again. By the time we're done dealing with this situation, he's going to be in another state, if not another country. The man's hardly a fool."

"Dare I ask why he was so terrified? I couldn't get a good look at what you were holding."

Chuckling, Elias handed over a small device like a thumb-sized stapler. Harold studied it.

"You tricked him."

Elias grinned. "Sometimes the most effect measures are those that play on the imagination."

The device was anomalous, all right: It persuaded the one it was pointed at that it was a weapon, and the weapon's strength was based entirely on their fear. "Then… he was never really in danger."

"Oh, if that hadn't worked, I would have drawn my gun, instead. Never rely on only one tactic; always have a backup. Right, John?"

John murmured assent, too busy keeping an eye out for threats.

"Anyway," Elias said, as they reached the car, "it was a threat because he believed that I would only pull out a threat. And it was deadly because I persuaded him that it was deadly." He walked around, slid into his seat and buckled up. "You know, if I'd tried to shoot him with it, that would've shown it to be a lie, but until that point? I've never owned a more effective weapon."

Turning to look at Elias, Harold sighed, and then carefully tucked Nathan into the back of the seat cover before buckling himself in. "I suppose I can approve of a passive means of achieving that kind of persuasion."

"There you go, Harold. Learning to appreciate even the sort of tactics that you wouldn't use yourself. That's how a true leader uses all the assets at his disposal."

"Well," Harold said, "I'll have to take your word for it."

"Look down," Harold said abruptly.

Elias dropped his gaze instantly, and John, still driving, stared resolutely at the street right in front of them.

Shortly, Harold sighed. "We're clear; avoid the mirrors, Mr. Reese."

John took a quick right turn, breaking line of sight to whatever was behind them.

"What was that?" Elias asked, resisting the urge to check for himself; he'd learned to trust Harold's judgment on these matters.

"Visual cognitohazard, except that most people can't see it. It's not alive, not in the traditional sense, or my powers wouldn't pick up on it, but… it doesn't like being noticed."

"And it's roaming the streets of New York?"

"Well, flying above them, apparently. I don't know what it was or why it's here, only that we shouldn't look at it. With a little more careful study, I could figure out which level of mnestics reveals it."

"Think it's something to alert the Foundation over?" John asked.

"If the Book has never pointed us at it, then, presumably, it's not a serious threat. Most people driving through New York aren't under the influence of powerful mnestics."

"But if it's got an antimemetic field, would the Book even be able to warn us in the first place?"

"There are different kinds of antimemetic effects. That one doesn't prevent people from knowing about it; it simply prevents them from noticing it with their senses. We might have trouble locating it, but we could certainly go after it if we needed to."

"Good to know," Elias said, settling back into his seat. He frowned at Nathan. "Not that I would like to put our dear Nathan at risk, but… the cognitohazards don't affect him the same way, right?"

"He seems immune to whatever's been affecting us, not that that does us much good. As to other effects… we've encountered a few that didn't affect him, so I suppose it's possible that he's immune to the sort of mind-affecting forces that target humans. But we don't know which effects specifically target humans… and, you're right, testing his capabilities out would be highly dangerous to him, and I'm not willing to put him at that much risk for what could be a very minor tactical advantage."

Elias made a moue. "I suppose we've only got the one."

"Indeed," Harold said, frowning. "That is part of what separates us from the Foundation: They're willing to sacrifice people for knowledge, and we're not."

Nathan, though, gripped the tip of one hand with the other and pulled it up, his crinkly smile amused. "I'm unique," Harold translated for Elias, thinking that Nathan might well have been laughing were it not for the fact that he didn't have a diaphragm to contract or an airway to let the sound out. Five years without laughter; it was a minor detail in the life that Nathan had been thrust into, but it did seem like a melancholy loss. And whether or not Nathan was bothered by that loss, Harold did miss sharing a laugh with him.

"That you are," Elias said to Nathan, grinning. Despite the one-way language barrier and their short acquaintance, it hadn't taken long for them to develop an easy affection for each other. Far from being troubled by Elias's criminal activities, Nathan enjoyed hearing tales of his outlandish misadventures; when the Book indicated a lull in anomalous events, Nathan often spent the night at the safe house, in an arrangement endearingly like a sleepover, complete with stories—because Elias, in turn, loved an appreciative audience and the chance to brag.

The darker side, of course, was that he was only bragging to Nathan because he'd lost his closest friends… and because, thanks to The Order, he'd been driven into hiding, no longer in the thick of his operations. While he certainly saw Harold and Nathan as friends by now, this closer relationship had come at great cost to the once mighty kingpin.

"Well," Elias said abruptly, "speaking of knowledge, shall we discuss tactics? Beyond it being a dynamic interdimensional space, you haven't told me much about this Library."

Harold took a deep breath. "To begin with, I assume you've got a favorite book?"

Elias chuckled. "The Count of Monte Cristo. It's the only reason I've ever been interested in French, although I didn't get very far with the language. Why?"

"Oh, the Library prefers people who have a deep connection to written material. The more you enjoy books, the more it tries to help you—and if you can't appreciate books, it won't even let you in. Your first time through, you should focus on a book that was personally meaningful to you."

"Wait, you can't even get into this place if you're illiterate?"

"You don't have to be able to read the written word to enjoy a book… though it helps. But, in the Library's estimation, the highest scholar isn't any better than a child embracing a picture book, or a teen with some untranslated manga or a graphic novel. What counts is deriving pleasure from the material, whether you're wading into a good story or increasing your appreciation of new concepts, new data about the world.

"The ones the Library resists are those who use books merely for cold data—those who've never read for the pleasure of either story or personal enrichment. In its eyes, such people aren't even alive."

"So the Library itself is alive?"

"Well…" Harold considered. "I spent a couple of decades living there, and I was never able to determine for sure whether it met the criteria of a living being. Not a creature, certainly; as far as I can tell, it doesn't reproduce, and doesn't seem to need sustenance or excrete waste of any kind. And its communication style is… stunted, at best. But it does seem to have, if you'll forgive the expression, a mind of its own."

"Based on not letting people inside."

"Who it lets in, and how it helps them once they're inside. It was incredibly helpful to me; Nathan, not so much."

From the front seat, John chuckled. "Funny thing is, you know who it likes more than it likes Finch? Leon Tao, of all people. Started reacting to him like some sort of puppy dog."

Harold had to grin at the memory. "Oh, yes, it took a real liking to our Mr. Tao… apparently because he takes great delight in learning new forms of mischief, and has an unexpected fondness for the folk tales centered around King Arthur."

"Do you know, the last time I saved his life—that time that his Changeling nature got revealed—he got practically terrified at the thought of going back inside the Library. I thought it might be the charms, but he's probably more wigged out by the way things keep changing to help him, but never where he can observe the change."

Elias nodded thoughtfully. "So we can expect that the Library will welcome us, and perhaps help us to evade the forces of The Order?"

"I can't imagine that it would be any less attached to me. However, it's possible that the cultists will have endeared themselves to the Library as well; they appreciate amassing knowledge, if only to further their cause."

"Too bad they didn't start burning books," John mused from the driver's seat. "That place would've ousted them on its own."

Harold chuckled at the thought.

"I assume the entrance will be heavily guarded?" Elias continued, thoughtful. "I could lure them off for a while, though I'm not sure how long I could keep up the distraction."

"There are far too many entrances to guard," Harold said; "it's one of our few advantages. Entering the Library is as simple as finding a mirror, touching the glass, and desiring entry—if you're within range of where its dimension touches ours. Most of Manhattan, some part of Brooklyn, even a little bit of New Jersey. I haven't found a lower limit—you could access it through a mirror in the subway system—but the upper limit is about fifteen stories near the center, twelve near the outskirts."

"And they haven't just destroyed all the mirrors?"

"Oh, they've likely destroyed quite a number of them… but it's a large area, and their numbers are too limited to keep track of what private businesses and individuals are doing." He sighed. "I would have checked into it more thoroughly, but I'm a wanted man, and Mr. Reese was not pleased with the idea of me wandering around The Order's territory, regardless of the precautions I might take."

"So we just need to find a human-sized mirror… somewhere in Manhattan."

"It needn't be human-sized; I can pull myself right through a makeup compact, or even a mirror shard. That rather flummoxed Mr. Reese when he first started trying to trail me."

It was John's turn to chuckle at the memory: rounding a corner to find his quarry nowhere in sight, despite Finch's limp and low mobility and the lack of obvious hiding spaces. And, Mr. Reese, we'll meet on my schedule. Not yours.

As Harold had explained to him later, while discussing the Library's capabilities: He'd simply ducked behind a car, finished the call, and then pulled himself through a car mirror and straight into the Library.

"Of course, we don't have time for you to get used to the mechanics," Harold continued, "so we'll need one at least big enough to crawl through."

Elias leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands. "Hard to believe you spent a few decades in this place. Doesn't sound like the most defensible location."

"It is, like me, defended far better through secrecy than through any direct show of force. Once that was broken… well, I've been doing my best to stay one step ahead of those who are after me, and the Library… it didn't have that option."

"So the only reason that The Order is maintaining a foothold here is that nobody else knows about the place? Sounds like a great time to point the Foundation at them… all that knowledge, a new interdimensional space to study, fewer resources to mess with everyone else." He frowned. "Unless you're more concerned by what the Foundation might do with the information."

Harold huffed. "They've known about it for just under two years. It's not the lack of knowledge that's keeping them away."

"Oh?"

"The Foundation, for all its power, does have a grasp on its own limitations. Some of them, at least. So long as The Order knows about the Library and has an equal desire to claim it, the fight alone would cost the Foundation more than it's willing to risk."

"How so?"

"It'd be too visible," John said. "The Foundation stays in power because they stay hidden—because they've learned to hide in plain sight. An agent in every police district, in every hospital; one in every major city, vetting new construction permits. Always on the lookout for undiscovered anomalies, for new victims, trying to capture them before the general public can figure out what's really going on."

"And they paint the truth-tellers as conspiracy theorists… though, I suppose, that's exactly what they are. Except that the conspiracy is real. The Foundation ensures that the ones who try to inform the public get laughed off as deluded fools. Because if word gets out of what they're really up to, their operations would become… untenable."

"You're telling me this place is harder to hide from the public than the 9/11 event?"

A quick grin crossed Harold's face, and he twisted his upper body to look directly at Elias for a moment. "You know, you're only aware of that cover-up because of the mnestics in your system. The few times I've mentioned it to you, you've ignored me."

"So their cover-up is working, even, what, fifteen years later? Seems like they've got access to the kind of amnestics Raul would kill to acquire. Literally."

John laughed darkly. "Where do you think those amnestics come from, anyway?"

Elias's brows drew together. "You're not saying—"

"To deliver amnestics on more than just a personal level, they need something that's easy to spread through water or air, and has few lasting side effects. Of the various substances they've encountered, there's only one that foots the bill, and that's gathered by Theta-class prisoners. They send a couple dozen into the portal, maybe seven or eight make it back, and not all of them are intact. So yeah, the Foundation kills for those amnestics, too. Why do you think they're so eager to seize whatever stocks the black market has acquired?"

"So it's more than just snatching up whatever anomalous items they can get their hands on."

"Given how much they rely on amnestics… some of their biggest operations would be utterly impossible without a steady supply. And they used up the majority of their stockpiles in the aftermath of 9/11. So their quantities are severely limited, and they're forced to make use of their more mundane solutions: misinformation campaigns, subtle legislation, blackmail, and so forth.

"They even punched holes in their own story—jet fuel burning hot enough to melt steel girders?—specifically to get the conspiracy theorists to accept the basic event, to believe that planes had been involved, and to focus instead on who was supposedly responsible, and what supportive measures might have accomplished the witnessed events."

"Except, of course, that the 'witnessed events' are remembered to be planes, instead of giant raptors having a fight through time and space."

"Precisely. So what they'd be looking at, if the Foundation tried to claim the Library, is a campaign of weeks before they could either destroy The Order or, at minimum, drive them out of the area. As you said, it's an indefensible location… and the Library itself doesn't take kindly to theft or bloodshed within its space."

"Now that's an odd thing for you to know, if nobody's breached the perimeter before. Did the Library kill someone to protect you?"

Brows drawn together, Harold closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. "Mr. Reese wasn't the first operative I recruited. After… after Nathan persuaded me to use the Book to help people, I found that I couldn't do so effectively on my own, and so I sought out… well, someone familiar with anomalies, but not attached to any existing group."

"A mercenary."

"Oh, yes. More so than I had anticipated. When he had gotten enough information on my treasures, he betrayed the man we were helping and tried to take off with a satchel of anomalous items—including the Book, and the notepad that Nathan was stuck in at the time.

"I… intervened, he struck me… and then, as I was falling, the Library… caught me with its own carpet, rising up so I didn't have so far to fall, and…" He swallowed. "It almost killed him. I think it would have, if he hadn't dropped Nathan and the Book and run for the nearest mirror; it threw him out, and peeled the satchel off him as it did. That's when I learned just how flexible the Library can be, when it isn't trying to hide its own nature, its capabilities. Normally, it won't even let you see it fetch books for you—they just seem to show up wherever you weren't looking at the time."

"I take it we'll need to handle the cultists in non-lethal ways."

"Certainly non-lethal; possibly with greater care than that. And be sure not to damage any books." He paused. "I imagine that if they strike first, we've got the leeway to defend ourselves… but I can't be certain."

"And the Foundation has even less information than you do."

"Well… yes and no," Harold said with a sigh. "I certainly couldn't convey to them the sum total of my knowledge in words alone… but they did force me to reveal everything I knew. That's likely how the Foundation realized that they can't possibly contest The Order on these grounds while still staying out of the public eye."

Elias's eyes had gone wide as he stared at his friend. "I'm… impressed," he said finally. "That you're sitting next to me, instead of in one of their cells. Not many can escape the Foundation's grasp once they've been captured."

"It wasn't the Foundation who had me," Harold clarified. "It was The Order… or, more specifically, a false flag operation that The Order had put in place, and the people they'd duped into fighting for a cause that they didn't understand. But that group captured key figures in both The Order and the Foundation, so everyone in that room got the information that I was forced to reveal. Everything about our operations… everything about me. If John hadn't rescued me… I'd be in a collar by now, for one group or the other."

"And the world would come crashing down around us," Elias summarized. "Seize Harold Finch, and you've won the game for good."

"Which is why I don't like this plan," John growled from the front seat.

"Unfortunately, we don't have a choice," Harold said, knowing full well that John's objection was more than mere concern about the consequences to the world. "Without the Allseer, we have no way to learn what's been targeting us, and why, or how to stop it. It's no use trying to protect me from all known dangers when I might be the next person here that everyone forgets."

John pulled into a parking space, turned off the car, and gripped the steering wheel tight for a moment. Then he straightened up and pulled his SIG. "All right, then—let's go."

John had parked somewhat inside the perimeter; they were well in range here, and the first task would be to find a decent-sized mirror.

"Point of order," Elias asked as he tucked Nathan into his shirt, "but why didn't we just bring a mirror along?"

"We've brought three," Harold replied, gesturing at the rearview, "but we'll need something a bit larger to introduce you to the mechanics. And while they've probably learned to ignore car mirrors… well, the mirror has to stay stationary during the connection process; it takes a few minutes, and it's noticeable to those inside."

"Ah. We don't want to give them a heads-up."

"Indeed." With two prime targets in their group, they couldn't risk The Order learning of their approach in time to put up defenses… or get ready to capture them.

As they blended into the crowd, John took point (SIG carefully concealed but still in hand), with Elias lazily following a good ways behind, his sharp eyes keeping track of any threats that John might miss. Between them, Harold limped along at his normal speed, the strap of his bookbag digging into his shoulder. Despite the disguise scarf, Harold felt eerily like all eyes were on him.

Each teammate had his own method of spotting outliers: Harold could pick up on those with anomalous effects, John had the training to spot anyone from the major groups of interest, and Elias had plenty of experience noticing those who seemed the least out of place. So it was a little surprising that they didn't spot a single cultist… or agent… or anyone suspicious at all.

Harold itched to ask the Book what was going on, but he didn't dare reveal its existence in public; they'd have to wait until they were shielded.

Despite the likely futility, they checked a few public restrooms first. Still trying to avoid the impression that they were a group, they let Harold go in alone, while John and Elias kept an eye on their surroundings. The earpiece kept them connected in case of an emergency; an enemy wouldn't be able to capture Harold and escape from the only exit, and Harold was in disguise and confident about bluffing his way out of danger for at least a couple minutes… all of which didn't ease John's irritation with letting Harold out of his sight. Still, he didn't fuss too much: Harold could spot hazards that the other two couldn't, and John didn't want to be caught off guard like he had been at Raul's.

Harold was glad of their tactics when he spotted a cognitohazard in the second men's room.

Predictably, The Order had gotten rid of the mirrors—and left random tags to make it seem like gang activity. One of the tags was a Foundation symbol, again designed to piggyback on their instinctual training; Harold gave John a heads-up, and briefly considered dismantling it.

"What's it do?" John asked, staying outside for the moment.

"It'd make you avoid your own reflection. Which is, I would imagine, a rather effective deterrent."

"Leave it up. It reduces the chance of the Foundation getting a foothold in this area."

Harold nodded, then chuckled at himself (no one was around to see the nod), and left the symbol alone. They walked quite a ways before trying yet another restroom.

It was as they were leaving the fourth fruitless attempt, as Harold was already considering where else to look—regular shops were too obvious, and any mirrors they might have would be too exposed—that a sudden explosion rocked the city, setting off a few car alarms.

Then, before Harold could even orient himself, a second explosion. And a third, a fourth; people were already pulling out their phones, hurrying toward the explosions or away, a growing murmur of panic in the streets.

"Looks like someone's got a party going," Elias mused across the comm. "Fairly close, too."

"That's… odd timing," Harold rejoined. At least they could be sure it wasn't an anomalous event; the Book hadn't said anything about more events today. Unless it was shielded by a powerful aversion effect… but, in that case, they wouldn't be able to do much about it anyway.

"If it helps distract The Order, let's not waste the opportunity," John said. "Where we going, Finch?"

Pushing back into a corner where two types of stonework met up, Harold leaned on the wall to get a little weight off his back, and considered. Security mirrors wouldn't work; the employees would be specifically monitoring them. Same problem with the large mirrors that tried to make small restaurants look bigger than they really were. They needed something large, and hidden, a place unlikely to attract cultist attention, so that Elias had the time he needed to make use of it.

Surely a few people in the area owned large mirrors, but trying to locate the right homeowner would take far too long, and put them at even greater risk of discovery. But if not that… if not the regular shops, the restaurants, department stores… Harold glanced around at the nearby businesses, one after another useless. Maybe a hotel? He could rent a suite, hope that it had a full-size mirror, but that might—

Wait.

Across the street: an antiques shop.

A disquieting frisson tingled down his spine at the thought of braving an antiques shop again… his last encounter had been less than pleasant. Of course, this time he had three allies with him, two of them well versed in spotting and defending against the unusual; besides, they weren't going to run up against another case like the one he'd been tracking at the time, that beautiful face-stealing woman who turned people into trinkets.

Harold's dislike for antiques shops was less about danger and more about sensory overload… but he could put up with that.

Because a shop like this was likely to carry mirrors.

John went in first; Harold let a good minute pass before he steeled himself and stepped through the door.

The shop was crowded with merchandise, most of it perfectly normal—but, of course, Harold's powers weren't restricted to anomalies; they worked just as well on mundane equipment, screaming out to him what each item could do. A few items pulsed brightly with the warning of anomalous properties, waiting for him to suss them out if he got near enough to study them, but they were almost lost behind the more-than-visual cacophony of practically anything with moving parts: latches and hinges; dials, buttons, switches, and gears; all the clocks, the visible light bulbs and half-hidden clasps for clothing, phonographs, musical instruments, spray bottles… it had him reeling before he'd gone more than a few steps.

Sudden hands covered his eyes, and he stiffened up instantly, but Elias's lips were at his ear, whispering "It's visual, right? Close your eyes and keep a hand on my shoulder."

Nodding, Harold closed his eyes and reached forward as Elias stepped in front of him, guiding his hand. With his world thus restricted to the non-visual, Harold followed his friend's lead as they made it through the main floor.

"A few mirrors, but they're not that big," Elias murmured, just on the edge of hearing. "Music boxes and the like." Harold was glad that his eyes were closed; music boxes and watches had some of the most intricate mechanisms and, thus, the most information conveyed to him all at once.

Near the front of the shop, John was making small talk with whoever was running the counter, learning that the artwork was in the attic, the books and clothing on the second floor (including, she noted in a slightly louder voice, some vintage Braille editions from the 1800's, in French, German, and English), and the furniture and vintage appliances in the basement.

Harold risked a quick glance at the clerk, but didn't notice anything beyond the silver buckle on her cap and the hinges of her glasses. As John flirted—not much, but enough to keep the lady's attention—Elias led Harold toward the stairs.

Descending into the cool, musty darkness was disconcerting, but Harold managed it, one step at a time, relying on Elias's careful support to keep his balance as they went. Within moments, John had joined them, his quick and efficient steps nearly soundless.

Thankfully, they were the only patrons. The basement was quite secluded, and stuffed to the gills with random objects; Harold had risked another glance then gone back to letting Elias guide him around.

"Got one," came John's darkly triumphant growl, and soon Harold was blinking and squinting at a half-size mirror with a simple frame, set up in the back corner. Through the reflection, he could see a good portion of the floor; his powers didn't work through reflections, which was a relief. On the one side, vintage outfits and hanging rugs blocked the sight of the stairs; on the other, they were shielded by shelves of knick-knacks and some vertical ice chests.

When Harold finally gathered himself, he moved to approach the mirror, thinking only to verify that it was connected—but John held out an arm.

"Book first."

"Oh, o-of course." Harold set his bag on a nearby shelf and pulled out the Book, flipping to the first blank page.

Before he could work out which questions to ask, John growled, "Who's setting off explosions, anyway?"

Friend, came the quick reply. Distracting The Order.

Elias glanced over his shoulder. "Well, that's convenient."

"Explosions… is it Shaw?" John asked, a sharp edge to his tone. No one else he knew of was the type to be using bombs in the city, but Shaw… if she'd come back, if she'd escaped…

Not Shaw. Forgotten ally.

Eyes shooting wide, Harold shut the Book. When John's eyes narrowed, his expression turning mutinous, Harold shook his head. "Remember, the memory aversion effect can bleed out to other knowledge. We can't go hunting for information this way. Not until we've dealt with the main cause."

John looked away.

A moment later, he looked back, his face a carefully schooled blank. "All right. Get info on what we're walking into."

Opening the Book again, Harold found a blank page. "Any more information that can help us once we're in there?"

No additional anomalous threats, the words scrawled out. Cultists won't be distracted long; haste advised.

"All right, I'm going in. Five minutes—if I'm not back in five, get to safety."

Harold took a deep breath and nodded. "Of course."

John caught Elias's gaze. "I'm trusting you."

Elias gave a quick nod. "Don't worry, I've upped my game since I last confronted these guys. And we may not be able to use lethal force inside the Library itself, but if they come near Harold out here…" He grinned, briefly showing his gun.

"Glad to hear it," John said low, his neon-bright Hypersensate flash gun already in his hand. As he dialed it up, Harold winced; it wasn't lethal, no, but the gloves had truly come off.

With a last nod at Elias, John crouched low, laid his hand on the mirror, and vanished in a sudden ripple of movement.

As Elias took up position from the place he could best see the entrances to their little alcove, Harold positioned himself to see as much as he could through the reflection, without being too close to the mirror itself. Unfortunately, there were clocks on the wall near the mirror, and dozens of can openers and tiny nutcrackers on the nearby shelves, well within his peripheral vision. As much as he braced himself and tried to maintain some level of usefulness, the sensations were too much; his eyes, already watery, began to overflow, tears streaming as though they could protect him from a light no one else could see.

Elias glanced his way. "I've got this," he said. "Duck back and close your eyes."

Too relieved at the notion to fight it, Harold leaned against a thick rug hanging on the wall, and tried not to visualize what might be happening to John while they were apart.

It was only when Elias said, "Talk to me, Harold," that Harold realized that he was trembling.

"I'm sorry," he breathed. "It's just…" He shook his head.

"I'm not going to let them get you," Elias said with quiet confidence.

Harold slumped down a little. "As grateful as I am for your help," he murmured, "you can't fight them all. Even John… can't…"

"Can't take out an entire cult? I'm inclined to agree. But we're not here to take out The Order; we're just here to get some information, remember? You're the one who suggested this plan."

"It's the only thing I can see to do," Harold said miserably. "I don't even know if it'll help. It's the same thing I've been doing all my life: Trying to stay three steps ahead of capture or death." He sucked in a shuddering breath. "Maybe it's finally caught up with me."

"A little early to be throwing in the towel, don't you think?"

Rubbing his arms, suddenly cold, Harold wondered if this was the last conversation the two of them were ever going to have. If the day would end with one or the other in the clutches of The Order. Was that what the Book had meant when it said that Elias would increase their chances of success? Sacrifice his friend because they really didn't have a feasible alternative?

"I used to be running from the Foundation," he said. "I was terrified of them, and they didn't even know about me. Now I've got The Order after me as well, and, thanks to my own foolishness, both of them know exactly what they stand to gain when they catch me. Or if, by some miracle, I manage to evade them entirely… we're living in a world where small random things can destroy you. Put on a hat, eat a piece of fruit, drive down the wrong street one day…" He shook his head. "Most people don't even realize until it's too late."

"Which is why your team exists." Elias's voice was warm with affection, even a little pride. "Stepping in to protect the innocent, so they can go on being innocent a while longer."

"But it's pointless," Harold protested. "All our resistance… it's hopeless. We scurry around, try to survive. Help some people, while we can. Hope that our deaths mean something… leave a legacy behind… but humanity is at the mercy of forces we can't even perceive, much less defend ourselves against. Does it even matter that a few people live a few more years?"

"Morbid thinking, Harold."

Harold's chin trembled; he wanted to sink down, to bury his head in his hands. To hide under the covers until the world was as simple and predictable as he'd imagined it, back in childhood. "Sometimes I wish that I'd never known any of this. That I could live my life oblivious to the true nature of the world."

"A nice thought," Elias agreed. "Like going through life never knowing about poverty, or war. Or the many other horrible things that happen to people."

As Harold tried to take deep breaths, to calm his system down, he felt Elias approach him. "Then again," Elias said softly, laying his hand on Harold's shoulder, "that's the selfish path… as I believe our friend Nathan can attest to."

And then Nathan was stepping onto Harold's shoulder, snuggling in against his neck, as Harold recalled with shame the moment when he'd finally given in and opened the Book, asked it to show him his friend—and been hit with the reality of what had happened to Nathan, and where Nathan had been taken.

All because Harold had been so determined to stay out of it, and Nathan… Nathan was, in every way, the better man, and couldn't bring himself to ignore people who needed help that no one else could give.

Shivering, Harold recalled, too, how Nathan's plight had spurred him on to an act of sheer desperation: Sneaking his way into the Foundation lab in Jersey, ghosting after agents through the gates and down giant elevators into what once had been a mine, now converted into miles of underground facilities full of horrors that Harold had spent his life trying not to contemplate. Just a small exposure as a teen had scarred him for life, and yet here he was, steeling himself against the sights and sounds of suffering, pushing back the overflow of his own 'gift,' hacking into their system to locate Nathan, and smuggling him out: a scared and disoriented chalk drawing, carefully folded and kept next to Harold's hammering heart as he cautiously worked his way back out of the facility.

He'd very nearly fainted when one of the researchers had looked straight at him and smiled eerily, clearly unaffected by the aversion field his cufflinks provided. The researcher had studied him for a moment, opened her mouth as if to call out, and then tilted her head, closed her mouth, and moved on. Harold had swallowed a mouthful of bile and held himself together long enough to make it to the car before breaking down into terrified tears; it had been a while before he'd been able to pull himself together enough to drive home.

(It was only later on, under a dose of mnestics, that he'd recalled what he hadn't noticed the first time: The researcher had been floating along without any feet. Just blank space, starting at about the mid-calf. She'd been an anomalous entity quietly walking through the halls, ignored.)

"I'm sorry, Nathan," Harold choked out, reaching up blindly to hold his friend a little closer. "I haven't forgotten. I'm just… scared. Like always." He nodded, firmly but cautiously, so as not to dislodge Nathan from his neck. "You've always been the brave one."

"Do you mean to tell me that you're not?" Elias asked, from back at his station across the room. "I remember when you came to me for help, that time that John caught the ire of that pack of faceless ghost urchins. Showing up outside my lair like that took guts, and letting Anthony escort you in where you couldn't expect a pleasant welcome… well, I couldn't help but admire your courage. Especially when I noticed that you were doing your very best to pretend that you weren't trembling."

Harold let out a despairing laugh. "I've occasionally done very brave and very foolish things," he said, "but the fact remains that, for the majority of my life, I have made decisions based more on my own fear than on rational thought… let alone compassion. And on more than a few occasions, those decisions have had devastating consequences for the few people I hold most dear. I've kept my circle of friends quite small, Elias, not simply because of the vulnerability, but because I know far too well that… that I cannot be trusted with friends."

"Given how readily you've sacrificed yourself for John, you'll forgive me if I find that claim a little suspect."

"You haven't seen me at my worst," Harold said. "Ask Nathan—his son is off on a pilgrimage through Sudan trying to hunt down a way to unseal his powers. Powers that could save innocent lives… but I was too scared to let him keep them, so I took them away. Ostensibly to keep him safe.

"Or the one time I actually fell in love. We had all of four months before I came to my senses and realized the kind of danger that I was putting her in, simply through association with me. I protected her by putting her in a cage, and the only difference between me and the Foundation is that the prisoners of the Foundation are aware of the cage.

"And the worst part is, I chose that cage for her, without even consulting her, without considering any other options at all. The one thing I could think of that would keep her completely safe, or as safe is it is possible to be in this world… and when The Order found her anyway, despite all my precautions, I had John move her to another type of cage. I've stolen her life, twice now, and I'm too much of a coward to even correct the error."

"So she's trapped in some anomalous item somewhere?"

Harold sighed. "She's living in Milan, except… she's off sync with the rest of the world, practically invisible to normal humans. Forgotten as soon as anyone's attention focuses on something else. She's unable to be targeted by enemies… and equally unable to make any friends.

"So, you see, I can't even be trusted with friendship. Because of my fear."

"Sometimes lying low is the rational strategy," Elias allowed, "but it does sound like you've gone far beyond that. If we happen to get out of our current predicament… you might want to revisit that decision. As you've said, we may all be rats scurrying around trying to avoid death for a little longer… but there's a difference between living and merely surviving. And she might be just as willing to join the fight as Nathan here, or John."

Harold's stomach turned over at the reminder that this might well be their last conversation; by morning, Elias could be wearing a control collar. And as much as he wanted to ask Elias to leave, to save himself, he already knew the man's answer; they were going to see this through to whatever end might come.

The mirror's surface rippled again, and John was stepping out, motioning to them to come inside. Harold breathed a sigh of relief.

As the mirror admitted him back into the old, familiar place of what used to be safety, Harold felt the tingle of its pleasure at seeing him again. The place couldn't exactly be called an entity, but it did have something approaching awareness, and Harold's love of both research and stories had endeared him to the Library like no one else. Not only had the Library found ways to make life easier on Harold at every turn—twisting its own dimensions to provide him easier access to wherever and whatever he was after at the time—but it had also gone out of its way to teach Harold its secrets.

Right now, both traits would be useful.

On the floor as Harold entered were three cultists. Not unconscious, but clearly disoriented and in the throes of sensory overload, no doubt wishing that they had the mercy of being blind and deaf. John's Hypersensate wasn't lethal, but it wasn't exactly merciful, either. The effects only lasted twenty minutes or so, but they effectively kept the victims out of the fight… not to mention silent, because when the sound of your own pulse was an agony, you didn't dare cry out or even breathe too loud.

"Where we going, Finch?" John growled low, not out of compassion for the cultists but the awareness that other enemies might be nearby.

Harold glanced around. Shouldn't there be dozens of cultists here? They kept the Foundation out more through numerical advantage than through any real show of force. Were they really all caught up with those explosions?

He opened the Book to a blank page. "Why aren't there any guards? Or, well, so few guards?"

Operations threatened, the Book declared. More important than guarding Library.

John growled. "I don't care how many threats we aren't seeing; we're not gonna spend any more time in here than we have to. Let's go!"

Nodding, Harold turned around, getting his bearings. The Library was different every time you entered, but there were certain features that could be relied upon. With practiced ease, he headed off between the endless shelves, turning at seemingly random spots as Nathan clung to the side of his neck and the other two followed close on his heels. Around them, the shelves shifted, closing off paths behind them and obscuring view of more than a few feet in any direction.

"I thought you said that this place made navigation easy for you," John groused.

"The chamber of the Allseer is deliberately obscured," Harold said calmly. "Having anyone be able to reach it from the entrances would be… not a good thing, John, believe me. It took me months to run across it the first time, and I hope we're lucky enough that The Order hasn't located it these past two years."

As he walked, the carpeted floor silent beneath his feet, Harold felt a wave of helpless nostalgia. For more than twenty years, this had been the place where he'd spent nearly every waking hour; it was the place he'd felt the safest, the least vulnerable to discovery or capture. Yet now, it was a threat… and even if they dealt with the threat of The Order, it would be impossible for this place to ever be home again.

He'd been chased out of his home in Lassiter… and he'd been chased out of this place, too. How many other places would he be chased out of before he finally couldn't run anymore?

Sighing, he paused to run a hand over a shelf, fondly… and there, between copies of The Invisible Man (Ellison, without the definite article, and Wells, with it), was a shining light, silvery lavender, declaring the object's use as a strong antimemetic.

His cufflinks.

His breath caught as he picked them up, and raised his eyes to the boundless rows of books above them. "You've been saving them for me, haven't you?" Quickly, he pulled off his existing cufflinks, placed them on the shelf, and replaced one side with the anomalous ones; then, recalling that John and Elias were on Tier Four mnestics, put on the other half as well. The cultists would ignore him, but the effect, useful as it was, was only a Tier Three. "Thank you," he said with a slight bow, and turned to continue their journey through the rows of shelves.

If there were other cultists within the maze of bookshelves, they didn't run into them, or even hear them nearby; Harold was tense enough that he couldn't even call it a blessing. Nathan held tight to his collar, a slight but comforting weight.

Then, without warning, the shelves parted before them, and the Allseer loomed high above, seemingly so much higher than the Library itself could go, even though the Library was already like dozens of libraries stacked on top of each other. But this chamber… it surpassed the rest of the place, like Mount Everest surpassing foothills.

The structure itself wound down to a central beam, down to a thin silvery-purple crystal, suspended in mid-air and glittering, as if tiny sparks of energy were escaping it—or being consumed by it.

Just glancing at the crystal let Harold know exactly how to operate the Allseer, as it had the first time. Its task, the controls, the warnings: All was as clear to him as his knowledge of birdsong, bright and obvious and natural. Without that, his first encounter with it might well have been his last.

His memories of those few seconds were dim, but he recalled it being bad enough to wrench himself away almost instantly, and lie there on the floor sobbing for long minutes thereafter. He'd never intended to use the crystal ever again.

Of course, his first encounter hadn't had a purpose beyond mere curiosity. This time, they had a purpose—and no time to delay.

Harold set Nathan on the floor, and cautiously faced the Allseer. "When I'm done with this," he said, "I'm going to be effectively blind. I may be incoherent for a while." He pulled a stretchy plastic bracelet out of his pocket and turned back to hand it to Elias, along with his bookbag. "In case you need to move me before I'm quite together again… put it on my wrist, and I'll be one eighth of my normal mass."

Elias pulled the bookbag strap over his neck and positioned the bag at his side, then looked the bracelet over. "I'm pretty sure I could lift you."

"If you need to move me before I can walk out, we'll most likely be in some sort of firefight. I'll be far less of an encumbrance if I'm lighter. Besides," he added with an awkward frown, "if you have to swing me over your shoulder, it should be less traumatic to my injuries. Just be careful with my neck." He sucked in a breath. "Also, if I touch this thing for more than two minutes, the effect on my sanity may be irreversible. So at the minute and a half mark, if I haven't let go, get me off of it. Don't touch it yourself."

"Got it," John said.

"I never had anyone watching me the first time, so I don't know what it looks like from the outside. I may go through contortions or cry out. Whatever happens, don't pull me free early; I can get loose if I need to, but we need the info enough to risk the side effects."

John's murmured assent was far from happy, but at least it was assent.

"Besides the recording, try to write down anything I say. It might not come out in recordable form."

"I've got paper and a phone at the ready," Elias said.

Harold nodded. "Thank you." He took a deep breath. "Got that timer ready?"

"Whenever you say," Elias replied.

"Begin," he said, reaching forward to touch the crystal.

The chill was instant and straight through the bone to the aethereal essence of his being—not as if heat had been taken away, or as if heat had never existed, but as though he were somehow existing on a plane where heat was fundamentally not a concept related to any part of his being. The heat of fear and pain and horror were gone too, leaving clinical detachment; that was necessary, because the info rushing through his awareness was impossible enough to handle on its own, let alone if he could react to it with any significant emotion.

Everything around him, every detail, even molecule, atom, quantum particle; he knew them and their states. The entire Library lay bare before his gaze: the people behind him, the rag doll at his feet holding the recording device, the cultists streaming in through the mirrors, burrowing through the shelves, trying to locate the intruders.

And he also saw, and fully understood, the entity that had come into their midst… its nature, its purpose, its desires, pure and uncomplicated. How he had unwittingly triggered it, simply by delving into the wrong book. And, from the assets at his disposal, the most obvious way to counter the effect—along with how unlikely it would be to get in there safely, and which assets would best improve their chances.

The solution would hurt John, more deeply than Harold had ever hurt John before, but the knowledge was just that: knowledge. No emotions connected to the idea, just the awareness of their existence, the connection between elements.

Lassiter, he called out. Antim hazard, knowledge is danger. But they needed enough knowledge to solve the problem, and he was going to forget all this the moment he let go. How to phrase it in a way that revealed the solution without letting John know? I'm the key, he said.

Then, also: Haste. Fifteen cultists just entered the building.

Harold's gasp upon touching the crystal conveyed something deeper than pain, and he stiffened up, eyes rolling back in his head. Mere seconds went by before he was crying out words, most of which didn't matter to John as soon as Harold said fifteen cultists.

Before John could even step in, Harold was stumbling back, free of the crystal, crying out in wordless distress. Elias got to him faster than John did, as Harold collapsed into his arms, eyes staring sightless.

Not hesitating, Elias slipped the bracelet over Harold's wrist; besides Harold's warning, they could already hear the rustle of fabric far off through the maze of bookshelves.

"Let's go," he said, hoisting Harold over his shoulder, gun still at the ready. John swept Nathan up and tucked him inside his shirt, and they were on the move.

The shelves parted around them like waves, closing in behind, blocking access to their pursuers; the Library had chosen its side. But their luck couldn't hold forever. When John turned a corner and spotted a pair of cultists ahead of him, he took them out with the Hypersensate before they could make a sound—but they were only the first.

The next few minutes were a blur, with John taking out anyone he saw while Elias, toothless, focused on getting Harold to safety. Which meant the mirrors, if they could find one; the lack of easy access cut both ways.

One of the cultists got his gun out before John had taken out his allies, but the floor beneath them roiled, and the bullet went wide; some big doorstopper of a book suddenly fell from a shelf and hit him on the head. The man probably wasn't dead, but Elias certainly didn't envy him the headache he'd have when he woke up.

At length, they got in sight of the mirrors, glimpsed in snatches between the moving scenery. But the Library seemed a little picky about which one to let them use; the maze directed them away from the first few sets until John's frustration got the better of him and he swept a line of books onto the floor.

"Harold's practically your pet!" he growled. "We're trying to save him—help us get him out of here!" But the shelves continued to direct them away.

"It's probably trying to find ways that aren't blocked with cultists," Elias gasped out. "Would sure be nice if I could use my gun."

Just then, another shot rang out, and again the floor undulated beneath them; the shot grazed John's shoulder, and immediately the shooter was catapulted into the air, stories high all at once, shrieking. They didn't stick around to see if he survived the fall.

A minute later, with Elias and John both out of breath, they stopped to get their bearings, on alert for any other cultists in the area.

"Let me up," Harold said, struggling a little; Elias carefully helped him to his feet, and Harold stowed the bracelet in his pocket again.

"Pretty fast recovery," Elias observed.

"I still can't see right," Harold countered. "It's all just blobs of color… I can't—"

"Here," John said, and placed Nathan on Harold's shoulder again. "He can at least tell you which direction to run.

"But why isn't it—"

More shouts rang out as yet more cultists spotted them, and whatever Harold had meant to say got lost in the exchange. Someone had gotten the message around; the cultists had put away their guns, and instead came close enough to throw punches. Which wasn't an improvement: John's skill with hand-to-hand combat was hardly equaled by the random citizens who'd joined The Order, and Elias held his own just as handily, positioned on the opposite side of Harold as they got hemmed in. But at least the Library didn't object to the attacks… at least, noticeably.

When finally the way lay open on one side, John barked "Go!"—but Elias was already escorting Harold down through the shelves as John held the rear. He wanted to stay with John—wanted to ensure that they didn't leave John behind, to be captured or killed, maybe even turned over to the Foundation in exchange for something more valuable to The Order—but he knew that he couldn't help John by staying in danger.

The movement of Nathan's hands kept Harold moving, as fast as he could go without falling, but the world around him was still more like a kaleidoscope than anything recognizable. "We need—to find—the mirrors," he gasped out, hoping that the Library would pay attention.

"Those cufflinks gonna keep them from noticing you?" Elias asked.

"Unless some of them are on Tier Three mnestics."

"Good. Then come on, and let's hope John follows. He's got the edge back there, so long as he doesn't have to worry about us."

Before they'd made it far, they spotted the mirrors up ahead—the way blocked by a small group with menacing expressions. "Take him alive!" one of them shouted, the order coming a little late, as several shots rang out. To Harold's horror, Elias suddenly jerked back, gasping, and a bright red stain began to spread out along the lower part of his shirt.

"Hope you're right about those cufflinks," Elias murmured low. "Get out of here when you can." He shoved Harold to the side of the aisle, and then turned and ran.

The cultists—what was left of them, after the shooters had been dealt with—followed hot on his heels.

More shots rang out.

Elias cried out again, in greater pain, but his footsteps barely faltered.

Then the bookshelves parted, and John was there, wiping blood off his face with the back of his hand. His eyes narrowed. "Where's Elias?"

Harold pointed. "He's hurt, John. We have to—"