Episode 9: Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler, Chapter 4

"Care to tell me where it is y'all are dragging me to now?" Stone's voice echoed oddly in the eldritch hall Cassandra was hurriedly guiding him through. "Some of us here ain't seen this part of the Library before."

"This?" Cassandra replied, without turning or glancing back at him in any way. "This is the Magic Circle. This is where we put all the artefacts linked to magicians who were a bit more real than people expected."

"Okay, Cassie, I know I'm going to regret this," began Jacob, pulling his hand free and stopping short. "This ain't a circle: these walls don't curve and we just came in a double door at one end exactly like that one right on up ahead of us. Now I get that this here staff to my left once belonged to one Welsh dude we know as Merlin, and that the top hat on my right has more in common with Flynn's little bag of tricks than meets the eye, but please explain where exactly we're getting the 'circle' bit from!"

Cassandra sighed, mentally rolling eyes that stayed fixed on the second door on the right. "Not a circle, huh? Okay, genius: go walk through that double door up ahead. Without walking in front of me. I will tell you why when you get back."

Jacob Stone frowned a little at his partner, thought drawing the clues together as he studied her face and the line of her gaze. He felt the penny begin to drop. "I think I get it, but hey: just for fun, let's give it a go."

The doors were not far. A short jog brought the still learning Librarian up to the painted porcelain handle. He turned it and pushed, letting the door swing open of its own accord. There before him lay precisely what he had expected: an identical corridor with, standing in its midst like a living, breathing statue of some flame-haired Aphrodite, Cassandra. Jacob let out a wry laugh and shook his head, walking onward and closing the door behind him. When at last he reached Cassie once more, he placed his hand in hers without argument.

"Lose sight of your door, even for a second, and you lose the door, right?" Jacob murmured, pressing a kiss to Cassie's temple.

"Exactly," she breathed, leading the way again. "So watch it. Try not to blink. If we both watch it, there's less chance we both blink at the same time. My eyes are getting dry, though, so if you keep your eyes on it for now, I can take a break. Sooner we're through it, the sooner we can both blink as much as we want."

"This one of Jones' tricks?"

Cassandra shook her head, eyes remaining glued to their target. "This was here before. He did use it for one of the early levels of the vault though. One Flynn knew about, but not us." They reached the door and hurried through. "He explained it as a sort of rotating bubble, but doughnut shaped. Once you're in, you can only use the side doors to get out, but you can use any of them. If you want to go to a specific room, however, say the vault or where we're going, then you need to know which door before you go in. As soon as you're in the Circle, you fix your eyes on that door and it stops the rotation. Lose sight of it and the Circle starts rotating again."

"So even if you start staring at the same door again, it won't be the same room," finished Jacob.

"Exactly."

XXXX

Ezekiel Jones, World Class Thief, had become used to the tug of a Guardian's hand on his collar. The Colonel, however, had been considerably easier to keep up with than Charlene. He was deposited into a chair with an audible thump.

"Okay, mister: spill it," Charlene demanded.

"I don't know what you mean!" Ezekiel prevaricated, blinking innocently at the glare now fired in his direction.

"Well now, I grant you there are a growing number of little mysteries I could be talking about," nodded Charlene, straightening and folding her arms in an expression of expectant nonchalance. "Let's start with the most recent. Just what do you have planned for your own transformation in this fight, why was finding it so 'easy', and why are you so reluctant to tell us all what it is?"

XXXX

"Flynn?"

Eve's voice echoed oddly in the nigh empty reading room. Had it always done that? She was sure the room felt larger and colder than usual. If it had been a normal room, she would have dismissed the thought that the almost oppressive quietude was an expression of the Library's own worry and dread of the great battle looming on the horizon. It was not a normal room. She reached out a hand to the nearest bookcase, a set of dark wooden shelves backing on to the wall of the room by the door, and stroked the richly varnished wood as one might a skittish animal. A living warmth seemed to flow from the wood to her fingers at the touch. They were all afraid. Why should the Library be any different?

A rustle of far off fabric brought her attention back to the room itself. From the depths of one of the reading room's comfortable over-stuffed armchairs, she saw the tousled head of her genius spouse arise. His eyes met hers with the over-confident smile she knew hid his own fears and doubts. There was something in his hand. Something he, for once, was making no attempt to hide from her. With a last, comforting pat of the bookcase, Eve picked her way through the coffee tables, chairs, desks, chaises, sofas and smaller bookcases to her husband's side.

"What's that?"

"This?" Flynn raised the item in his hand. It was a small, carved, wooden box, about six inches wide, four inches broad, and three inches deep. The hinged lid was held closed with a brass clasp. "This is a memory box. People buy ordinary ones to put little mementoes in. This one, being the first of its kind, records actual memories. It's like a video diary. Open it and tell it to 'play' and it will show you all the memories it has stored. Tell it to 'record' and it will do just that. Whatever you say it will record until you tell it to 'stop recording'. It's quite simple really. There are other things it can do, but I dug it out to try my hand at making one of those little video collections for our son. Something where we can record who we are and how we feel before he starts keeping us awake all night."

Eve took the box from Flynn's outstretched hand. "You think we'll change after he's born?"

"My darling, we change every day," murmured Flynn, brushing a stand of hair she was half sure hadn't been there behind her ear. "And every day I love you more."

Eyes closing, she yielded to his embrace. "I love you too, Flynn. I always will. And I love the memory box. I'll try to find some time to add to it. I promise. We need to get on the trail of these artefacts though. The Serpent Brotherhood is already far to far ahead of us for my liking."

"Yours and mine are all here, my love," he sighed, landing a soft kiss on her brow. "It's Jenkins, Jones, Charlene and Cassandra that are missing items."

"Strike Ezekiel off that list," corrected Eve. "He claims his is all sorted."

"I might have known!" Flynn rolled smiling eyes. "Just Jenkins, Charlene and Cassandra then."

"Any ideas what?" Eve persisted, content to continue the conversation wrapped in his arms in the now peaceful solitude of the reading room. "Or where to find them?"

"One or two. You sent Cassandra and Stone after the feather, didn't you?"

Eve lifted her head to meet his eyes. "And Charlene and Ezekiel to figure out something for her."

"That leaves us with something for Jenkins. I think I have an idea what. Care for another adventure before we become safe and responsible parents, Guardian?"

Eve matched her husband's dashing grin with one of her own. "I can't imagine you being a safe and responsible anything, Librarian!"

"You wouldn't have me any other way!"

"Not in a million years!"

XXXX

Jenkins stood alone in the aisle of the main Library. His eyes were fixed upon a glimmering artefact he had passed by once before in recent months. Then, he had been followed by his less than dutiful apprentice who, in his youthful curiosity, had gazed into the bronze mirror; and who, in recompense for this, had been uncommonly shaken by what he had seen there. What had he seen there? Something so terrible that it had caused the thief to break off his budding relationship with Seonaidh. Something that the combined powers of himself, his beloved Flora, and the interference of all their friends and enemies had not been able to accomplish.

Steeled by the knowledge that the worst moment of his life had already passed, Jenkins reached out to the mirror and raised it to his eyes.

XXXX

Cassandra set the globe and stepped back. A hand fell into hers like a key into a lock.

"I left a note," murmured the owner of the hand.

"They probably won't even notice we've gone," shrugged Cassie.

"Bai… Eve will. She just won't fly into a panic about it," Jacob shrugged back. "You sure this'll get us there?"

"It's a brochure about New Orleans," Cassie pointed out. "We're going to New Orleans. What could possibly go wrong?"

Stone sighed and closed his eyes, brows drawing down into a grimace of something akin to pain. "Cassie, darlin': I really wish you hadn't said that."

Wincing as the words flitted through her extraordinary memory, she wrapped her hand further round his. "Maybe we should get going before I say something else."

The doors blazed on opening, swallowing the pair into their golden light. They swung shut and the office dimmed to silent darkness once more.

On the other side of the door, now quite decidedly singular Cassandra noted with interest, the hot southern sun blazed down. Jacob turned to look up at the statue from the front of the brochure.

"Well, I'd say it worked, Cassie. This is definitely New Orleans." He waited for her to catch up with him and take a broader look at their surroundings. "Now where're we headed?"

"When I asked Flynn if he'd ever been, he said he had and his cousin André could help us find whatever we needed." Cassandra fished a small card out of her pocket and waved it triumphantly. "He even gave us his card." A frown darkened her smile and she looked down at the insignificant rectangle. "Actually…"

"What?"

She shook her head, smiling up at her beau brightly, red hair shining in the sunlight like a crown of living fire. "Nothing. He just had other stuff on his mind I'm sure. It's a busy time for all of us."

Jacob reached out to tuck an iridescent strand behind her ear. "That it is, darlin'. That it is. D'you wanna give this cousin of his a call or shall I?"

"Um…" Cassandra's eyes came up to meet his own then dropped back, blinking at something behind him. "I think that's one phone call we don't need to make, lover." She pointed over his shoulder. "The number on that cab matches the one on this card."

Jacob turned his head. The cab was everything he had expected from New Orleans and more. Standing by it, amiably grinning at and chatting to every passer-by, was a man he thought unlikely to be a blood relation of Flynn's. As he only knew too well now, though: family didn't end in blood. His lip curled in a smile. "I get it."