Just noticed an edit had been missed, so chapter updated and replaced. Sorry folks.

Chapter 21: Palimpsest, part 2

Cassandra was seated in a chair by the time Baird re-entered the office carrying the box. Stone was nowhere in sight, but a glance at Jenkins told the Guardian that the quietest member of their little group was upstairs.

"What have you there, Colonel?" Jenkins asked, nodding at the box, attention divided between it and the mezzanine.

"Left on our doorstep," said Baird, passing the box over. "You'd better have a look."

Jenkins took the box from her gingerly and set it down on the central desk. Waving away a curious Ezekiel, he eased up the lid Baird had loosely replaced and peered down, patting his pockets for a pair of gloves.

"Hmm," he said, pulling on the gloves and holding up a finger to Ezekiel, who had been edging closer behind him. "It appears to be a book."

"Somebody brought a book to the Library?" Ezekiel asked, trying to peer over Jenkins shoulder from where he was standing.

"Dragons, monsters, legends, mad scientists," intoned Baird. "All these things we accept as perfectly normal. Yet when something that would be normal in any other library happens..."

"This isn't any other library, Colonel Baird," Jenkins reminded her. "What is more the only people not in this room who know it is the Library are not likely to leave such a thing on our doorstep without some kind of note, or, indeed, at all, come to think of it. No, this is, quite possibly, the oddest occurrence we have as yet encountered."

"Which book is it?" Cassandra asked from her chair, her eyes downcast, focussing on the bloodstained tissue she was turning over and over between her fingers. Her voice sounded odd.

"It appears to be a collection of tales by the English author Agatha Christie," said Jenkins, lifting the book and opening it to its contents page. He read down the list of stories. "The Mysterious Affair at Styles. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Curtain. Spider's Web. The Mysterious Mr Quin - twelve short stories. The best of Partners in Crime - four favourite Beresford mysteries: The Unbreakable Alibi, The Clergyman's Daughter, The Red House, The Ambassador's Boots."

"That's a lot of stories," said Baird.

"The Mysterious Mr Quin is short even with all twelve stories put together," said Ezekiel, edging round again to get a better view. "Not exactly crime fiction, but highly underrated in my opinion. A series of short mysteries that fit seamlessly together to make one, larger, novella. The same goes for Partners In Crime. Odd it has those two sets of short stories, three Poirots and a play, but no Miss Marple..."

"Another play?" Baird's eyebrows rose.

"Quite a good one, actually," shrugged Ezekiel. "Almost had me for a bit."

"You didn't work it out until the last act?" Baird teased.

"Oh I worked it out way before that," Ezekiel nodded. "I just usually get these things as soon as the murderer or whoever turns up. I actually considered the possibility I might be wrong with that one. I wasn't, but it did make me consider it. Actually, come to mention it, those Poirots kind of did the same..."

"I didn't know you liked murder mysteries," said Baird, twisting her face into a puzzled grin.

"Whodunits," he corrected her. "They're called whodunits. Or Classic Crime. Half the time, there is no murder. In fact, in the Sherlock Holmes stories, most of the mysteries do not involve murder. Theft, kidnapping, fraud, mistaken identity and attempted murder make up way more of the backgrounds than just murder!"

"And of course, anything about theft..."

"Old ways to steal new things," grinned the thief. Only Jenkins noticed the look that crossed his features once Baird turned back to the book.

"Well, I'm sure I can find a home for this, anyway," said the old man as he placed the book down on the desk and turned over a few more pages. "I might even read a tale or two in my tea break."

The clippings book beside them glowed again, each of the smaller versions mimicking their larger counterpart.

"Another one?" Baird asked. "Is this going to be like magical earthquake season: one big surge sets off lots of little ones?"

"No, this one's actually a clipping," said Jones, looking down at the page. "It's an advertisement for an auction. There's a web address for the auction house."

Baird and Jenkins hovered behind Ezekiel as he brought up the auctioneers on his tablet and began flicking through the listings for the auction in question.

"There! Stop! Go back!" Jenkins barked out suddenly. Ezekiel did so and brought up the picture of a necklace of gold and jewels. The necklace was old - a large, intricately detailed collar - but it sparkled.

"What is it?" Baird asked. "Crown jewels again? Which country this time?"

"No country, however poor, would auction off their crown jewels," said Jenkins. "Especially not here! No, this is something far older, far more precious, and far, far more magical. That, ladies and gentlemen, is Brisinga-men."

"The necklace of the Norse goddess Freyia," cut in a gruff voice from the stairs. The three around the tablet looked over and saw Stone, his mini clippings book open in his hand. He waved it at them. "I got the page too."

"Great, a full family outing!" Jones sighed, moving the tablet screen to a map showing the location of the auction house. He handed it to Jenkins. "Can you use this for the door?"

"You'll have to leave it here," he replied with a nod.

"I've got my phone," shrugged Jones, leaving the tablet in Jenkins' hands and heading over to the 'B' drawer of the card catalogue.

Jenkins and Baird looked at Stone and Cassandra and exchanged a glance.

"Oh joy!" Baird sighed.

XXXX

The auction house was already busy when the four stepped out of a closet door onto the upper landing of a broad staircase. The balcony before them looked down into a tiled and crowded entrance hall, and on either side carpeted stairs swept down and around, meeting at the opposite wall and proceeding back towards the balcony wall as they reached the floor.

Stone muttered something about a Robert Adam and wandered off to look at the ceiling.

"Cassandra and I will check out security," announced Jones before Baird could open her mouth. "Why don't you and Stone go look for the necklace."

"Who's in charge here?" Baird muttered at Jones and Cassandra's receding backs. She turned to Stone. "Please tell me you know what we're looking for."

"Yeah, yeah," Stone grumbled. "Brisinga-men. Necklace of Freyia, Norse goddess of love and war."

"Another pair of words that seem to go hand in hand around here," she muttered under her breath.

"What's that?" Stone looked round.

"Nothing," she waved him towards the stairs. "We know that. You said as much before. I meant did you see the picture on Jones' tablet?"

"I'll know it when I see it," he shrugged. "A golden necklace or collar, although some say torc, inlaid with amber and gemstones. Bought from its four dwarfish creators for a scandalous price."

"Oh really?" Baird asked. "How much?"

He told her.

"For a necklace?" Baird's voice rose. "Seriously!"

Stone shrugged and pulled a face. "I didn't write that story!"

"Yeah, speaking of stories," said Eve, falling into step beside him as they headed for the stairs. "I know the curse ended because I stopped talking weird, but you and Cassandra seem even less talkative than when we encountered that magic house, or for that matter after you two landed yourselves in hospital for a week! At least then you could stand being around each other, now it's like pulling teeth to get you in the same room! How'd that happen?"

"We broke the spell," said Stone, his voice curt and sharp. "Now she won't look at me. I'm just trying to make that a little less difficult to do."

"Really," said Eve, dubiously, "she won't look at you? So you're removing yourself from her presence at every opportunity? What, like she did when you refused to look at her after Collins Falls? Oh, no, wait: she didn't."

"Hey!"

"You're being an ass!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"She turned away from me, okay! She kissed me, not the other way round. We came round on the floor, ears ringing like some magical bomb had gone off between us. I went over to her and she turned away."

"What, just like that?" Eve pressed. "She wouldn't speak to you, wouldn't look at you, not at all?"

"Well, no," Jake floundered. "I mean, she spoke to me, but just to answer my questions and ask about everyone else. And once she came round fully, she couldn't find enough other places to look!"

"You're an ass," Eve grinned.

"Maybe I'm just not as good a kisser as I thought," Jake joked, smiling despite himself.

"Nope, pretty sure you're just an ass."

"Oh yeah, and how would you know?"

"Because I know you're an ass."

XXXX

Ezekiel and Cassandra reached the bottom of the staircase arm in arm. Ezekiel had scanned the upper and lower levels from above before they started their descent, not willing to risk his friend's footing on their stairs. Now it barely took seconds to register the few corners that had been invisible from above.

"Want to talk about it?" Ezekiel asked as they wandered, seemingly aimlessly, through the crowd.

"Talk about what?" Cassandra asked innocently.

"About whatever is going on with you and Stone," the young man clarified, as blunt as a butter knife.

"Nothing is going on with me and Stone," she replied, rolling her eyes. "Nothing new anyway. I just keep giving him reasons to push me away. Same old, same old..."

"And yet this is the first time I've ever actually seen him do that," he pointed out with a sigh. "What did you do this time?"

"You know full well what I did. What I had to do, that is," she turned her head to glare at her friend.

"I might have left a few hints lying around," he admitted.

"A few? Hints?" The glare continued. "You forged a love poem to look like it was from him to me. You and Eve also dropped some fairly large hints from the opposite side of a bookcase. I'm willing to bet Jenkins and Flynn did the same to him, and at your bidding."

"I couldn't help myself: it was the play!"

"And now that's exactly what he thinks of me!"

"Why would he think that?"

"Because it's true for one," that statement actually made Ezekiel stop walking and turn to look at her. She smirked and continued. "I have read my fair share of Shakespeare, you know: you get through a lot of books in hospital. I know who we were turning into. The kiss was inevitable. I just sped things up a bit before we got stuck like that."

"Any other reason?" Ezekiel asked slowly.

"Well, did you pass out and wake up confused when the spell broke?"

"Ah... No."

"And now he can't bear to be in the same room as me!"

"Well..."

"Not if he thinks I know he's there!"

"But..."

"I mean: heaven forbid we should actually have to speak to each other!"

"Yeah, about earlier: are you okay?"

"Earlier?" Cassandra stopped her rant at the segue and turned to look at Ezekiel, frowning.

"Cassandra, I've never seen you drop like that before," he said, his tone more serious than before. "I mean, call him what you like, Stone's always..."

"Not always," she shrugged sadly. "Not in Slovakia. But I knew he wasn't coming to my rescue then."

"We were all trapped in the dollhouse..."

"I know," she said. "This time, though... It's my own fault. I forgot what it's like to not feel sure someone's going to be there to catch me."

"How the heck is that your fault?"

XXXX

It took Stone and Baird half an hour to find the necklace. The item was encased in a clear box they assumed was toughened glass or something similar. Something that would require a thief's skill and finesse.

"I'll stay here, you fetch Jones," said Baird, her hand hovering near her gun.

Stone gave her a look. She sighed and glared back.

"Fine," Eve gave in eventually. "You can't keep this up forever, you know."

"I can try," he replied.

"And how do you think you'll feel if you manage it?" Eve retorted harshly, pushing past him.

She didn't turn and look back. She knew the look on his face would be enough to make her go back and apologise if she did. And he did not deserve that apology. Not yet.

She found Jones and Cassandra sipping complementary champagne in yet another hall of expensive items she was still cursing herself for letting Jones loose anywhere near. He was quietly pointing out to Cassandra the various reasons why the purported diamond, white gold and sapphire tiara they were looking at was absolutely worthless.

"Jones, you're needed two rooms over," said Baird, removing his glass and handing it to Cassandra. "Come on, you two, Stone's keeping an eye on it."

As Jones headed off into the melee, Cassandra hung back. Baird looked at her. The younger woman shook her head. Baird rolled her eyes and hurried off after Jones.

The thief was half way across the first of the two rooms when he collided with his fellow librarian.

"What the! I thought you were looking after the necklace!" Ezekiel frowned as Stone helped him to his feet.

"I was," he replied. "They've started taking in all the lots. We need to hurry."

The two men turned and headed for the third room. By the time they got there, half the cases had been removed already. The necklace case was among them.

"Did you see where they were taking them?" Jones asked, scanning the room.

"Through that door there," said Stone, pointing out two suited men carrying a case through a doorway under the watchful eyes of two very large men. The case was handcuffed to each of the porters. A third man closed the door behind them and a woman strolled past, exchanging a glance with the door man.

"We're not getting through there any time soon," said Jones, running his eyes over the door and the security guards.

"So now what?" Baird asked, following their gaze as she joined them. "Do we have to try and buy the thing?"

Jones snorted a derisive laugh. "No way!"

"And you're great plan is, oh maestro?" Stone quipped.

"Glad to see I'm finally getting the recognition I deserve here," grinned Jones. "No, my plan is to wait and see who does buy it, then steal it off of them! We'd be doing them a favour, after all: who knows what that thing could do!"