Episode 4: More Than You Know, Chapter 3
"What the heck is going on with you?" Eve demanded of the sullen young man before her. Ezekiel slumped back against the wall and folded his arms, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. Eve stood her ground, arms akimbo. "I know showing respect to others doesn't come naturally to you Jones, but that was downright rude! I thought Jenkins was the one person in this place, other than Cassandra, that you did actually look up to. And if you're not in his 'good books', as you put it, I want to know why, because I'm one hundred percent sure there is a good reason for that."
"Yeah, right!" Ezekiel snarled. "All I did was have the temerity to fall in love with someone he didn't approve of. Ironic, really, since he sure seems to approve of her granny well enough. Of course, maybe it's me doesn't approve of. I'm not good enough for his precious little princess. Not that it has the slightest thing to do with him, of course. I get that her mother may not like me much. I get that the old woman hates me. I don't care. Seonaidh loves me, and I love her, and we're going to keep seeing each other, regardless of what her family thinks. And if we're not going to listen to them, I don't know why the hell he thinks we'll listen to him. It has nothing to do with him!"
Eve looked away for a moment, trying to place a name. The connection clicked and she looked back. "Seonaidh: the little blonde thing you got lost in the gardens at Dunvegan with? Flora's great-to-the-power-of-who-knows-what granddaughter? That Seonaidh? You're still seeing her? How did I not know about this?"
Ezekiel shrugged, slightly mollified. "You had a wedding to plan. We had the Serpent Brotherhood to not quite take down..."
"But still... And you: you love that girl?" Eve's face and tone bore witness to her incredulity and Ezekiel instantly bristled.
"Is it really so hard to believe? I do have feelings, you know," he countered. "I am capable of falling in love."
"I know, I just never really thought..." Somewhere at the back of Eve's brain a penny dropped. "Wait, what do you mean 'not quite take down'? We got the spear. We stopped the apocalypse."
"Yeah, about that," Ezekiel rubbed his neck and avoided the Colonel's eyes. "Turns out they may have had a backup plan. While you were, er, gone, the stone, um, changed."
"It changed," Eve watched the young man closely. "How did it change, Ezekiel?"
"Well, we were just, you know, showing Charlene the new relics and we came to the stone and the message was, well, different."
"Different how?" Eve folded her arms and glared.
"Um, just, you know," Ezekiel could feel a cold sweat break out on his forehead. "Different."
"What. Did. It. Say?" Eve enunciated very clearly.
"Er..."
"Ezekiel..."
"It said 'Ragnarok is coming'," he sagged.
"What!" Eve's voice went up a few decibels. "When did it change?"
"Well, we can't really be sure," he prevaricated. "We didn't actually see the change..."
"When did you find the change, Ezekiel?"
"A, er, while ago," he equivocated.
"Today? Yesterday? Last week?" Eve pressed, closing in on the thief.
"Tiny bit longer than that..."
"Give me a date, Ezekiel," warned Eve.
"It was not my decision," he threw his hands up to placate the oncoming Colonel and began edging sideways.
"Ezekiel!" Eve's hand flattened against the wall, blocking his path. "A date. Now. When did you find the change?"
Ezekiel scrunched up his eyes and waited for the yelling. "When we got back from the wedding," he admitted. He braced himself, but the screams of indignation never came. Instead there was the sound of running feet. Halfway down the corridor, he heard the Colonel call her husband's name. He sagged back against the wall in relief and let his head rest there. Victory was fleeting, however, and he jumped when a larger hand slapped into the wall by his head.
"Glad to see Momma Baird back, Jones?" Stone chuckled.
"Shut up, Stoneface," the younger man retorted.
"Really? That the best you got?"
"Ezekiel," cut in Cassandra, moving Jacob away from his nemesis. "Can you hack a few websites to set up fake pages for Jacob, just in case my father decides to look into his background online? Maybe, Oxford university, or Cambridge, or one of the others, and something like Wikipedia?"
Ezekiel focussed on Cassandra. "You do know you don't need to hack wikipedia, right?"
XXXX
It would have been lovely to think 'it was a dark and stormy night' as they approached her parents' house, thought Cassandra, but it wasn't. It was a bright and beautiful morning instead. The birds were singing. Flowers and trees were bursting into bloom all around them. A warm breeze brought the promise of a perfectly lovely day ahead. If only it didn't have her parents in it.
They stepped up to the door and Cassandra rang the bell, fidgeting nervously with the hem of her jacket. Jacob took her hand and drew it through his arm, interlacing his fingers with hers. She glanced at him gratefully and he smiled back. The door opened and a tall, gaunt man peered down at them over half moon spectacles.
"Mr," an elbow connected with Jacob's ribs, "Doctor Cillian, I presume."
The gaunt man stared down at him then back to his daughter. "Cassandra?"
"Hello Dad," she replied shyly. "I've brought someone to meet you. This is Jacob Stone. He's my fiancé."
Turning his gaze back to Stone, Cassandra's father looked him up and down with the scrutiny of a horse dealer at the races. He pushed his spectacles up on his thin, aquiline nose. "You had better come in then. The study, I think, Cassandra. I'll fetch your mother. Tea alright? Or would your... fiancé prefer a beer."
Cassandra's fingers closed almost imperceptibly tighter around Jacob's.
"Tea would be perfect, sir" putting on his most charming Southern smile. "Earl Grey?"
"Of course," Doctor Cillian's brows rose. "Milk or lemon."
"Lemon, if you please, sir."
Doctor Cillian bowed slightly in assent and waved them into the hall. "Do go through. Cassandra knows the way."
Watching her father disappear around the corner of the long hall and up a grand staircase, Cassandra was brought back to herself by Jacob's lips on the back of her hand. She shook her head and turned back to him, nodding at a door at the far end of the hall. "The study's down here. Last door on the left."
They made their way though the hall with mingled haste and interest. Jacob would stop to look at something and Cassandra would drag him onward. Finally they reached the study and Cassandra closed the door firmly behind them. She looked at Jacob strangely.
"Early Grey," she said, when she had his full attention. "Really?"
"Jones made me watch The Da Vinci Code with him back when he was ill," he shrugged. "It kinda stuck."
"Really? Me too. What did you think?"
"Too easy!" Stone decided, allowing Cassandra to guide him to a settee and sit down by his side. "Any idiot could work out those clues! Took me less than a minute to get the final word for the codex!"
"Really?" Cassandra asked innocently. "How long did it take Ezekiel?"
"He'd seen it before," replied Jacob with a dismissive wave.
"How long?" Cassandra grinned.
"You don't actually expect me to believe the time he tells me, do you?"
"How long?" Cassie sing-songed.
"Five seconds," Jacob muttered.
"Aw, and you thought you were doing so well," she sympathised, trying not to laugh. "Don't worry. He's a thief: safe-breaking is part of the job description."
"Yeah? How long'd it take you?"
"Five seconds," she grinned. "We both saw it for the first time together, and we got it at the same time."
Jacob rolled his eyes. "He's a thief. What's your excuse?"
"I'm a mathematician, babe," she shrugged. "Code-breaking's in the job description there."
He rolled his eyes again and let them travel around the room. The walls were lined with framed degrees and honorary degrees, interspersed with the occasional ancient map or illuminated manuscript. Jacob's eyes narrowed. "Should they be there?"
"They're copies," explained Cassandra. "The originals are in the library, upstairs, under glass in specially made locked drawers. He has quite the collection. Or had, last time I got to see them, anyway."
XXXX
Jenkins stood leaning on the bannister of the mezzanine, looking down, master of all he surveyed, sort of. Once upon a time, perhaps, he mused, but not now. Now his world had become bigger, both figuratively and, with the aid of the still newly anchored Library, literally too. He had been dragged into the lives of the Librarian and his band of followers, just as they had been shoved into his, and it was getting harder to keep his own secrets separate. Especially now. They might never learn all of his adventures - there were far too many of them to fit in any but the longest lived Librarian's lifetime - but they would have to learn some. One. Sooner than he would like, and yet not soon enough. For so many years he had both longed for and dreaded this day.
Below him the back door opened and closed. He stepped back into the shadows, watching as a newly arrived Ezekiel cast a glance around him and up to the floor above. There was another conundrum. What to do about the boy. Especially in light of Flora's latest news. Now, more than ever, it was imperative that the girl should marry, and bear children. Daughters. Would it, could it, be so very dangerous if a Librarian was their father? It was not a question he had ever had to worry about before. It was rare enough for a Librarian to marry, at least after being called. Rarer still for them to have children. Those who had managed it, however, had produced offspring with a dangerously magical bent. Gifted in different ways, but all creatively so. A Librarian's child with faerie blood? The possibilities were endless. And terrifying.
XXXX
"Next," ordered Charlene, holding out a hand.
"I still cannot believe you wouldn't call us home for this!" Flynn replied, handing her an object wrapped in a velvet cloth. "The Tassilo Chalice, circa seven eighty. Seized by Charlemagne after he denounced the Duke as an oath-breaker. Don't touch it directly: you will be unable to say anything but the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth for at least a week."
"Which makes for some very uncomfortable dinner reservations," quipped Eve, holding the bag open for her husband. "You do realise that we wouldn't have minded. We would have come straight home."
"Which is precisely why I told them not to call you," stated Charlene, scribbling in a ledger and passing the still wrapped chalice to da Vinci. "Next!"
"Mata Hari's purse," said Flynn, passing a fringed and bejewelled oval on a chain over to Charlene. "It looks small, but she could fit all her clothes in there, apparently."
"That doesn't make it magic," Charlene pointed out.
"All her clothes," Eve reiterated. "Not just the ones she danced in."
"Ne..." Charlene's shout was cut off by the sight of a timeworn garden hoe rising from the satchel. "What in the..."
"The Sceptre of Clairvaux," grinned Flynn, passing the item over with gloved hands. "Gloves first. We're not too sure about this one yet. Better safe than shortbread."
"It's a hoe," Charlene pointed out.
"Yes it is," Flynn nodded proudly.
"It is a garden utensil," said Charlene, speaking very slowly and clearly.
"This is true," nodded Flynn again. "It could be very dangerous, so keep it safe."
"Dangerous how?" Charlene cried. "It's not even a rake!"
"I stopped asking that question a long time ago," sighed Eve.
"I thought I had too!" Charlene exclaimed.
