To my guest reviewer: Thank you. Glad you're enjoying it.

To everyone trying to figure out the Scottish accent. The differences in spelling account for different pronunciations depending on placement in the sentence and differences in emphasis. No, really: I wrote it straight to start with then recorded myself reading it aloud and as the character, then played it back bit by bit and re-wrote it to match. I did not attempt the other accent involved. (Not saying which now. Spoilers!)

Episode 9: For The Sword, Chapter 1

Christmas in the Library that year was the quietest yet. Cassandra was gone, taken by Jenkins and Stone, though not Ezekiel, to Dunvegan, where she remained under Flora's care. Stone divided his time between the Library and the castle, taking his workload to Cassandra's bedside whenever he could. Cases still popped up in the clippings books, but most were minor issues, easily dealt with. Da Vinci had been dragged back into the world of the Library by Jenkins and took his share of the research and the cataloguing of artefacts retrieved in the failed heist mission. Jenkins had divided his time between overseeing the cataloguing and helping Jones take on most of the new cases. Flynn and Eve, with the help of Stone had been focussed entirely on their newest threat. Ragnarok. The twilight of the gods. The end of the world as it is. The rebirth of the world anew. History's next great mass extinction.

"How is she?"

Stone turned and looked up. He had been so engrossed in his own thoughts as he returned to the office, he hadn't noticed Jones up on the mezzanine, leaning over the balcony. He nodded an acknowledgement to the thief. "No change. Good or bad."

"And the others?" Jones asked tentatively. "Any news there?"

"Your girlfriend's asking for you, if that's what you mean," Stone sighed, leaning on the central desk and rubbing a hand across heavy eyes. "Her mother's asking about you and great-to-the-power-of-God-knows-what grandma Flora gave me a letter for Jenkins. She's still confident Cassie will wake up in her own time, once the drain on her aura or whatever has recharged. She just doesn't know when that will be, since we don't know what exactly Cassie did in the first place to knock herself out."

"Like, the more juice she got from the artefacts around her, the bigger the recoil on her?" Ezekiel wondered aloud.

"Yeah, somethin' like that," Jacob murmured, sagging back onto the desk.

"Mate, you are dead on your feet," said Ezekiel, heading over to the stairs. "When was the last time you slept?"

Stone shook his head. "I caught a few hours here and there. I'm fine."

"In the chair by Cassandra's bed no doubt," cut in Baird, walking in with a pile of books. "Jones is right, Stone: you look done in. Go get some proper rest. They'll call if there's any change with her, and we'll call if there's any change with this."

"I'm fine," Stone insisted. "I just need some coffee."

"No, you need sleep," Baird told him. "Go lie down for a few hours, that's an order."

"I ain't soldier," Stone grumbled, turning to head over to the card catalogue.

Baird reached out and stopped him with an unmoving hand on his shoulder. "Maybe you're not, but I am," she reminded him, "and I will knock you out if I have to. Running yourself into the ground helps nobody and if you're this off base when things kick off, it's gonna get you killed, at the very least."

Stone's shoulder's sagged. "Fine," he growled. "A few hours, that's all."

"We'll wake you if we need you," said Baird, in gentler tones.

Stone shook off her hand and walked away, turning down the corridor to the rooms the Library habitually provided for them. Baird looked round to Jones, who held up a book. It wasn't his clippings book. Her brow crinkled.

"I've got my own research to do," he said in reply to the unasked question in her eyes. "New case came in. I think the Library's just firing them all straight to my clippings book now."

"Need help with anything?" Baird asked, her voice betraying the mental and physical weariness they were all feeling by now.

"Nah, I'm good," replied the thief, shaking his head. "It's just a simple retrieval job. Seems the original statue of Minerva has been found, along with the one and only temple of Vesta, goddess of matches."

Eve blinked. She replayed the sentence in her head and raised an eyebrow. "Matches?"

"Yeah, you know: Swan Vesta matches. Yellow box. Swan on the front?" Ezekiel floundered. "Do you ever pay attention in any of the countries you visit?"

"Why would I pay attention to boxes of matches? I don't smoke."

Ezekiel shrugged. "Swan Vestas are strike-anywhere matches. Handy for lighting those creepy torches we keep finding in underground temples and tombs. Don't run out of gas like a lighter."

"Next time, try the joke on Flynn," Eve groaned. "He'll tell you what she's actually the goddess of, but at least he'll get it."

Jones watched as Baird picked up a pile of scrolls from the central desk and headed out again.

"He might even laugh," she called back as she disappeared round a corner.

Jones appealed to the ceiling. "I already know what she's actually the goddess of! I was just trying to lighten the mood!"

A book hit him on the back of the head. He turned, rubbing the bruised area. The offending book lay open on the floor, a full page illustration of the statue of Minerva gazing serenely up at him.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," he huffed, picking up the book and heading back to his workspace.

XXXX

"Are you sure it's not in there?" Jenkins demanded. "It's not exactly the most stable of artefacts. It can shrink, you know."

"Per amor del cielo, look for yourself if you don't believe me," grumbled Leonardo. "I have catalogued everything in these boxes. It is not there!"

"What's not there?" Flynn enquired, carrying a cornucopia that kept creating coconuts. He held it out to the other two men. "Can either of you switch this thing off? I seem to have triggered something. I don't think it liked where we were putting it."

"The artefact didn't like where we were putting it?" Jenkins repeated, looking dubiously at the Librarian.

"As soon as I put it on the plinth we'd picked out, it started firing coconuts at Poseidon's Trident," explained Flynn. "Knocked it right over first hit, then changed aim to where the trident landed."

"Ah," grimaced Jenkins, taking the cornucopia and dodging a coconut. "Well, it is an artefact associated with Demeter, and they never did get on well after that one incident." He turned the cornucopia sideways, causing da Vinci to have to dodge this time. "How about we set you up next to Midas then? I don't recall you having any particular beef with him."

The coconuts stopped firing. Jenkins handed the horn back to Flynn. He nodded his thanks, then put it down on the table and placed a hand on either side of it. "What's not there, Jenkins?"

Jenkins sighed. "Fenrir's Chain. It's capable of many things, including growing or shrinking to fit anything it is used to imprison. More importantly, it is a talisman, like Santa's hat. It can be used to imbue the wearer with the temperament of Fenrir, or Fenris, the wolf. Child of Loki and bringer of Ragnarok. With the right combination of spells, runes and magical artefacts, it can fully convert the wearer to an avatar of Fenrir."

"Still not calling him Santa," said Baird, joining them with her arms full of scrolls. "Can a chain really change someone into a wolf?"

"Many artefacts have the ability to transmogrify humans into animals, or animal like forms," nodded Jenkins, taking some of the scrolls from her and laying them out on the table. "Most mythological monsters have some link to just such an occurrence. Take werewolves, for instance, or wendigos."

"I think I've got enough to handle right now," replied Baird. "Why are we talking about turning someone into Fenrir? I thought it was Loki we needed to worry about?"

"Fenrir is one of the children of Loki, all three of whom play a great part in Ragnarok," Jenkins explained. "First there will be three years of bad winters, with no real summer time to separate them. Then the two wolves who had for ever pursued the sun and moon would catch up and consume them. The stars would go out. Darkness would reign. The earth would shake and the seas rise as the first of Loki's children, the Midgard serpent, would rise from the waters and invade the land. Then all bonds would be broken, including this chain, Gleipnir, that imprisoned Fenrir, and the bonds that held his father, Loki, in his prison. They would come forth, along with Loki's third child, the half-giantess, Hel, queen of the underworld, and the final battle of Ragnarok would begin. At the end of the battle, the world is destroyed and remade, and several of the high ranking Norse gods wind up dead."

"So where does the Serpent Brotherhood come into it?" Baird frowned.

"Well, we think they are working on the theory that, if Loki and his three children are brought into being in the modern world, our Midgard, the rest will follow and the world as we know it will be destroyed, paving the way for those of them who survive to remake the world as they wish, with as much magic as they like."

"And to do that they'll need this chain," da Vinci cut in, rubbing his arm where a stray coconut had caught him.

"And we can't find it," finished Jenkins.

"We're sure it's not just in another box?" Flynn asked.

"Every box has a manifest," replied Jenkins. "If you know where to look..."

"And how!" Leonardo added. It had been his discovery.

"And so far every manifest has been accurate," continued Jenkins. "This box listed the chain among its contents, but, try as we might, we cannot find it in there... Apparently."

"Everything else has been checked, documented and rechecked," cried da Vinci, with a wave of his hand. "It is not there, I say!"

"Okay, worst case scenario," interjected Baird, before Jenkins could find a suitable riposte. "Say they have the chain. What else do they need? Are there any other artefacts we need to be out looking for, or providing some kind of additional protection for that are already here?"

"Every avatar will require an earthly relic of its mythic self," explained Jenkins. "Loki's Spear, for example. Then there are the artefacts that can be used to bind the avatar and bring it to its full self. They have options there, so that's going to be a bit more difficult. I can make a list of the former easily, but the latter will take a bit more time."

Colonel Baird nodded, taking in the information. "Well," she said, looking up at the Caretaker in full military mode. "I'd say you'd best get on it."

Jenkins raised an eyebrow at the order. "Yes, ma'am!"

XXXX

"I should go," whispered the young man's voice through the cover of the breeze in the leaves above them. "I have work to do."

"Ye still havnae told me why yer here," giggled the girl quietly, like the laughter of the waterfall they sat beside.

"You know why," he replied with a charming smile. "To look in on Cassandra while Stone catches up on some shuteye."

"Then why haven't ye been to see her yet?" Seonaidh pointed out.

"Well," shrugged Ezekiel. "I got distracted, didn't I? Who wouldn't, when you're around."

"If my mother catches ye here," replied the maiden, "she'll no' be happy. She might even curse yeh."

"Faint heart never won fair lady," grinned Ezekiel. "Besides, Librarians have been cursed before and survived."

"True," she laughed, pursing her lips, "but a lot of them wished they hadnae!"

"Your mother doesn't scare me," he breezed. "All I'm doing is visiting a beautiful part of the world with fabulous scenery."

"Ye havnae looked at any of the scenery," she pouted. "Ye've only looked at me."

"That's because you are the most beautiful part," he laughed.

"I'm not sure I appreciate being called scenery?" Seonaidh frowned.

"When I'm around you, babe, you're my whole world," grinned Ezekiel.

"Oh," she laughed, "and how many girls ha' you tried that line on?"

"Only one," he replied, still grinning. "Is it working? Because, you know, it would be useful to know for next time."

"Hah!" Seonaidh cried. "If yer no' on your way soon, there'll no' be a next time!"

XXXX

In a room high in the fairy tower, on narrow bed, covered in a patchwork quilt, lay Cassandra. Her hair, spread out over the pillow, reflected the sun as if she were crowned with fire. In the shadows at the other end of the bed, where the sun's light couldn't drown it out, a faint blue glow coruscated over the ironwork of the bedstead. It sparked off the tip of the metalwork. It climbed up from the very stones below it. It seeped into the bedding, and the figure below it.