The Lost Library, a danny phantom fanfic

Hello, everyone. So. I haven't been updating my fics on here because of reasons (they're lame reasons, don't worry about it) for the past six months, but I'm going to try and catch up with everything. I won't be able to do it all at once, but I'll be doing my best. To see all the chapters I've added to multichapter fics, just keep going until you don't see this message at the top of the chapter anymore. Sorry about this!

"Convince us," said Mom, leaning forward over the remains of dinner.

"Um, what?" said Danny, leaning back. "What do you mean?"

Mom made a circular motion with one hand. "Next time you go out to take readings, you want to go explore somewhere new. We want you to stay in the areas you already know. This is all about continuing our research, so convince us. Why should we let you go somewhere else?"

All three of them knew that 'let' was a polite fiction. Once Danny was in the Ghost Zone, he could go wherever he wanted, and his parents wouldn't be able to stop him. He'd also demonstrated his ability to get into the Ghost Zone even when his parents had him locked out of the portal controls. He didn't need permission.

However, his eyes still nervously slid over to Dad, who nodded encouragingly. Danny wanted that permission. He opened his mouth to speak–

"Pick one place to argue about," said Mom, interrupting. "One place. Not a whole list."

Well. That made things harder. There were a lot of places he wanted to go, but maybe he could narrow it down to just a few choices…

SHOULD DANNY…

TALK ABOUT THE CLOUD KINGDOM

TALK ABOUT THE DROWNED QUARTER

TALK ABOUT THE LOST LIBRARY

TALK ABOUT THE WOODS OF WONDER

TALK ABOUT THE LOST LIBRARY

"The Lost Library," said Danny. That had to be the easiest to convince his parents of. It was full of knowledge (something his parents liked), and it didn't have anything really weird going on, physically, spatially, or socially. What wasn't to like?

Mom raised an eyebrow. "Lost, as in no one knows where it is? Would you be searching for it?"

"Ooh, like an archeological expedition!" said Dad. "Setting up for something like that would be an interesting challenge!"

"What? No, no. Everyone knows where it is. Well. Maybe not everyone. But a lot of people. I know where it is. Theoretically. I just haven't been there. Yet. Yet. Because when you hear about it, you'll definitely want me to check it out." He nodded, as if he believed that. Confidence was key. "It's a library. Obviously. But the lost part isn't because it's lost. It's the Lost Library because the things in it are lost. The Lost Library has every book that doesn't exist anymore."

"That doesn't make sense, though," said Dad. "If the books are there, then they exist."

"Yeah," said Danny, "it's like, when the last copy of a book is destroyed, one pops up in the library. In the Lost Library. So there's all sorts of stuff there. Loads of books have been destroyed. Like, cuneiform tablets, all those Greek plays, and works by Greek philosophers… and treatises by scientists whose ideas were ahead of their time. There are even books by ghosts" He looked up at his parents hopefully. "It's also safe. Librarians are always really brutal about behaving properly in libraries."

"But you haven't been there before."

"No," said Danny. "But I've been to other libraries. The Lost Library sounds cool, right?"

"There's probably a lot of books that aren't very good there, too," said Dad, pensively. "Rough drafts that were only ever seen by one person. Theses that never got defended." He paused. "Does it record movies too? There are a lot of old movies that were destroyed down to the last copy."

"I don't know. I haven't been there yet. I mean… it wouldn't surprise me? It's a type of recording."

Mom and Dad looked at each other, seemingly having a discussion with their eyebrows alone.

Finally, with a sigh, Mom broke away. "Alright," she said, "but no wandering off. You go straight to the library, explore the library, then come straight home. No detours."

Danny's shoulders slumped under the weight of her regard. "Okay, okay. I won't."

"It's for your safety, son," said Dad. "We don't want you to be hurt."

"I know, I know," said Danny. "When can I go?"

This triggered another conversation of eyebrows.

"Tomorrow morning," said Mom. "And you'll be taking the full rig."

Danny's landing on the stairs of the Lost Library was a little clumsy around the bulk of the so-called full rig. The full rig consisted of essentially every portable sensor, camera, and microphone that Danny's parents had ever invented, plus several that Danny himself had come up with. In duplicate.

It wasn't heavy for Danny - he'd been able to bench press buses in high school, and although he hadn't grown any since then, his strength had. It was, however, large, and if he didn't want to break anything on it, he had to be careful about how he moved.

The things Danny did for science… And for his parents' peace of mind…

He marched up the stairs, mentally skipping. His experience in the libraries of the Zone had been mixed. There was the Ghostwriter's library (bad, but mostly his fault), the Far Frozen's library (unfortunately heavy on dry medical texts), Pandora's library (literally in Ancient Greek, but interesting once he'd learned that language), Clockwork's library (dangerous), and the Library of Tongues (he was a member). He had a good feeling about this one, though. They had something of a partnership with the Library of Tongues, since many lost works were written in less-than-common scripts.

He passed the manticore statues guarding the door and entered a long receiving room that must stretch all along the front of the library building. There were small bookshelves and armchairs scattered about, and in the center was a broad, wooden reception desk, staffed by a single ghost wearing grecian robes. There were no doors leading further into the library.

"Not what I expected," said Mom in Danny's ear. The full rig included communication equipment, too.

"There are a lot of people that want to destroy this place," explained Danny. "Sometimes works are lost because someone made them lost, and wants to keep them that way. There are thieves, too. It needs security."

"What about the books out here?" asked Jack.

"Copies," said Danny. "Ones circulated widely enough through the Realms that there's no real risk to having them available to the public."

He approached the desk. The ghost there watched him cautiously.

"Hi!" he said. "My name is Phantom, I'm a member of the Library of Tongues, and I'm recording for a group of scientists who are interested in your work here. I was wondering if I could have browsing access to your collection?"

"Card, please," said the ghost, holding out her hand.

Danny fished his wallet out from his inner pockets - something made much more difficult by all the equipment he was wearing. But, with only a bit of inhuman contortion, he managed. He removed first his Amity Park Public Library Card (simple plastic, slightly bent, all relevant information printed on it), and then his Library of Tongues card (lacquered wood, with a large burnt spot in the center, otherwise blank).

She examined both of them, both with her eyes and with an unfamiliar ghost power that left a green sheen on both cards. Satisfied, she nodded to herself.

"You're eligible for the standard rate for Library of Tongues members," she said. "One book, translated, for one week of access. You choose the languages, we choose the book."

Despite the small titter of protest from his parents, Danny nodded. "Deal. Elysian Greek to English." He needed the practice.

The ghost nodded and made a note on a piece of paper. "As a visitor, you are also required to choose one navigational aid." She set out several badges labeled 'visitor.' Each one had a different symbol on it.

"Navigational aid?" asked Danny, examining the symbols. Each was rendered in clear, black lines, their identities obvious. They were candle in a holder with a looped handle, a glass-cased lantern, a feather quill, a magnifying lens, and, finally, a gong, complete with mallet.

"We are called the Lost Library for more reasons than one," said the librarian, primly. "All those who wander are not lost, and we'd like to keep it that way."

Why did everyone seem to think he'd wander off and get lost, lately? It wasn't like it had ever happened. Long term.

Anyway.

"So, I'll be assigned a guide or something? Is that what you mean by aide?"

"Goodness, no. We're all far too busy for that. No, it's a guided alteration. I have some doubts about the efficiency of the system, mind you, but we have yet to figure out anything better." She tapped her finger against the surface of the counter, next to the badges. "Choose."

"Wait!" said Maddie, loudly, in his ear. "Don't just go along with it like that! Ask more questions! What will they do, how will they help?"

DANNY SHOULD CHOOSE…

THE CANDLE

THE LANTERN

THE QUILL

THE LENS

THE GONG

TO ASK MORE QUESTIONS

THE LANTERN

But Danny had already started to reach for the badge with the lantern symbol, entranced by its curlicues and the graceful curve of the glass. The librarian took this as him pointing, and swept all the other badges off the table.

"So, um," said Danny, rubbing the back of his neck, "what kind of an alteration are we talking about, here?" He could practically feel his parents glaring at him, for all that he was a whole dimension away.

"The lantern is the symbol of light," said the librarian. "That's what it gives you. Extra light."

A pretty minor transformation, then, compared to other places he'd been. "Anything else I should know about? Side effects? Library rules?"

"Your Library of Tongues card says you're a minor."

"I mean, when I got it, but that was years ago. I'm over eighteen."

The librarian looked at him skeptically. "Chronologically, perhaps. Board policy restricts minors from accessing age-inappropriate topics. These topics include, but are not limited to, certain sexual and reproductive material, details of portal mechanics and construction, duplication, decomposition of human bodies, summoning rituals, except for instructions on how to prevent oneself from being summoned, metaphysical or core bonding, except for prevention methods, coming of age rituals, customs, and rites, and any similar rituals restricted to adults. Do you accept these restrictions?"

"I'm not sure how I'm going to tell if something includes one of those things without looking at it," said Danny, rocking back slightly. "Why are portals restricted, anyway?" he asked, echoing a question from his Dad.

"Because they are exceedingly dangerous and liable to end people. But you won't need to figure out what is disallowed yourself." She held up a roll of stickers. Most of them were generic circles, but the one on the end was a cute little cluster of stars. In the center of the largest star, the word 'MINOR' was written. "We add these to minors' badges. They're linked to an effect that will prevent you from entering the relevant areas."

"Oh, that's alright, then," said Danny. It grated, a little, but he had more or less accepted that ghosts, much like his parents, were never going to see him as a full adult.

Partially, unfortunately, because he never would be.

The librarian stuck the sticker on the badge. "As for other rules," she began, "common courtesy applies. No fights. Capturing pests like dire bookworms is fine. No damage to the library. Food items should not leave marked areas. Do not attempt to remove books from the library." She tapped the visitor's badge against the counter and began to make another note on her pad of paper. "And be quiet, or the lost ones might take you, I suppose."

Danny's eyebrows went up. "Lost ones?"

"A legend," said the librarian. "Every so often, a story circulates about people becoming permanently lost in the lower levels of the library. I've never seen evidence of anything of the sort happening. We do send out search parties for those guests who fail to leave when their time is up. Speaking of which, if you manage to get lost, you will be required to take two aids on your next visit."

The librarian finished writing her note and inserted it into a slot on her desk. "The copyists' room has been informed that you will be arriving and your preferences regarding the translation. They will give you the book you will be translating." She held the visitor's badge out to Danny. "Clip this to the front of your clothes and try not to lose it. It's much more tedious to undo the alterations when you leave if you don't have it."

"They don't just disappear when you leave?" asked Danny. That was unusual. Most transformations like this were location-dependent.

"They do, eventually, but since they aren't entirely natural, they tend to stick a little more. So. Don't lose the badge." She wiggled the badge a little.

Danny took it and briefly searched for a part of himself that wasn't covered with equipment and would fit the badge. It was harder than he'd thought it would be, but he managed.

The transformation hit almost immediately.

Most of the glow a ghost produced wasn't in their skin, but their aura, hovering less than an inch above it. Danny's aura flared and billowed out, going from moon-like to a luminous nimbus Danny could probably read by.

Actually, Danny reflected as his aura stretched out even further, pulling gently but firmly on his core, someone twenty or thirty feet away could read comfortably in this much light.

His parents exclaimed over the change in brightness and ecto-energy readings, the light no doubt whiting out their video.

He swayed slightly, and blinked hard as some mechanism in his eyes and perception shifted to accommodate the light. He reached out to the counter to steady himself, and was surprised when his hand hit not the counter, but the wall. Somehow, the equipment he had so carefully put on felt loose, precarious, as if he was going to–

At the last minute, he managed to catch the complex camera rig and lower it to the ground. Then, he decided that sitting down would be good for him, too. He put his head between his knees as best he could, stripping off a few more pieces of recording equipment to do so, and waited for the waves of dizziness to pass.

Finally, he looked up. He could see down the long reception room as easily as before, but it was much better illuminated now. He held his hand up in front of himself. The first thing he noticed was how light seemed to trail after it, a sort of neon afterimage, almost like something in a video game.

Then, he noticed how small it was.

He jumped to his feet, then off them, so he could properly grasp at the counter. He only vaguely noticed that his usual jumpsuit had been replaced with loose pants and a smock that fell to his knees. His hands left glowing prints on the wood.

"You didn't tell me I was going to shrink!" he hissed.

The librarian held up her hands. "Usually, it's not quite so severe." Her eyes practically twinkled. "But you must admit, that it is much easier to tell who is a minor at a glance, this way."

Danny huffed, drew his eyes down over himself again, then deliberately flew in front of the cameras, light trailing behind him, lingering in the air like ink in water. "How old do I look right now?" he asked his parents.

"Oh, dear," said Maddie.

"I was never good with ages," said Jack.

"Five, I think. You looked like this when you started school. Danny, maybe you should come home."

"I already made the deal to translate, backing out would be bad form." He looked around at the equipment he'd shed during his transformation. "I'm probably not going to be able to bring most of this, though… It won't fit, and my arms just aren't big enough to grab on to everything." Although, he could probably drag it around with telekinesis. That required an awful lot of concentration, though, and he wasn't sure he could manage it.

"You can leave what you can't take in here," said the librarian. "We have a coat room for just such a purpose."

Well, that was one problem solved. Now he just had to decide what he could take. The Fenton Phones, of course, since they still fit alright in his ears, but what else?

DANNY SHOULD TAKE…

THE BROAD ECTO-SPECTRUM CAMERAS

THE MEDICAL MONITORS

THE AMBIENT ECTO ARRAY

THE FENTON FINDER (23RD VERSION)

THE EMERGENCY SELF-DEFENSE SYSTEM (IN BETA)

THE ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY DETECTORS

THE BROAD ECTO-SPECTRUM CAMERAS

After a small amount of dithering, Danny took the cameras. He was here to show his parents the library, and he couldn't do that if they couldn't see it. The ambient array could collect data here as well as anywhere else. The Fenton Finder's 23rd iteration was as buggy as the first. He'd actually done a small amount of sabotage to the 'self-defense system' to make it safe to carry around, so… Yeah.

The only things he felt at all bad about leaving were the medical monitors and the environmental safety detectors. Both of those had helped him in the past. The Lost Library was supposed to be safe, though. It wasn't a truce zone or anything, but people didn't go there to fight, and the librarians were supposed to take care of any environmental dangers that popped up (mostly because things that could endanger ghosts could certainly endanger books). The Library of Tongues did that, anyway.

He did have to rearrange and remove some of the cameras, especially the redundant ones and the ones that weren't taking his amplified aura well, so that they fit on his much-reduced frame, but they were made to be serviceable, and soon he was ready.

The coat room, as it turned out, was right behind the reception desk.

"There are doors that aren't visible or that won't open for you unless you're a member or have a badge," the librarian explained as she put the equipment on a shelf. "Another reason not to lose yours."

"Where's the way in?" asked Danny.

"This way."

The librarian led him back around, then to the side of the desk. Here, again, the wall had folded back into a set of doors, this one more ornate.

"The copyist's room attendants will meet you down the hallway," said the librarian, sitting back down at her desk.

Danny nodded. "Thank you."

The hallway forked right sharply. A ghost woman with bronze skin and dark hair was waiting there, not far from the corner. There was a spiral on the center of her forehead in what looked like gold wire under her skin. The outside end of it disappeared under her hairline.

"Oh my," she said, hiding her mouth behind a pair of bell-like sleeves, "you're so cute. Iphigenia didn't tell me you were cute."

Danny made a face.

"Ah! Precious! How old are you?"

"I was fourteen when I died," said Danny, flatly. "I don't know why places like this make me tiny, but I'm not."

"You must be young at heart."

Danny squinted at her.

"Mm? Are you looking at this?" she asked, pointing at her spiral. Danny shrugged, then nodded. He hadn't been, not really, but in the interest of changing the subject… "It's what members of the library have instead of another alteration. It's like the fires you get at the Library of Tongues." The spiral moved, retreating, unwinding, vanishing under her hair and then spiraling out onto the palm she offered up to Danny. "It's called the Lìshǐ Yánxù De Jīn Xiàn, although ghosts from western cultures call it Ariadne's String. No sense of pride for their work, I swear." She shook her head. "So, if you get lost, or need help finding something, find someone with one of these, okay? We have a pretty big children's collection, believe it or not."

"I'm not really a child."

"Oh! So mature!" She poked his cheek, then stood up and opened the door behind her. "Let's get you situated."

The copyist's room was large and brightly lit, lined with beehive-like cubbies that served as shelving for scrolls. There were several work tables spread throughout the room, and a mid-sized manual printing press. There were two other ghosts in the room. One, a stressed-looking larger man with a curly, box-cut beard, and the other a severely thin, angular man with a long, looping tail.

Both wore guest badges, and both had features that did not seem to match the rest of their appearances. The severe-looking man had large, fluffy, soft-looking wings with feathers that twitched and shifted near constantly. He had a quill badge clipped to the belt of his tunic. The other, larger man had moth antennae and wings, but also enormous, ribbed bat ears. He had not one but two badges attached to his robe-like wrap, the candle and the gong.

"Now," said the attendant, "I know you said that you wanted to do Ancient Greek to English, and when people say Ancient Greek, they mean Ancient Greek from Life, not old Zone dialects, but the Mausoleum of Macaria tipped into the Acheron a few weeks ago, and were swamped with Elysian, Asphodelian, and Tartarian Greek. Especially Tartarian Greek. Would you mind doing something from one of those? It would be much shorter than what we'd give you in regular Ancient Greek, only a few pages."

She looked at him hopefully.

"It would really help if you knew any of them," she added.

DANNY SHOULD…

STICK WITH REGULAR ANCIENT GREEK

PICK THE FAST EASY ROUTE WITH ELYSIAN GREEK

TEST OUT HIS GRASP OF ASPHODELIAN GREEK

CHALLENGE HIMSELF WITH UNFAMILIAR TARTARIAN GREEK

PICK THE FAST EASY ROUTE WITH ELYSIAN GREEK

It wasn't the practice he'd been intending, but… "I'm fluent in Elysian Greek." That was the dialect Pandora's people used.

"Oh, thank goodness," said the attendant, handing him a pair of scrolls. "People have been requesting these, and of course we don't get many people who know those dialects out this way, so…"

"Right," said Danny. "Where should I…?"

"Oh, right here! But… oh dear, I'll need to find a booster seat…"

"I don't need one," said Danny, quickly. "I can just hover."

Danny needed one.

(But unlike what the attendant said, he didn't look absolutely adorable in it, nor was he perfectly precious when pouting. He wasn't pouting at all!)

He unrolled the original scroll, weighing it down with the scroll weights on the table, then did the same to the blank scroll he was copying onto.

"Are arrangements like this common?" asked Mom.

"What arrangements?" murmured Danny, keeping his voice down.

"Arrangements between groups of ghosts. Between your library and this one."

"The library network is a bit unusual," said Danny. The scroll appeared to be a transcription of the life story of an Eleusinian farmer. "The Library of Tongues gets relatively good deals, too, since most libraries need translators at least some of the time. But there are other groups that do similar things. Like, alliances and stuff between Realms. I think the Goblin Market started off that way. And there are the universities. Schools. Museums, too, but I don't mess with them."

"Why not?" asked Dad. "I'd think that they'd work closely with translators."

"Well, yeah, but museums aren't always very good about asking. And a lot of them get overly interested in things that are one of a kind." Like Danny himself. He trimmed the quill pen provided to him and dipped it in the inkwell. He started writing.

"Oh, avoiding them is probably a good idea."

"You don't have to sound so surprised, Mom," said Danny. "I have all sorts of good ideas." He wrote in relative silence for a while, pen scratching at the scroll.

"What's in that?" asked Dad.

"The writing? Record of someone's life. Not very long." He hummed and contemplated how to translate a complicated religious passage.

"Where were they from?"

"And when?" added Mom.

"Eleusis," said Danny. "And, hm, there's not a date. Usually stuff like this is pretty old, though."

"Eleusis. As in the Eleusinian Mysteries?"

"Yeah, I think so. This doesn't really say anything about them, but I'm sure there's stuff in the library proper that does. Why?"

Mom sighed. "Sometimes, finding things in the Ghost Zone, it's a bit like time travel without the time travel. It's a window into history."

Danny frowned slightly. It was history, and books were always a bit like that, but it wasn't as if the person who the scroll was about was necessarily gone. There was a very good chance that they still existed. They had already been dead when they'd dictated this.

Well, it didn't matter, he supposed. It was very unlikely that they'd ever meet the guy. He wasn't sure why it bothered him, anyway.

He finished the scroll and rolled it up. He looked up scanning the room for the attendant. His eyes, however, caught on the large man with the bat ears and moth wings. He looked like he was suffering, his skin soft and melty. The thin man didn't look like he was having a good time, either, fighting with his wings and an over-the-shoulder bag. Oh, and there was something broken on that printing press that he could definitely fix. And then, if he thought about it, this translation hadn't taken him long at all. He could certainly afford the time to do a few more.

… Danny realized, then, that in addition to not having much of a chance to travel and explore, lately, he hadn't had much opportunity to indulge his primary Obsession beyond helping in the lab, and now that he wasn't swamped in the haze of cabin fever, it was itching its way out of his skin.

He was going to be horribly nosy about things. He could just feel it. All the practice in minding his own business he'd gotten in high school was years ago now.

DANNY SHOULD HELP…

THE ATTENDANT BY TRANSLATING ANOTHER SCROLL

THE LARGE MAN WITH HIS WORK

THE THIN MAN WITH HIS BAG

BY FIXING THE PRINTING PRESS

Danny didn't actually know that the other two people in the room needed help. Maybe that's what they looked like when they were working. And, even though he really shouldn't judge people based on their appearances, the thin man didn't look like he'd be all that amenable to being helped. He also didn't really want to get babied by the attendant. So…

It was probably safest for him to work on the printing press.

The problem wasn't huge, just fiddly, and if he messed up, he had his parents on the other end of the Fenton Phones to help him out. Although how much help they'd be for something this old fashioned (not to mention, not a weapon or tool for ghost hunting) was debatable.

He sidled up to the machine, feeling somewhat ridiculous for even the attempt at stealth when he was bleeding light into the air.

"Danny? What are you doing?" asked Mom.

"Fixing this," said Danny.

"Awesome!" said Jack. "That's a properly old machine right there. A real beauty."

"Are you sure that's wise?" asked Maddie. "They might have left it like this for a reason."

Danny grunted and used a touch of telekinesis to reach and twist a set of screws. With his aura flared out like this, it was surprisingly easy. With a little more work, the broken piece - the part of the press that pressed - came free. Danny examined it for a moment, and then its housing. It looked mainly as if one of the bits that held it to the mechanism above had come loose from the wood, but whoever had been operating the press hadn't noticed the problem in time to stop the pressing, so part of the piece had splintered and another had bent.

After a little more consideration, Danny smoothed out the metal with his fingers.

"Always forget you can do that," mumbled Dad, still clearly audible.

"I don't know why," said Danny, filling in the splintered bits with ice. "It's not like I hide it anymore."

It took a bit longer to match the ice to the wood and make sure the ice wouldn't melt, or cause undue stress on the machine - Mom ran through a couple quick calculations for that - but then, all too soon, Danny was done. Satisfaction filled him briefly, then drained like water through a sieve.

He looked around the room again. The large man was there, frowning more deeply than ever, and there was still the attendant, and the work she had offered, but the thin man had left.

He should just go on, pass his work to the attendant, and start exploring the library, but… He was… How did he feel worse than before?

He had to help.

DANNY SHOULD HELP…

THE ATTENDANT BY TRANSLATING ANOTHER SCROLL

THE LARGE MAN WITH HIS WORK

TIE

For a moment, Danny was paralyzed by indecision. Who should he go to? Who should he help? But then he remembered that this wasn't a combat situation. He could help both, one at a time.

There were, perhaps, some negative side effects from spending his formative years as a ghost as a superhero and satisfying his Obsession through combat. It was very unfortunate. Useful in combat! Less so at other times.

But he should ask the large man first, or else by the time he finished translating for the attendant he might be done. He inched closer, hovering so he could actually see what the man had spread out on his table.

His heart sank when he saw clay tablets and papyrus scrolls covered with the tiny, black squiggles of Coptic.

Danny knew a fair amount of Akkadian cuneiform. While Pandora tended to focus on the immediately and practically applicable when it came to language lessons, Clockwork had a more chronological method. As in, he seemed intent on teaching Danny languages in the order of when they were first written down, except for when a certain language was necessary for one of the time field trips he sometimes sent Danny on.

(He had not, perhaps, revealed the extent of those trips to his parents. A story for another time.)

Coptic was, sadly, not among those.

Still. He was a bit more concerned about the expressions of abject suffering the man was making.

"Um, excuse me? Sir? Are you alright?" asked Danny. He bobbed in the air, near the man's shoulder. "Do you need help?"

The man looked up in clear surprise, eyes flicking over Danny from head to toe. Not that there was a whole lot of Danny to look over right now. "Ah," he said, "I am afraid I have reached beyond my grasp, but unless you have the Coptic and the language of Blessed Sargon both, it is not to be."

"I know some Akkadian. I could translate it into English and then you can put it into Coptic?" suggested Danny.

"Alas, I am going the other way," said the man, pulling slightly on his curly beard. "The Coptic, into mine own language, yes?"

"Oh," said Danny, deflating further. "Okay. Sorry. You just looked, um…"

"Wait," said Dad. "He's from ancient Sumeria? Ask him what that was like! He's got to know so much stuff!"

Danny was not going to ask him that. That would be rude, considering how hard he was working, and edged just a little too close to asking a stranger about their death for Danny's peace of mind.

"That is very dear of you, to come see," said the large man. "Perhaps after this, our paths cross again, hm?"

"Maybe," said Danny. "Sorry for interrupting you."

The man waved him off, already refocusing on his tablets. Danny gathered up his things and hurried to the attendant's desk only to discover that she had been watching him. But for how long?

"Hi!" he said, a little nervous from the pressing need of his Obsession. "I finished this translation, and I was wondering if I could help you out with the others you mentioned? Or other Elysian ones?"

The attendant stared at him for a long moment, and Danny got the distinct and vaguely embarrassing sense that his Obsession had been correctly clocked.

Then her face scrunched up into the expression people made when they had seen something indescribably cute. Ugh.

"Oh my goodness," she said, "that's so lovely and sweet of you to offer! Like I said, we have a pretty big backlog, so any help you can give us there is greatly appreciated. But… if you don't mind doing something that isn't strictly translation, there's something else you can help us with that needs Elysian Greek. Among other things."

"Er, Danno," said Dad, "why are we doing this? I thought you just wanted to give us a look around the library?"

DANNY SHOULD…

OFFER TO TRANSLATE JUST THE TWO SCROLLS THE ATTENDANT MENTIONED PREVIOUSLY.

OFFER TO TRANSLATE A WHOLE BUNCH OF SCROLLS.

ASK ABOUT THE OTHER JOB.

TRY TO EXPLAIN WHAT'S GOING ON TO HIS PARENTS.

ASK ABOUT THE OTHER JOB

"What's that?" asked Danny. "I don't mind doing stuff other than translation." He loved his parents, but they didn't always get it. And, yeah, it wasn't always ghost stuff they didn't get (even a normal teenager would rebel if their parents tried to keep them inside twenty-four seven), but it was mostly ghost stuff. Like why he liked Three Twilights so much, or how comfortable he was around Clockwork. Or exactly what Obsessions were and how they acted.

… Even Danny didn't always understand why he reacted the way he did to certain things when it came to his Obsession. After all, he'd thought he was managing just fine helping his parents with their research and running the occasional errand for Clockwork until this near meltdown. Maybe it was a variety thing? Or the way his parents were so resistant to him helping, lately?

Yeah. Yeah, that could be it. It could be a matter of him subconsciously not feeling like he was being helpful, because they kept telling him to not help.

Ugh. Why did these things have to be so complicated? Obsessions were supposed to be simple! Straightforward!

Stupid complicated social Obsession…

(Not that he'd ever get rid of it, or even want to get rid of it. Helping people was so important.)

"Here," said the attendant, standing from her desk and beckoning him towards an inconspicuous door set in the wall. "I'll show you."

Danny took one last look around the copyists' room, then followed. Behind the door was a twisted hallway– No, not a hallway. The room only looked like that because papers and books were stacked so high on the… desks? Or were there bookshelves under there? Either way, it was maze-like.

The only people they passed had golden loops and curls under their skin, and many of them gave Danny confused or suspicious looks before the attendant greeted them. This was, Danny quickly realized, the staff area of the library, where only members usually went. Most of these people probably weren't even just members, but permanent and semi-permanent residents, if the Lost Library was set up anything like the Library of Tongues.

"You can probably tell that there's a lot to do back here," said the attendant. "Sorting and all that."

"Is that what you need me for?" asked Danny.

"Something like that," said the attendant. She scratched the corner of her jaw. "It's, well, finding things is much more fun than sorting things out so that they're easier to find later. So, we get a backlog, and with the recent influx from the Mausoleum…" She trailed off, seeming to notice Danny's glances of trepidation at the stacks of paper. "Of course, we aren't going to make you do all this! This is years worth of files and plans, and… I think some of it is just sheets of doodles, actually. Some of it is structural, anyway, or otherwise indestructible."

"Indestructible?"

"Well, anytime the last copy of something is destroyed, it winds up here, somewhere. It doesn't matter if it's bad or good, or if it was just someone's meeting notes… if it's the last copy, it's here. Somewhere. And if the last copy is already here…"

"Oh," said Danny, understanding. "I get it. But I'm still not sure what I'm doing…?"

"Oh! Right," said the attendant. "Well, whenever we get new material, it shows up in one of our intake books. But those operate strictly on a chronological basis, and they only give the title and author in the original language. Our card catalog needs the title and author in Middle Chinese, Latin, Esperanto, or English, plus the original, as well as the date of destruction, in order to work properly, so you see the issue."

"So you need me to make the cards for the card catalog from the intake book?"

"Yes! That's it exactly!" said the attendant, making the 'so cute' face again. "You pick up things fast."

"Uh huh," said Danny.

"Now, we're just around the corner– Here!"

There was a relatively clear space, with a long counter on one side and a massive wall of tiny drawers on the other. On the counter rested a set of huge books, each one chained to the counter by a stout golden chain. Some of them were bigger than Danny. Well, bigger than Danny in his current form.

"Why gold?" asked Maddie. "That can't be secure."

"It's probably cursed," said Danny.

"Oh, yes, we have excellent security," said the attendant, happily. "Or, well, the books do, anyway." She went to the thinnest of the books and opened it up to the last few pages. "Here, this is where you want to start. You can make the cards in any of the languages I mentioned, and the catalog will take care of the rest. What else… Here's a reference of what the cards look like." She handed him a rectangular piece of card with a large dark stain on one corner. "Don't mind the stain."

"Right," said Danny, looking over the format. "Where can I find blank ones?"

"Drawers under the counter," said the attendant. "Oh, and stay here, alright? Some people don't like it when guests are back here. And it's also, well, a maze. I don't want you to get lost."

"So, um. Are you staying here?" asked Danny.

"Oh, no, I really can't," said the attendant. "I'll check in on you in an hour or so, and then maybe I can show you the children's section! If you don't want to keep working, that is."

"Uh huh," said Danny, dubiously.

"And thank you so much. We really need this done."

Danny sat down in one of the chairs at the counter, glowered at the edge of the counter, which was about even with his nose, then got some books to stack up in the seat so he could see over it properly. Then, he started to work.

"Why doesn't their card catalog work with other languages?" asked Mom. "That seems like an oversight."

"Four is already a good number for things like that," said Danny. He glanced over his shoulder at the wall of drawers. "If you make something like that too smart, it'll develop sentience and start to

"Er, Danno," said Dad, "why are you doing this? Don't get me wrong, it's interesting! But not what I thought we were doing."

Danny sighed, and began the long process of explaining his problems to his parents.

About half an hour in, Danny noticed the quality of light had changed. He looked up. First at the ceiling, then around the clear area. Glowing veins of light traced through the air in one of the gaps between piles of paper. Veins of light that Danny hadn't caused. The ones he'd made on his way in had all but faded. He frowned. He'd definitely gotten the impression that there shouldn't be any other guests here.

Maybe someone had gotten lost.

Or maybe it was another guest getting a tour or helping with something back here. Danny doubted all of the guests were translators, after all, and they had to earn their way in somehow.

DANNY SHOULD…

INVESTIGATE THE TRAIL OF LIGHT.

STAY PUT AND KEEP WORKING.

ASK IF ANYONE IS THERE.

"Hello?" called Danny. "Is anyone there? Hello?"

There was no answer except a further flicker of light, more distant.

Danny touched his tongue to his lips briefly, then marked his place in the intake book using one of the blank cards. He slid out of the chair and off his stack of books to stand. The cold wood and iron of the floor made him rethink that and he floated up. It was better that way, anyway, in terms of vantage point.

He approached the gap between shelves. "Hello?"

Looking out into the passageway beyond, the light seemed to wrap around and layer over itself with different levels of brightness. Danny looked back at his own trail of brilliance, saw where it faded, saw where it was fresh and new. This other trail, it looked like someone had walked this way multiple times. Going in circles, maybe?

He floated upward, trying for a better vantage point and jostled a set of what looked like windchimes, long triangular metal rods covered in tiny symbols gathered together under domes. They jingled and jangled musically in the muffling silence of the library. He stilled them with one hand.

There was movement out of the corner of his eye and turned. There, just before the passageway bent around a particularly precarious collection of papers, floated a ghost.

It was a very strange ghost. It glowed like a small sun, and if Danny's eyes hadn't been changed by his own alteration, he wasn't sure he'd be able to look at it. It had long, long ears, shaped mostly like a bat's but furred like a cat's. Their eyes, too, were catlike, slitted. It had wings, and at their ends they were thin and flat, like a moth's or butterfly's, but they were fluffy with fur and feathers near their bases, and there was something birdlike about their structure there as well. Its body was relatively small, and looked soft, although it wasn't nearly as small as Danny currently was. Danny couldn't tell if the ghost was male or female or something else entirely.

But perhaps the strangest thing of all was the pervasive sense of silence it carried with it.

In any case, Danny saw no golden thread, and some of the other features - like the light - seemed to match with the aids offered to guests. Only, like. A lot of them. All at once. Meaning they must've gotten lost a whole bunch of times, even if Danny couldn't see any visitor badges on them.

"Um, hi," said Danny. "I noticed, um. Are you lost? The attendant should be coming before too long."

The faintest of breezes tickled the back of his neck and he looked behind him, to the other end of the passage. There was another almost identical ghost hovering there.

"Um." Danny was, perhaps, getting just a little nervous about the silent staring.

More light. Yet another similar ghost floated at the opposite entry to the card catalog space. And–

Danny moved backwards, into more open space as the area brightened further and more luminous, winged ghosts floated into view or poked heads up over shelves and other barriers.

"Danny," said Mom.

"Not now," said Danny. He blinked.

Next thing he knew, fingers were brushing his throat. He flinched backwards and away. Fast. Either naturally so, or via alteration. Or, if they weren't visitors, maybe because of a home-field advantage or disadvantage on Danny's part. Some places did that, and he hadn't been here long enough to determine if this was one of them.

"I don't want to fight," he said. Or tried to say. He went through the motions, but his voice made no sound. He made no sound, period, not even the sound of his tongue tapping against the roof of his mouth.

He'd been silenced. Not good. That meant that not only could he not negotiate, he couldn't call for help.

He was left with limited options, and limited time to choose between them. Luckily, those same battle-born reflexes and reactions that were inconvenient elsewhere served him well now and gave him the chance to choose.

He could fight. The librarians would be unhappy. It was against the rules that the receptionist had given to him, and likely to damage the books and card catalog, so he'd probably be kicked out. But, if he fought, he was sure he'd win, even with these numbers, and that would be safer than his other options. He couldn't imagine that this many people ganging up on someone who looked like they were five meant well.

He could flee. He would almost certainly get lost, but that was a lesser crime than damaging the card catalog. Whether or not he'd get caught… well, he had about the same amount of experience running as fighting, but he usually wasn't running from a group this large in unfamiliar territory and facing unfamiliar powers. These silent ghosts could have further unpleasant abilities.

He could freeze. Literally. He could build a shell of ice and ghost shields up around himself and hunker down until he either thought of a better plan or the attendant came back. That might put the attendant in danger, but Danny didn't know if it would be more danger than if he just ran away. Anything other than fighting and winning decisively meant that these people would still be around. But if they were meant to be here… if the attendant could negotiate with them or authorize a fight…

Too much speculation. He had the space of a breath in which to act. Less.

SHOULD DANNY…

FIGHT.

FLEE.

FREEZE.

FREEZE

Danny got a shield up just before the strange, silent ghosts charged. He built ice up on both sides of it, forming a perfect sphere around himself. He interspersed the next outer layer with small bursts of power, driving away attackers. Then, he braced himself midair with his telekinesis to keep himself and his ice-sphere from falling.

Even with the strange boost that seemed to accompany the increased brilliance and size of his aura, this was draining. He should probably anchor himself to the floor or shelves. He didn't like the idea of being rolled around.

But when he tried, dropping to the bottom of the sphere, it stayed in place, only bobbing a little before stilling. As Danny had been at least two feet off the ground when he made the sphere, that could not possibly bode well.

He pressed his hands against the inner curve of the shield and used the ice to channel another wave of ecto-energy, hoping to knock away anyone holding on to the sphere. It still didn't move. He tugged on it experimentally with his telekinesis, but it was like trying to move a mountain.

"Danny? Danny, can you hear us?"

Right. His parents had been trying to get his attention for a while. Unfortunately, he was still silenced.

He held one hand in full view of the camera and started finger spelling.

-CANT SPEAK-

"What?" said Dad, after translating letter by letter. "Why? Did those no-good spooks hurt you?"

Danny shook his head -NOT HURT POWER- He shook his hand out, briefly. -CAN U SEE PAST ICE-

"I'm trying," said Maddie. "There's a lot of interference. At least one ghost power other than yours is in effect around the ice."

Yeah, Danny had known that. He didn't expect his parents to be able to tell what powers were being used - he knew that telekinesis at least had to be involved in keeping him still - but he was hoping to get some idea of where the ghosts out there were and how they were moving. The light was too bright for Danny to see any shadows from outside, and there was no sound but silence.

He rapped his knuckles against the ice. No sound. That was going to drive him crazy if it kept up.

"I'm picking up movement," said Maddie. "Lots of movement. Sweetie, I think you should bail."

The bubble of ice abruptly shifted sideways. Danny snarled silently and tried to fight the motion with his own telekinesis, but even if he was incredibly strong in comparison to most ghosts, quantity, in this case, won out.

Most ghosts didn't use telekinesis in combat unless it was on something they had a particular affinity for. Like, for example, Poindexter with school supplies. It was too finicky, and there were too many things that could go wrong, like getting your auras tangled. Danny didn't know how these guys were doing it.

The shell of ice shifted again. Danny didn't want to see where they were moving him to - or, okay, maybe he did, but in a safer way - but if he broke out, he'd have a nasty fight on his hands. Even if he wanted to run, he'd have to fight at least some of them.

SHOULD DANNY…

BURST OUT.

WAIT

Well. Danny's literal fatal flaw was curiosity. He wanted to see where this would go.

He could always turn human and walk away later. Or fall away. Or something. Danny wasn't sure that the library had a bottom to fall out of. Some places in the Zone didn't follow normal spatial rules. A lot of places in the Zone didn't follow normal spatial rules.

His parents probably wouldn't see it that way, though, so he just… wasn't going to mention it to them. Finger spelling about it would take too long anyway.

"Danny, honey, I know you wanted to show us what the library was like, but you can come back later."

"Or never!"

Yeah, that was what Danny was afraid of. He didn't want to go home just to lose it from being stuck inside all the time.

The ghosts outside moved the ice sphere with unsettling smoothness. If it wasn't for his acute sense of balance, he wouldn't know it was moving at all. On the other hand, the aura-tugs of telekinesis were very obvious, worrying at his aura even through the ice.

That was… disturbing. He had to consider how that power would behave in a fight. Disturbingly well, he'd guess, if they could keep up the coordination. You could just grab your enemy and hold them down.

Or, well, not so much if your enemy had any kind of ranged powers themselves, but still. Like he said, if they could keep it up…

The orb dropped, as if falling down some kind of shaft, and Danny barely kept himself from smacking against the bottom when it stopped. Then, the smooth forward motion started again.

It was very bright down here. He had to squint.

The sphere dipped again.

"It looks like they've put you down on some kind of… ring stand. This might be a good time to act, Danny."

Danny nodded. That was true, but he still–

He flinched as something silently impacted the outside of the sphere, and then- Were they drawing something on the outside? Something… Danny leaned forward, leaning against the inner wall to get a better look at it.

It looked like a glowing version of one of the aid symbols on the visitor badges.

DANNY SEES…

THE CANDLE

THE QUILL

THE LENS

THE GONG

THE CANDLE

Yes, it looked just like the candle symbol from the visitor badges. Why–?

Sharp pain spiked along his shoulder blades and spine, then diluted into an almost comfortable stretching, growing sensation. A similar, but smaller sensation centered on his eyes and temples.

"Danny? Danny, are you alright? Oh, you should have taken the health monitor, I knew it–"

Danny waved off their concerns with a few hand symbols, and tried to assess what was happening to his body.

He had experienced many changes during his exploration of the Infinite Realms, but this one felt weirdly brutal. Maybe because it wasn't a place applying the changes, or the influence of a particularly powerful ghost, but a kind of magical symbol?

That was something he'd have to explore later.

For now, he at least had a theory as to where these ghosts came from. Taking all their strange traits together, they seemed to be a combination of the five 'aids' given to visitors. Maybe the first of them were people who'd gotten lost too often, and then they learned how to reproduce the changes in others?

Danny, panting slightly, got to his feet, his new wings and antennae twitching uncomfortably. The main wings were large enough that they brushed the bottom and sides of the sphere while folded, and the secondary set of wings had long, twisty tails, like a luna moth (thank you, Sam, for the childhood bug phase). Meanwhile, his antennae were large, feathery, and picking up sensations his brain wasn't entirely equipped to handle, although his core was doing a good job of it.

Also… was he smaller? Again?

Not the time. But, someday, he would figure out what force of nature always made him tiny, and then they'd be having words.

Danny had to leave before another symbol was drawn on the ice. It was starting to look like the quill, and he did not want to be soft and fluffy.

Even if the light it was made of looked very entrancing…

Stop that.

He raised his hand and spelled out a word.

-NAVIGATE-

"What do you mean, navigate?"

"He means when he gets out, Jack. He must not be able to see very well."

Danny could actually see just fine, but that was probably going to be part of the problem, if he was going to be attracted to light like a moth. He needed his parents to keep him on track.

With that sorted out, he put his hands on the ice (and it was harder to get the angle he wanted, gosh darn it, so his arms probably were shorter), focused, pulled on the deep well of cold energy inside him… even if the term 'cold energy' still made the nascent scientist inside him cringe… shut up, it was a useful way to think about it…

The sphere shattered in a wave of ice and force, and Danny picked a direction at random. Well, almost random. At first, he veered towards the brightest light source, but remembered himself (and realized that the brightest light source was the people) at the last minute.

"Wall!" shouted his parents, and he banked.

"There's a hallway at your ten o'clock," said Mom. He turned, and, yes, he could see a square of… not darkness. There was too much light going through it. It must be a pretty common route into and out of this larger space.

Danny took it anyway. Simply speaking, there was no way he was going to be able to effectively hide. He was leaving a literal trail of light as he moved. The ghosts here would be able to follow him without any trouble. What he needed was speed, so he could get out of here and find library members who would, hopefully, know how to deal with this, before any pursuers caught up with him.

He felt telekinesis reach out to him and try to power through his aura, but he he threw off the grasp.

There was that, too. He had to stay out of range of their mass telekinesis.

"If my readings are right–" started Dad.

"No," said Mom. There was a ripping noise. "Turn right, sweetie!"

"There should be a staircase or something similar–"

"They're trying to cut you off," said Mom. "Left, now right again."

"Might have to double back–"

"There's no way. Keep going, Danny."

"See if I can find another one–"

Unexpectedly, a ghost popped up in front of Danny. Far enough away that he could easily avoid them, but that light! The brightness of the symbol they held in their hands! It was so… so…

SHOULD DANNY…

CONTINUE ESCAPING

BE ENTRANCED BY THE LIGHT

CONTINUE ESCAPING

Despite the oddly entrancing quality of the light, Danny turned away and flew down another row of bookshelves.

Part of Danny, the curious part that had been so starved lately, wanted to try to read the titles as they flashed by. This place felt so deep in the library, people probably didn't come here often. Another niggling part of him was wondering if the ghosts down here really did need help, if they were lost and stuck and all of this was just some side effect of too many applied transformations.

Danny decided both of these parts were stupid, since he had been attacked and was currently being chased.

Were the transformations affecting his Obsessions somehow?

"Found an opening," said Dad. "You'll need to fly up."

Danny angled himself upward. The bookshelves were tall enough to touch even the high, vaulted ceilings here, so he'd still have to navigate the maze.

"Danny, what if you turned human? Would you be able to phase through the ceiling?"

Good question. He generally didn't like to turn human high above the ground, because he couldn't fly very well as a human, but maybe if he found a bookshelf that ended before the ceiling…

A shining light below caught his attention, and he looked down to see a group of ghosts. Together, they carried a large poster with a glowing symbol on it. The quill symbol, if he wasn't mistaken.

As if acknowledging his attention, the symbol glowed brighter. He wanted to fly over to it, to touch it. It was so dark up here, in comparison.

DANNY SHOULD…

KEEP LOOKING FOR A WAY UP

TRY TO TURN HUMAN AND PHASE THROUGH THE CEILING

HEAD FOR THE LIGHT

TRY TO TURN HUMAN AND PHASE THROUGH THE CEILING

His impulse to approach the light was getting stronger. He needed to be somewhere else when it finally got too hard to resist. If that meant taking some risks, so be it.

There weren't any places for him to land that would give him good access to the ceiling, so he was going to have to fly in human form. Joy.

He flew up, tracing out a jagged pattern to avoid the silent ghosts, high enough to touch the ceiling. He gritted his teeth, focusing.

Now.

His rings strobed over him, far brighter than usual, blindingly bright, and then–

Apparently, the applied alterations functioned even in his human form. He wasn't– He didn't–

Humans didn't generally have wings. They didn't have the internal structures for it. These wings hadn't been grown in his human form.

He lost focus.

He fell.

It wasn't the first time he'd fallen from a height in human form. He caught himself long before he was in danger of hitting the ground. But now he was near the ground again. Nearer the ghosts chasing him.

Darn it.

He darted back up, but now he couldn't spare the time to brace himself to transform. He'd have to rely on momentum to carry him through the ceiling. Higher, faster, the light was close enough behind him to burn his eyes even as it drew them in. The mosaic decoration of the ceiling blazed in the illumination.

He changed.

Still going up. Up. Through.

He fell hard on a floor inches under him, and slid into a nearby bookshelf at speed, knocking it over. It, and several others, falling one after another like dominoes. The last made a horrible, huge crash, and then the library was silent again. Danny cringed at the mess. He'd have to apologize. A lot.

(He couldn't stay to clean it up, he told himself, even if his Obsession itched at him to do so. Priorities.)

Uncertainly, he got to his feet. He wasn't glowing nearly as much as he had been in ghost form, but he was still glowing, and it made him feel dizzy. The way his clothes hung off his much-reduced frame added to the disorientation.

Carefully, he pulled off his t-shirt, freeing his wings. Like this, they didn't hurt so much.

"You might have better luck sneaking this way," said Dad. "But… you usually aren't affected in human form, too, are you?"

Danny held his hand in front of the camera and tilted it back and forth. It depended. Sometimes he just didn't know, too, because he stayed in ghost form the entire time.

Off to one side, at least several rows over, light grew, like a slowly approaching sunrise. Danny must have been nearer an actual set of stairs or other opening than he'd thought.

He forced himself to look up rather than at the increasingly attractive light. If he transformed now, the flash of light would draw the attention of anything with eyes, but the ceiling here was too far away for him to reach in human–

The sound of something shifting in the pile of fallen books and shelves was like a gunshot going off in the silence. Danny could almost feel the attention of the light turning his way and approaching.

He should run, but… something about that sound…

It happened again. Something shifting under the pile. As if someone had been trapped there and was trying to get out.

There were lots of people in the library that had nothing to do with the fight between Danny and the silent ghosts. It was far from impossible for one of them to have been down here, browsing the lower shelves.

Could Danny run, and leave them to face the quiet ghosts themselves? Could Danny take the risk of staying and searching, not even knowing if anyone was there?

(Could he keep his focus on anything but the light?)

DANNY SHOULD…

TRANSFORM AND FLY UP

TRY TO SNEAK AWAY IN HUMAN(ISH) FORM

LOOK FOR GHOSTS UNDER THE FALLEN SHELVES

SEEK THE LIGHT

LOOK FOR GHOSTS UNDER THE FALLEN SHELVES

If there was someone under the shelves Danny had knocked over, Danny couldn't leave them there. He wouldn't be able to live with himself. Or half-live with himself. Whatever. Stupid reflexive death joke.

Missing most of his height, he didn't have the leverage he usually would, but in human form he could phase his arms right through the books and shelves before pulling them up and tossing them to the side with his relatively meager human strength. Unfortunately, this made a lot of noise. Not from things he was touching, or things he was throwing, but from things those things bumped into.

The light was getting closer, brighter. He didn't have a lot of time.

He worked in the direction he'd heard the first sounds, ghost half thrumming under his skin. He wanted to be in ghost form, he wanted to be ready to fight. He didn't like facing such a large, unknown group in human form. Oh, sure, he'd done similar things before, when there was need for it, like when Youngblood and Ember had kidnapped all the adults and stolen the ghost shield generator, but there were substantial differences between that and this.

"Danny? Danny? What is he doing?"

He didn't have time to explain. Finger spelling wasn't an efficient method of communication.

The light was like a spotlight. He wasn't looking. He wasn't looking.

He flipped over another shelf, revealing the thin, tailed ghost with large feathered wings that Danny had seen in the copyists' room when he'd first come in. He looked harried, and his bag was torn, but he was otherwise intact.

"What is wrong with you?" he hissed. "Do you–"

Danny tried to put his hand over the ghost's mouth, but it was too small to be an effective muffle. However, it did make the ghost pause long enough to actually look at Danny.

A thin smile stretched out over his thin face. "You've attracted their attention, haven't you? The quiet ones. Finally."

The ghost loomed over Danny, and Danny saw that the torn bag contained stacks of spent visitor badges, the ink on them faded, but still visible. They had notes written on them in shiny black ink.

"I've been researching them forever, coming back down here again and again." He looked up, eyes wild and reflective under the light, and his long-fingered hand came down on Danny's shoulder. "You're trying to run, aren't you? Can't have that, I need to see an actual transformation - don't worry, you'll be able to spend as much time in the library as you want, after."

Oh, heck, this guy was nuts. Nuts, and bad at guessing Obsessions. Not that being nuts was particularly unusual for ghosts, but in this case, it was particularly inconvenient.

Danny swiped at the ghost's face with an ecto-charged hand and phased out of his grip. Judging by the brightness, he had only seconds before the quiet ones got here.

"Wait! Don't go! I can already see why they like you, you'll be so small, so soft–"

For Danny, that wasn't exactly a recommendation. He dove into the triangular space between a fallen bookshelf and a wall, and shimmied sideways until the gap let back out into the more usual maze of shelves, and then he ran, his footfalls mute against the stone and tile floor.

"He was here!" he heard the thin ghost shout, his voice growing fainter as Danny moved further away. "Over here! Please, please come back! I need to see!"

Jerk.

"That was awful of him!" shouted Dad, suddenly, making Danny wince at the volume. "I can't believe he did that after you dug him out!"

Danny shrugged, hoping they'd pick up on the motion even if they wouldn't be able to directly see it. Although, with how he was moving it would probably be difficult… Either way, it wasn't the first time someone he'd helped had backstabbed him, and it wouldn't be the last. And Danny had dropped those bookshelves on him in the first place, so…

"It's too bad you can't change again," said Dad, after another minute went by. "That trick of going up through the ceiling bought you a lot of time, even if, um, you know."

Danny grimaced. He could transform. It was just that he didn't want to attract the quiet ones. He wasn't sure he could outfly them like that again. They were close. And if Danny read the movements of the light right, many had taken to the air and were searching from above.

No, it would be best if he stayed like this,

"I'm trying to find another way up," said Mom. "I'm assuming you can't change for some reason - your hands still look human - so I'm trying to find other ways up." She sighed, the sound staticy in Danny's ear. "If we had our other equipment, this would be so much easier."

Maybe. But Danny's new size was making even this equipment unwieldy. He adjusted a camera slightly. Until they gave him a heading, he'd just focus on moving away from the light.

Although… In most other buildings Danny had been in, stairs that led down and stairs that led up were closely placed to one another. The stairs might very well be in the opposite direction from where he was going.

He made a face. Was his moth-ified brain just making up reasons to go back to the light? Or was that legitimate reasoning? He couldn't tell.

"I'm getting some readings… but they look like they're from back where all the other ghosts are," said Mom. There was a tiny click from one of the smaller cameras pinned to Danny's shirt. "Even with the filters to take out inanimate objects…"

"I thought those were still buggy."

"They are."

Danny licked his lips and looked back over his shoulder. He'd gotten far enough away that the light was not so bright as it had been, but it was still there. It was still… pressing. Arresting, even.

DANNY SHOULD…

CONTINUE TO SNEAK.

TRANSFORM AND FLY UP.

GO BACK TO THE LIGHT.

CONTINUE TO SNEAK.

No, no, no. He didn't want to go back there. He wasn't going back there. That was stupid. That would be stupid. No.

He shook his head and started to run, heedless of how the motion jostled and pulled at his wings. Shelves were no obstacles. He wanted to be away, far away. He… Once he got up to the higher floors, then he could bask in as much light as he wanted, far away from these strange people.

Although, if he got up there, he would be getting out of this form and back to his usual one as soon as possible. Usually, he would want to stay and figure things out, but, well… He didn't think this particular mystery was going to vanish in a hurry. He could come back.

After a few minutes, the light behind him began to fade again. He let out a short sigh of relief. He was outpacing them.

Once he got to a wall, he'd phase through, and if the room looked empty, he'd transform and fly up so he could phase through the ceiling. And then he'd just keep on doing that until he found some librarians. Or at least normal ghosts. Normal ghosts who weren't researching the quiet ones.

It took a few more minutes of running before he reached the wall, but when he did, he had to stop.

Instead of more bookshelves, the wall was covered with a great mural. The style was simple, symbolic, but the colors were luminous, and the drawings were captioned in a curling ghost script that was sometimes used to write Esperanto.

"Huh," said Dad. "That looks a bit like you, doesn't it, Danno?"

Danny had been trying to ignore that, actually. No disrespect to Clockwork, but Danny really didn't like prophecies. Once, Clockwork had said something about it being because Danny had broken his own fate, but Danny liked talking about… that… even less than prophecies, so he hadn't asked any more questions about that particular topic.

In this case… Danny was pretty sure his resemblance was coincidental. the figure in the mural wasn't him. Yes, it had hair like his, his size in comparison to adult figures was about the same, and he had been dressed similarly, but the figure in the mural was colorful, their smock or dress rendered in scintillating patterns his simply did not have, and their hair was longer.

His eyes flicked over the header, the captions.

The One Who Will Return Us

The Cursebreaker Approaches as a Child of the Lantern

Receiving the Signs of Candle, Quill, Gong, and Lens

Entering Where We May Not Go

Freeing the Words

The Ascent

The Return of Words

Danny traced the long downward shaft that was the centerpiece of the mural, eyes catching on the child-figure halfway down. Below, near where he was standing, were unlabeled drawings of the child-figure navigating a room of rough stone obelisks, all covered in some kind of… transparent veil that the child-figure seemed to sweep away.

Maybe this was why he had been attacked and chased so eagerly. They thought he was… this.

They thought he could help them.

He covered his face with his hands.

"Danny? Are you alright? Shouldn't you keep going?"

He should, he really should, but he was… If they were asking for help… Could he help?

DANNY SHOULD…

GO THROUGH THE WALL

HELP THE LIGHT

Danny squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw. He bounced on the balls of his feet.

Heck.

He didn't– He wanted– If he could keep someone else from being hunted down–

He turned. Away from the wall. The blush of light against the ceiling was gentle, distant, but slowly increasing. It was a very clear marker of where the quiet ones were. They would be easy to find.

"Danny? What are you doing?"

Something stupid. Something really stupid. There was no guarantee he could stand in for whoever the prophecy was actually about. They might have some special ability or quality that Danny didn't have. And if the quiet ones were really just people who had gotten lost too many times in the library, there had to be some reason they didn't just leave and instead ran around doing… this. There had to be something keeping them here, keeping them from getting help.

Yeah. Danny was stupid.

At least his parents would know what happened to him, if he got stuck. They could mount a rescue operation or something. Probably.

He took one, last, longing glance over his shoulder at the wall. It would be so much easier to just go. But he just wasn't that kind of person.

He strode forward.

"Danny? Danny, what are you doing? That's the wrong direction."

Yeah, Danny knew that.

The light got closer much faster than it had receded. Which made sense. Danny was going towards it, it was going towards him. But as he got closer, as he went closer, willingly, the light pulled on him more and more, until it felt like he was going painfully slowly.

(It was a little scary, how firmly the urge to approach seized him now that he was no longer actively resisting.)

But he could go much faster than he was right now. He could get closer to the light. He needed to.

In a flash of blinding light he transformed, and he was flying up, above the shelves, to the exclamations of his parents. It was fine. All of this was fine. He was going to be fine. This wasn't just an excuse to get closer to the light, he was sure.

A wind kicked up, skewing Danny's path, and he was soon surrounded by glowing beings. He flew towards the brightest, closest one. They caught him rather gently, then tilted his head to one side and pulled out Danny's earbud. They crushed it in their hand.

Danny was going to be in so much trouble when he got home.

The quiet ones descended to the ground, Danny and his current captor at the center of their ring of light. One of them, carrying a plaque with the quill symbol on it came forward. It was so bright, so beautiful, that Danny reached for it at once.

Although his wings did not make any cracking sounds, it felt as if they should. He had underestimated how much of the quiet ones' wings were bird-like rather than moth-like, but he knew better now, as long bones extended from his back. His moth wings segmented, grew, took the place of primaries on four increasingly fluffy, feathery wings. Feathers crept out along his back, partway up his neck, and his scalp itched as feathers grew there as well. His antennae grew longer, softer, as well, their bases thickening and stiffening to compensate.

The quiet ones moved around him, and he could feel it in his wings, every movement of the air tickling his feathers. He twitched and jerked in the grasp of the ghost holding him, the painful nature of the transformation rekindling his desire to escape, but that same transformation had made him weak, disoriented. His movements were uncoordinated, unfocused. It was easy for them to press his hand to the next sign. The gong.

His wings grew again, in a sort of slow, steady pulse. The fur and feathers on his body grew thicker, the fluff on his neck almost forming a ruff and falling luxuriously over his shoulders. If his clothing wasn't changing to fit as he transformed, he would be horribly uncomfortable.

But those weren't the only changes that came with the sign of the goge. His upper and lower canines went long and sharp, forcing his other teeth to the side, and his ears– His ears stretched, up and out, growing into huge, ribbed, leaf-shaped structures. They twitched and swiveled, searching for sound that wasn't there.

Weakly, Danny tried to push himself up, but the ghost still held him firmly. A large hand briefly trailed down his back and spread one of his wings open. Uncomfortable, he pulled it back to his body.

It was hard to tell what was going on around him when his eyes were overwhelmed with light and everything else was silence. But his feathers picked up when someone moved towards him, and he cringed away from the next plaque when the symbol, the lens, loomed large in his vision.

He felt his eyes change, first. He had enough experience with transformations like this to know that his pupils were changing shape, elongating, narrowing. He felt his irises grow larger, too.

Soft fur spread up his ears, their shape changing ever-so-slightly to accommodate. His partial ruff spread, meeting at the front of his neck, and more fur and feathers spread down, almost to his elbows and knees, partially over his chest.

Then, his tailbone lengthened, grew, the bones multiplying. In a few minutes, he had grown a long, fluffy tail.

He panted, exhausted. So. Apart from the lantern, all of the aids were based on animals. The candles on moths, the quill on birds, the gong on bats, and the lens on cats. Or, maybe the lantern aid was based on fireflies. What did he know?

His pants turned to silent coughs, then gags, as something worked its way up his throat. At last, a tiny mote of light flew out of his mouth and whizzed away. Danny stared after it for a moment, wanting to chase it, but it was soon lost among the larger, closer lights.

The ghost holding him stood, and Danny reflexively pulled away. With a smile of amusement, the ghost put him down.

Oh.

Danny had definitely shrunk again. And his wings were definitely too large in comparison to his body for him to comfortably stand on the floor. The lower two especially trailed feathers, fluff, and moth-like wing segments, complete with trailing tails. Shakily, he floated up. Then, he floated back down, unable to stay afloat for long.

The quiet ones picked him back up with their telekinesis, and then, as one, they all turned and took off, back the way they'd come. There was some sort of signal there, something Danny could feel faintly in his antennae. But it had to be a specialized sort of language. Danny didn't understand it, yet.

The journey was smooth, steady, even as they all went down a steep, spiraling stair. Down and down, into a maze of closely-spaced, densely-packed shelves. Ropy paths of light hung in the air, burning in pale colors, weaving together to create strange images.

And then, they came into a clear, circular space. It was just vaguely familiar, and Danny wondered if this is where he had escaped from, before.

In the center of the space was a small, dark depression. No. A hole, going down. It was too small to pass an adult body, but a small one, like Danny's… But ghosts could change their shape, stretch and squish. Danny had been known to occasionally pour himself through gaps smaller than his palm. So, why hadn't they?

They set him down next to the hole. Danny looked down. It was dark down there. He didn't want to go.

He looked up at the ghosts again, still dazed. Or was dazzled a better word?

It was probably the wings, Danny decided. A quick test of his own showed that they resisted other shapeshifting. If they wanted to stay a set distance apart, then it would be very hard for the ghost they belonged to to go down, unless they were already very small.

Like Danny.

The ghosts in front of him made ushering, pushing motions, encouraging him towards the hole. He crawled to the edge of the hole. The little he could see of the tunnel down was straight, smooth, and round.

Well. He had come back for this, hadn't he?

He dithered over whether or not he should go down head first or feet first, but eventually decided that having his feathers bent backwards, as sensitive as they were, would be unbearable in the long term. He would be able to stick to the walls or float well enough that going head first wouldn't be an issue.

He lowered his head and shoulders into the shaft. He had to tuck his wings close to fit them in. Maybe he didn't even have to use any ghostly abilities. The fit was snug enough that pushing on the walls alone should arrest downward motion. No wonder the quiet ones couldn't get down here.

Inching downward, he got the rest of his body into the shaft, and then looked up between his knees towards the light. The sight triggered such a longing in him that he almost squirmed back out. But, no. He was helping.

He crawled down the tunnel, only slipping a few times, and then only by fractions of an inch. Between his arms, legs, and four wings, he kept himself wedged tightly against the walls.

Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the weird combination of light from his aura and faint darkness ahead. Below. However he should call it.

Then, he saw the tunnel terminate in front of him, spreading out into a large open space. He wriggled forward until his head hung in empty space, and let go, tumbling briefly before catching himself in flight and lowering himself the rest of the way down.

He landed, strangely enough, on a small island in the middle of shadowy, deep blue lake. There were little colored lights deep under the surface, like stars.

He was alone.

He let out a little sigh. Okay. Now, he had to figure out what the 'words' were, and bring them back to the people up above. A book, maybe…? A dictionary? But where would he look? Where could he start?

Danny should also probably try to reassure his parents. The cameras were still working, and if their positions were reversed, Danny would be freaking out.

DANNY SHOULD…

INVESTIGATE THE LIGHTS UNDER THE WATER

FLY TO THE EDGE OF THE LAKE

FLY UP TO THE CEILING

SIGN TO HIS PARENTS

His parents deserved to have an explanation for what was going on, even if Danny really, really didn't want to explain. Finger spelling was tedious, and even apart from that, his explanation was… stupid. Coming back had been a very stupid thing to do. Especially on the basis of a prophecy written on a random wall.

He breathed and knelt so that his wings weren't in such an uncomfortable position. Then, painstakingly, haltingly, spelled out each word of his reasoning, finishing up with a question about whether or not they could flash the recording light on one of the cameras, or even turn a whole camera on and off, for morse code.

The camera lights stayed steady. The cameras stayed on.

Danny sighed. He wasn't surprised, doing something like that between universes… They might not be able to turn parts of it off and back on. Without it being on, they might not be able to give it instructions. Some versions of this camera setup, he knew, only went into standby mode instead of turning off entirely, and with those it'd probably work, but they were always changing things. He didn't always keep up.

He waited a few more minutes. When nothing happened, he stood up and started taking off the cameras. They were great, and designed to work well in the Ghost Zone, but they were still electronics and most of them weren't waterproofed.

Some parts of the harness came off easily. Others were a bit more difficult, on account of the wings. He left them stacked as neatly as possible on the little island.

Then, he took one last breath, as unnecessary as it was, and dove down, wings pressed tightly against his back. His fur and feathers behaved surprisingly well in the water, going slick against his skin. His ears were more finicky. They didn't want to fold completely, and the water kept trying to get them to balloon outward, like parachutes, if he swam too fast.

The lights beneath the water wavered and wobbled in his vision as he disturbed the water. They were bright and beautiful, luminous and numinous in the dark. His current, and hopefully temporary, desire for light urged him towards them, but they reminded him of stars so greatly, that he thought they would draw him in regardless.

Then, ever so faintly, he began to hear things. Distant, blurred voices, like people speaking far away. The more distant stars, the ones that must be set nearer the shores of the lake, rose up around him.

There were snatches of words in the distant murmuring. Some, Danny could almost recognize. They grew louder, clearer. Dozens of languages, dozens of different voices, male, female, young, old…

He reached the bottom of the lake, hands pressing on stone against either side of the glowing light. It was inset in a depression, and it spoke, cadence rising and falling. The language wasn't one Danny knew well, but he knew it was old. Very old. The words– They were a story.

Danny couldn't follow the story well, but he thought… he though he understood. Not the story, but what was here. Why it was here.

The Library of the Lost preserved lost books. But that wasn't all it preserved. Danny knew there were scrolls, clay and stone tablets, steles, and far more things than just paper. Physical, tangible things.

But the oldest way to preserve information wasn't writing. It was by sharing it, speaking it.

Oral histories.

But oral histories needed voices to speak them. This, this lake, these lights, the quiet ones, it was the Library's attempt to retrieve lost oral histories.

He had to wonder how it prioritized them… How did it decide which ones to give voice to, which ones to ignore… The number of lost stories never put to paper had to be literally uncountable, with more made every day. The number of voices stolen could never equal the number of stories. Maybe the voices alternated stories, going through a set list…

These must be the words he was supposed to free. But how was he supposed to do that? He tapped the light. The voice wavered slightly, but the light remained firmly in place. He tried to pry it up, even pulling at it with his telekinesis, but it was staying put.

Maybe… His voice was here, too. A light had flown past his lips. Maybe he could find it, and… something. He'd work it out. Probably.

Unless this was one of those things that only the proper, prophesied chosen one could do. That would be annoying. And potentially disastrous.

He pushed off the ground and swam slowly to one side, his ears unfurling. He wanted to hear… he needed to hear… Where was it…?

He'd gone more than halfway around the lake when he heard it. He adjusted course at once. And… there it was. His voice. His. It spoke of the history of a city Danny had never heard of in ancient Greek.

And it was just as stubbornly stuck as the other voice he'd checked.

Except… He lowered his lips to the light, kissing it, tasting it. There was a twinge in his throat, and the light in the water around him dimmed.

He hummed, then laughed. He had his voice back.

But how to get the others…?

The lights around him were rising up. Danny swam to the surface just as the lights breached the surface, rising to the vertical shaft in a swirl. They looked like fireflies. A whole swarm of them.

DANNY SHOULD…

FOLLOW THE LIGHTS

REST ON THE ISLAND

EXPLORE THE REST OF THE LAKE

FOLLOW THE LIGHTS

Danny flew up out of the water and quickly dried himself by flicking between human form and ghost form and phasing off the water. He joined the murmuring, whispering lights, occasionally murmuring and whispering himself. It had only been a short time, but he'd missed being able to speak.

(And if the echoes also helped him understand the space around himself better… Well, he did have bat ears, currently, even if it was a bit weird.)

He still had to tuck himself in to get up the shaft. But… it was easier, now, somehow. Maybe because he wasn't trying to brace himself against the sides. The little lights slipped past him, but he still acted as something of a block. They whispered against his skin and settled in the fluff of his wings.

Then, he emerged, to something like applause.

He landed at the edge of the hole and shook his wings out, freeing the lights that had rested there. The quiet ghosts were chasing after them with outstretched hands as they dispersed throughout the large room. Sometimes, they would catch one, then let it go. The wrong one for them, Danny guessed. One that wasn't theirs.

The ghost who had seen Danny off grabbed his hands. "Thank you," he said, very softly, almost inaudibly. "Thank you, prophesied one, for restoring our voices to us. What can we do to honor you?"

Sorting things out, matching voice to ghost, would take a long, long time, and it wasn't something Danny could help with at all. He wanted to go, now.

"Can you take me back up to where you found me?" Danny asked. It would be best if he didn't have to wander around or try to phase through ceilings. If they couldn't or wouldn't bring him back, well, Danny would figure it out.

"You want to leave? So soon?"

It didn't feel soon to Danny. "Um. Yes."

"Please, let us celebrate you, first. You've done so much for us, and we would reward you."

Danny made a face. He generally liked being rewarded. His Obsession was helping, but he wasn't a saint. But he really just wanted to go.

"It would mean a lot to us," said the ghost. "Please. Stay for the celebration."

DANNY SHOULD…

INSIST ON GOING NOW

AGREE TO STAY

LEAVE ON HIS OWN

AGREE TO STAY

Danny felt his shoulders slump, and not just because of the weight of his wings. "What would this celebration be, exactly?" It was an important thing to ask, because, as he'd learned, some ghosts had ways to celebrate that were not compatible with human morals. At all.

"We do not have food and drink here, as they might above," said the ghost, "our traditional celebration is to groom the wings of the ones being celebrated."

"And… that's it?" asked Danny, still slightly suspicious.

"We often clean ears and manes as well, and write our names in the great book."

"And that's it."

"We would of course like you to stay longer, that we could find our songs again, and sing them for you… but we will not delay you further, unless that is your desire."

Danny knew that 'grooming' of this type could take quite a while, and he didn't like strangers touching him all that much, but… if that was what made these ghosts happy… and Danny was probably going to be in this form for a while longer, especially if removing the extra alterations proved troublesome even with his visitor's badge still in working order. Having all his feathers and fur lying in the right direction would make the experience more comfortable.

He sighed. "Okay, then. I'll stay."

The ghost brightened. Literally. And he wasn't the only one. The other ghosts that had gathered around them grew so bright that Danny had to close his eyes.

He was tugged into the air by gentle telekinesis and made a very high-pitched squeak.

"Shh, shh," said the ghost, soothingly. "We just need to bring you to the proper place. Next to the Well of Voices is no good, no good, shh."

So far, Danny was not enjoying this, but he let the ghosts float him over to a large, circular table. There were large books, like the catalogs up above, chained to its periphery. Danny, meanwhile, was placed in the clear middle. The telekinesis pressed him down, still gentle, until he was lying flat on his stomach. A ghost pulled off his smock, laying his back bare.

His eyes had adjusted to the light of telekinesis, and he watched the ghosts around him produce combs of various fineness. His wings were spread open to their furthest extent with telekinesis, and the ghosts descended.

At first, Danny was tense, but then one of them - or maybe two, one on each side - started massaging a spot where his two sets of wings connected to one another and his back, and all of his muscles relaxed. Even his jaw drooped open, letting his tongue loll out between his fangs.

The ghosts were as coordinated in their grooming as they were with their telekinesis. They cycled through, starting at his spine then moving out, and more people filing in, replacing them, using the wide-toothed combs first, then progressively finer ones.

His eyes slipped closed again. Despite the still oppressive quiet, the rhythmic nature of the combing reminded Danny of Long Now, somehow…

Someone started petting his hair, then moved on to his ears. Another person started adjusting the moth-wing panels, rubbing and massaging the muscles where they were attached to change how they laid against the feathers of his wings. Soothing patterns were traced on his back, between his many shoulder blades. If possible, Danny went limper.

No, he usually didn't like strangers touching him, but this felt good… it was nice to have his feathers slicked together, the various little knots pulled from his hair… and after so many strangely visceral transformations, the fleeing, the stress, crawling down the hole, he felt tired.

He was tired.

His eyes were closed.

Falling asleep was only natural, under such circumstances.

WHEN DANNY WAKES UP, HE NOTICES…

HE HAS BEEN THOROUGHLY GROOMED AND GIVEN A PILLOW

HE HAS BEEN DRESSED IN RICH CLOTHES

HE HAS BEEN FESTOONED WITH JEWELRY AND RIBBONS

HIS SKIN IS COVERED IN STRANGE SYMBOLS

HIS FUR AND FEATHERS ARE MUCH LONGER AND FLUFFIER

HIS ANTENNAE AND TAIL ARE LONGER AND THICKER

HE HAS GROWN ANOTHER SET OF ARMS

HE HAS GROWN ANOTHER SET OF WINGS

TOP TWO OF THE OTHER CHOICES

TOP THREE OF THE OTHER CHOICES

HE HAS BEEN THOROUGHLY GROOMED AND GIVEN A PILLOW

HIS FUR AND FEATHERS ARE MUCH LONGER AND FLUFFIER

HIS SKIN IS COVERED IN STRANGE SYMBOLS

Danny was pretty sure he'd fallen asleep on a table, so what was the soft thing under him…?

He peeled his eyes open to see a tasseled decorative pillow tucked under his cheek. And… also a lot of hair… Fur…? He blinked, still sleepy and not entirely awake, and sat up.

Not only had his head been given a pillow, he saw, but his wings had been nicely propped up. It was very thoughtful of them. But that didn't explain the length of his hair. Or fur. Or whatever it was on his head and skin currently. He hadn't had a lot of time to examine it, but it didn't feel like hair anymore. There were layers to it.

On closer, slightly more awake, examination, it wasn't just the fluff on his head that was longer. He was fluffier everywhere. His fur was longer, and so were his feathers. By inches in some places. Long enough that the ghosts had braided it in places. Not only that, but the amount of his skin covered by fur had increased. Before, it hadn't passed his knees and elbows, but it did now. It was much shorter than the rest of his fur, tapering off to a suede-like finish well above his wrists and ankles, and didn't touch his inner arms or the backs of his legs. It had spread further down his chest, tapering to his navel and spreading and thickening again at his groin, and up his neck, spilling onto the edges of his face.

When he'd thought about growing a beard or chest hair, he hadn't meant this. He touched the fur growing near his ears. It didn't feel at all like a beard. It was soft and feathery, like down.

Speaking of his ears. He traced up to feel them up to their tips. They were properly fluffy now.

Was this… some kind of delayed transformation effect? Or did this body just grow hair really fast?

On the plus side, it was all neatly and nicely brushed, not a feather out of place. As he'd expected, it felt much better, compared to the disarray from before.

On the more confusing side, his fur length wasn't the only strange thing. Wherever his skin was bare of fur, it was covered in tiny, black, calligraphic symbols. He sighed. This must be another part of 'grooming' for this ghost, but he wished he knew what it all meant…

"Are you ready to write your name in the great book, now?"

Danny squeaked, the sound echoing throughout the large room. Somehow, he hadn't noticed the ghost there. Maybe they'd been invisible?

He nodded and floated up off the table. He… hadn't really had the time to process how small he currently was, either. And he was small. Toddler-sized.

The ghost seemed to be having similar thoughts, as they brushed Danny's hair back from his face. "The great book is just here," they said, gesturing at the largest of the books chained to the table.

Danny knelt on the table again, then opened the book. He flipped through until he reached the last page with anything written on it. Helpfully, the ghost handed him a feather quill, already inked. Briefly, Danny wondered if it was one of their feathers. It was sort of the right color and degree of fluffiness.

"I just have to write my name, right?" he asked, trying to keep his voice quiet to match the quiet murmur of the surroundings.

"Yes," said the ghost, "it's entirely straightforward."

Danny bobbed his head, then put pen to paper. He signed his name the way he always did, with a few decorative curlicues. This was supposed to be important, right? So he could be a little fancy to make things nice.

Sparkles glittered at his wrist, like dust caught in a sunbeam. The sparkles gathered closer, and flared into something cold and heavy on his wrist.

"Um," said Danny, looking at the bracelet. The bracelet that had an odd, protruding flange on the outside edge of his wrist. "What."

"Oh, wonderful," said the ghost, who sounded genuinely pleased. He clapped his hands together, soundlessly. "The library must think you are very valuable indeed."

"What do you…" He trailed off as more sparkles formed near the flange. They turned into a solitary chain link. "Is this a manacle?"

"The most valuable books in the library are chained to the shelves and tables," said the ghost happily, waving his hand to indicate the books chained to the round table. "So it is with all the most valuable parts of the collection."

"I'm not a book," said Danny. "I'm not part of the collection."

"Of course you are. We all are," said the ghost.

"What happened to bringing me back upstairs?"

"We will still do that. The library will put you back where you belong. Your guide has just finished preparing."

Apparently hearing this exchange, a ghost who had his mane braided away from his face floated down to the floor, smiling and waving in greeting. When he reached out towards him, Danny shied away. Another chain link coalesced from light.

Could he trust that? Could he trust that they would bring him back up after this? He obviously should have trusted them on this.

The two links of chain tugged slightly towards an empty loop on the table, and Danny grabbed them in his opposite fist. No. He couldn't trust them. But how long could the chain get before it found a random spot to fix him to? And would he be able to phase out of something that had a clear intention of preventing removal, even in human form?

He didn't know.

DANNY SHOULD…

GO WITH THE GUIDE.

FIND HIS OWN WAY.

GO WITH THE GUIDE.

"Okay," said Danny, trying not to sigh too obviously. "What's your name?" he asked the guide.

"Ea-Nasir," said the guide.

Oh, that did not fill Danny with confidence. But if he thought this guy was just leading him around, he could still just leave. And he would.

Ugh, he felt so gullible. This was definitely not going to go well, good intentions or no.

"Well," he said, forcing a smile. "Lead the way."

It was actively difficult to leave the bright area for the darker shelves and halls. It hadn't been as apparent, moving around in the brightness, but the light - rather, the desire for light - still had a firm grip on him. The brightly-glowing guide flying in front of him made it easier.

They didn't stay close to the ground. On several occasions, they flew over lower shelves, and twice they went through doors that were many feet above the floor. Danny would have liked to know that they were there when he was running away. Yes, he would have been able to go through the walls in human form anyway, but it would have made it easier to understand how the people chasing him were moving.

They flew up a flight of stairs, into a lower-ceilinged level with shelves of massive, thick books. Their titles were picked out in dull gold foil. Encyclopedias, it looked like. Strange. Danny hadn't thought there were so many encyclopedias that were destroyed down to the last book. Then again, he hadn't known there were any encyclopedias written in Esperanto or Toki Pona or Sindarin, so… That might have something to do with it.

Maybe there were a bunch of ghosts obsessed with conlangs out there who kept wrecking their work because it wasn't perfect or something. That seemed as likely as anything. Ghosts could be ridiculous like that.

On the other hand, there were a bunch of other, real languages as well.

On the other other hand, some of those real languages included Akkadian and the Oracle Bone script. Which, again, Danny didn't think were languages people typically wrote encyclopedias in.

"How much further?" asked Danny, looping the chain around his hand so that it didn't dangle. He was pretty sure that getting down here had been faster, but maybe that was just because of adrenaline or the lack of things to look at inside his ice sphere.

"A few levels," said Ea-Nasir. "When we brought you down, we took the great column, which we cannot take back up."

"Why?"

"It is a waterfall, separated by grates. It takes more effort than only two people can apply to open them."

"Mm," said Danny, accepting the answer for now.

Ea-Nasir continued onwards, through an ornate doorway. Danny followed, but when he tried to cross the threshold, he bounced.

"Hey!" he said.

"Oh, dear," said Ea-Nasir.

"What's that?" asked Danny. He put out a hand and pressed against the doorway. It was as if there was an invisible ghost shield there.

"This area must be age restricted," said Ea-Nasir. "We'll have to go the long way around."

"Seriously?"

"There is no way around the age restriction." He made a face. "The young among us do not often come this way. We will have to take the long way around."

"There's not any about-the-same-length way?"

"No. You'll be restricted from the entire section, and it stretches several dozen yards in either direction, and covers the stairs."

Danny didn't think Ea-Nasir was lying, but he wasn't sure he'd be able to tell if he was. "Great," he said.

"It won't be that much longer," said Ea-Nasir, sympathetically. He pointed towards the right. "Here, we will need to go this way."

Danny sighed heavily and followed. Maybe he should rethink just going up through the ceiling… But then what would he do if he ran into a restricted area from below? No, he'd already decided to stay with the guide.

They looped around to the adjacent wall, then climbed a spiral staircase two stories to a pastel pink and very fluffy room where the shelves were protected by pink, gauzy veils. There were star-shaped sequins in them, and Danny collected them as he went. He thought it was fair payment for getting so much glitter in his wings and fur.

They emerged into an equally fluffy blue room, where all the books seemed to relate to aquatic creatures in some way. There were even ancient and inaccurate posters of whales and sharks on the walls. (Whales were not fish.)

Then, they went into a narrow, cramped, upward-sloping hallway and emerged into a room with a much more somber, orderly layout of shelves.

"How much longer?" asked Danny.

"Just another few levels," said the guide.

"Good," said Danny.

"We will have to go through the lantern room."

"Okay?"

"The light in there varies greatly. It can be distracting to travel through. I know you first called out to us, thinking we were trapped following our own trails, and that was wrong. But some have been caught that way, wandering between lights."

"I'll be able to handle it," said Danny.

"If you're sure," said Ea-Nasir.

They continued for a while, with Danny bracing himself. He'd have to focus. He'd have to make sure he didn't get 'distracted.'

Getting back home was a good goal to keep in mind. Mom and Dad were probably furious with him at this point… He really should have taken some time to talk to them after he got his voice back, since the cameras…

He patted himself down.

Oh. Oh no. He'd left the cameras back on the little island in the middle of the lake at the bottom of the Well of Voices.

He was going to be super grounded by the time he got home.

At least he'd be able to communicate again once he picked up the other equipment at the front desk. Probably. If nothing had gone wrong there.

So, so much trouble…

They reached a small, plain door. It stuck on its hinges, and Ea-Nasir had to push on it hard to get it to open. "The lantern room," he said, with a touch of grandness.

Danny could see why they called it that. Most of the room was dim shelving, but there were scattered reading areas lit by antique-looking wrought iron and paper lanterns. The siding of the lanterns themselves were covered in small, close writing.

It was hard to leave the lit areas. It was harder still not to linger by them, trying to puzzle out the meaning of the sigils on the lanterns. He wanted to know. He was curious. The chain was long enough now that the end of it kept slipping from his fingers and trying to wrap around the poles supporting the lanterns. Carrying it over his shoulder was no good. His wings were in the way. And, unless he was hallucinating, each link was heavier than the last, too. Usually, Danny could lift multiple tons, but in this smaller, and probably weaker body…

He wasn't sure how much time he had left before the stupid thing became unmanageable.

"How much longer?" he asked again, knowing that he probably sounded like some whiny toddler. Well. All things considered, he was a whiny toddler. So there. He stretched and resettled his wings. Part of him just wanted to find a surface to kneel on and get his back parallel to the ground so he could properly spread out his wings. A nice surface. Soft. Somewhere quiet and still, that wouldn't hurt his ears or ruffle his feathers too much. This was a library, there should be at least some places like that…

"Not long," said Ea-Nasir, jarring him from his contemplation.

"Like, minutes not long, or hours not long?"

"I don't know what those are."

Danny didn't groan. He did trip over the chain.

"I could carry you, if you'd like."

Danny flushed and shook his head hard. No, he was not doing that. He'd had enough of being carried around and then some.

They went up a few more sets of stairs after that. The first brought them to a balcony area, overlooking the lantern room. The second took them to a room full of pamphlets and loose flyers advertising garage sales and parties. The third went up and up, doubling back on itself again and again.

Then, they were in the stacks again, the towering, structural piles of paperwork and books. Danny recognised the wood decorations, where they were visible, and the hanging metal chimes.

Not much further now.

Ea-Nasir turned another corner. "Here you are."

And so he was. There were the card catalogs, there were the books with golden chains, the solid tables, the chair stacked with books. The book Danny had been working on was still open, even.

"Thanks," he said, turning towards Ea-Nasir.

Ea-Nasir was gone, his trail of light already fading.

"Right," Danny said. "Fine. Okay. What now?"

He could wait here for someone like the attendant to find him. They were unlikely to come back in a hurry, though. This didn't seem to be a well-traveled area, and he'd been gone for a long time, so they'd probably already checked on him and found him missing.

He could try to find his way back to the copyists' room. He… really didn't remember the way, though. So. That might not be the best decision.

Another link in the chain coalesced, and Danny tipped sideways in the air. That was heavy darn it.

So, anyway, staying wasn't the best decision either. The chain put a time limit on him. And he wasn't sure the members of the library wouldn't see it the same way the quiet ones did. In which case, he really did need to just go.

And on top of that, Danny's body wasn't currently winning any endurance prizes. Toddlers took naps. Toddlers needed naps. And Danny wasn't about to take a nap, didn't want a nap, but he was starting to get to the point where his body needed to rest. Soon.

DANNY SHOULD…

LOOK FOR THE COPYISTS' ROOM.

WAIT FOR SOMEONE TO FIND HIM HERE.

REST, JUST FOR A LITTLE BIT.

REMEMBER HIS POWERS FOR ONCE.

Wait a second. Danny was only half ghost. This cuff and chain, as disturbing as they were, were ghostly in nature, and in the Ghost Zone. He could just phase out.

He flicked human - his wings really didn't like that - and phased out of the cuff. It and the chain writhed around on the floor like a demented snake. Danny sort of felt sorry for it. Sort of. Almost. Not really. Not nearly enough to refrain from making a shield and keeping it between him and the chain. And, for that matter, the other chains binding the books. Just in case.

Although, maybe he could do some of the translating and copying he'd first come here for…

No. He was pretty sure he'd done enough for the Lost Library for a long, long time. He didn't like being kidnapped, actually, and he didn't want to take the risk. Because, wow, he did not want to wind up chained to a desk, even if he could just phase out of any chain the library conjured.

He was just… He was done. That's all.

There was a table. One not covered in chained books. If he didn't want to hunker down on the floor or sit backwards on a chair or something. He was just going to rest a minute or two. He wasn't going to fall asleep or anything. Just. Rest.

He crawled onto the table and laid down, resenting the fact he fit, given how small it was. His feet hung off the edge of the table, and he rested his chin on his folded hands. Yeah. He just needed some rest. Not sleep! Nope. He wasn't going to fall asleep. He wasn't.

He sighed and rolled off the table. If he stayed here, lying down, he'd definitely fall asleep. He knew himself. He had to do something. This wasn't made to be a maze - on purpose, anyway. He could figure it out.

He stretched, back and forth, his arms and his wings, then his legs. It didn't feel as effective as usual. Maybe side differences mattered there, too. He didn't know much about things like that. Or maybe it was a bone thing? He knew that children had more bones than adults - thank you bone-obsessed ghosts - so he might have more bones right now than he usually did. Maybe.

Okay, now, he was pretty sure that the library attendant had led him through this way… Or was it this way… Or, uh… Hm.

Yeah.

Okay.

One at random it was.

"What in the world happened to you?"

… Or the attendant could just show up. Cool.

Danny stared up at them, the words to describe his situation completely escaping him. "It's a long story, honestly. A really long story."

"I only left you here for a…" She trailed off. "How long did I leave you in here? Just a few hours, right?"

"I… honestly have no idea." He didn't. Time was already weird in the Ghost Zone, even when you weren't being chased by weird perfectly silent ghosts and taking surprise naps. Hanging out with Clockwork was sometimes helpful keeping things straight… and sometimes the exact opposite of helpful. He was half certain that libraries ran on their own time, anyway. Especially in the Ghost Zone.

"Yes, well," said the attendant. "That's… you… Your visitor's badge must have malfunctioned. Or something."

"I was kidnapped," said Danny. "By the, uh, the quiet ones. The lost ones. Whatever."

"But they aren't real," said the attendant, sounding bewildered. "How would they even…" She waved at Danny.

"I don't know."

"And they brought you back here?"

Danny shrugged. "I'd really like to leave, now. And get rid of all this…" He waved at himself. "You know. Go back to my normal self."

"Yes, right. Of course. Sorry for the… Well. If it's any consolation, you are very cute."

It wasn't. He shrugged. "Can I get back to the front, now? Please?"

"Yes," said the attendant. "Oh, goodness, I've never heard of anything like this happening before…"

"Isn't there, like, a whole legend about the quiet ones, or the lost ones, or whatever they're called? The person at the front desk said something about it."

"Yes, but they're not real," said the attendant, still scandalized by the whole idea.

"They are, though. They're definitely real."

"I am just going to take you to the front desk, okay?" asked the attendant. She turned and started to float away without waiting for an answer.

Danny took off after her, not wanting to get lost again. Or kidnapped again. There could be dozens of 'legends' in a place like this. It was possible the quiet ones were only the tip of the giant, literary, legendary iceberg.

Or maybe stress was making Danny paranoid. Obviously, he hadn't been nearly paranoid enough through this whole venture.

Instead of taking Danny through the copyists' room again, the attendant took a shorter route that went directly to the front lobby of the library.

The librarian at the desk frowned at him. "What happened to you?"

"Quiet ones. Lost ones. Whatever." Danny pulled the visitor's badge from his pocket, and spared a moment to appreciate that it was still intact before putting it on the librarian's desk. "Can you undo this?"

The librarian picked up the badge and stared at first it, then Danny, then back at it again. "You will have to explain what happened to you."

"Your mysterious legendary bogymen have hijacked your system and were maybe caused by your system. And your library steals voices."

"Pardon?"

"These ghosts who looked like this-" he gestured at himself, "-kidnapped me and made me look like this by drawing the symbols you had on your badges."

"Ah," said the librarian. She turned to look at the attendant. "Could you please send a message to the Library of Tongues? I assume that you want to be picked up."

"Why?"

"Because it is very unlikely that I will be able to completely reverse this, and I doubt you will want to fly back while you are… like this."

"Do you think I live in the Library of Tongues?"

"I don't think you live anywhere," said the Librarian. "But you are a member, aren't you?"

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. It wasn't a terrible suggestion, all things considered. Flying through the Zone while he felt this flimsy wasn't something he really wanted to do. Even if there were other problems… like his parents' equipment… his parents… and who the Library of Tongues would send…

DANNY SHOULD…

LET THE ATTENDANT CONTACT THE LIBRARY OF TONGUES

TELL THE ATTENDANT NOT TO CONTACT THE LIBRARY OF TONGUES

LET THE ATTENDANT CONTACT THE LIBRARY OF TONGUES

"Fine," said Danny, "whatever. But can we get on with this? The sooner I'm a teenager again, the better."

"Yes, yes," said the librarian. She slid the card into a slot on the desk. How many of those did she have? "One moment."

Danny waited. He waited some more. Then he cringed as his body started shifting. Slowly. Very slowly. His aura flared out, then stabilized at a more comfortable level. His spine and legs stretched. His wings pulled in, just a little.

Then it stopped.

Danny checked his ears - closer to catlike than batlike, but still overly long and pointed. His tail - again shorter, but still there. Wings - the same. As for his overall height… Well, he could see all the way over the counter, now. But he was pretty sure he was closer to ten than fourteen.

"Is that it?" he asked, disappointed.

"It would appear as if whatever was done to you, without the means with which it was applied, will have to fade on its own. Which is how it is with our badges. Can I assume that you will also want to take possession of your belongings at this time?"

"Yep," said Danny. "I would like that."

The librarian opened the door to the coatroom and unloaded the equipment bit by bit. As she did, Danny put it back on, piece by piece, until he reached the backup microphone. Yeah. Yeah, if his parents were watching, this was going to suck. If they weren't watching, well. It would also suck. But in a different way, and later. When they wrecked whatever building he was in trying to get to him.

Yeah. They'd do that in the Ghost Zone, too, he was sure.

He plugged the earpiece into his ear. "Hi," he said.

"DANNY!"

He took the earpiece out of his ear. He counted to ten, then put it back in. His parents were still being loud and incomprehensible.

"Sorry about leaving the video stuff at the bottom of a hole."

"You lost something in the library?" asked the librarian.

"Yeah," said Danny. "Like I said, Mom, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get kidnapped."

The librarian sighed. "I will make a note to send it on to the Library of Tongues if any of our members find it. A hole, you said?"

"Near where the quiet ones hang out. They call it the Well of Voices. There's like a lake down there."

"Danny, are you alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine," said Danny, putting a hand on his ear. "I'm going to spend a few days–"

"A week, at least," interjected the librarian at the desk.

"-maybe a week," corrected Danny, "at the Library of Tongues. I'm kind of a bit– Since they messed with the transformation, it won't come off right."

"Why can't you just come home, instead of going there?"

"Because I can get someone from the library to pick me up."

"We can pick you up!"

"No, Dad, no, don't come here. You can't come here."

"We've got the Speeder! We can get there in no time!"

That was not an accurate assessment of how long it would take. Danny was much faster than the Speeder. But that wasn't really the point, either. "There's a reason you send me to investigate, rather than coming out here yourselves." There were, in fact, many reasons, ranging from the safety of Mom and Dad to the safety and sanity of everyone else in the Ghost Zone.

"But you're in trouble now," said Maddie. "And we have been prepping for launch, so it really will be short. Just a jump."

"You'll get lost and then I'll have to find you. I'm not in trouble. I'm out of trouble. I am no longer in trouble. Someone from the Library of Tongues will come pick me up. I go to the Library of Tongues all the time. I know how to be safe there."

"Like you know how to be safe here."

"I'm not sure how I could have predicted the secret people living in the basement that no one knew about," said Danny, trying to keep the way that shot had landed out of his voice. "The Library of Tongues isn't a new place. It's a place I know. I've never had trouble there." Unless he counted Ghost Writer glaring at him across the room.

"No way no how, not after this library tried to eat you, Danno!"

"That's– That's not what happened. I wasn't eaten. No one tried to eat me, here." Danny knew what that was like, and it wasn't what had happened. "And no one has ever tried to eat me at the Library of Tongues. Having 'tongues' in the name does not mean that that's what's there. You know that."

"This library has 'lost' in its name, and you got lost in it."

"It's 'tongues' as in 'languages.'"

"We're coming to get you."

"By the time you get here, I'll be gone."

There was a brief not-quiet-silence, as if one of his parents had put their hand down over their microphone. Then, "We'll pick you up from the Library of Tongues. That's closer, anyway, isn't it?" asked Mom.

This was the best deal Danny was likely to get. He sighed. "Fine."

The attendant came back. "They say they will send someone," they said, bowing slightly. "They're taking the methodical route, so they will be here soon."

"How long is soon?" asked Danny. "An hour, half an hour?"

The attendant shrugged.

"About an hour," said the librarian at the desk. "You can sit anywhere here in the lobby."

"Thank you," said Danny. He looked around at the collection of what would normally be very comfortable chairs, and considered his wings. "Hm."

"The ones that are better for people with wings are over there," said the librarian, pointing. She directed her attention to the attendant. "And you should return to your duties."

Danny grimaced at the chairs with the narrow, hard looking backs, but it wasn't as if he had a lot of choices. He sat down and squirmed to get comfortable. It didn't help much.

At least he was unlikely to fall asleep like this.

He spent his wait fiddling with one of the less reliable gadgets (it had broken while sitting in the coat room) and filling his parents in on what, exactly, had happened. There was a lot of backtracking and scientific speculation, most of which was probably wrong, but which was, at least, enthusiastic.

The front doors of the library opened, and Danny perked up, eager to see if it was someone he recognized.

Sadly, it was.

"I have been told," announced Ghost Writer, "that a certain boy has been too bold."

"Right, because it's my fault if someone decided to indulge in a bit of kidnapping," said Danny, already annoyed.

Ghost Writer sniffed, sticking his nose in the air. "Sorry, do you hear something small yapping?"

"Did they really send you to get me?"

"Evidently, I was the only one free."

Great.

"Danny? Is he one of your enemies? Should we come get you now?"

"No, we've just got history."

"If you say it like that, people will think it's a mystery. Are you ready to leave?"

"As I live and breathe." Danny scowled. "Stop that."

"You're lucky I'm accepting half rhymes, not just rhymes that are pat."

"That's atrocious."

"What a long word, so precocious."

Danny rolled his eyes. "Let's just go, before you attract some kind of foe." He pushed past Ghost Writer, and opened the doors.

As eager as he'd been to come at the beginning, he was glad to put this particular destination behind him. He was definitely crossing it off his list of places to visit in the future.

The End

(For Now)

DANNY'S NEXT DESTINATION SHOULD BE…

THE DROWNED QUARTER

THE ANTICIPATION OF VENICE

THE CARILLON CAVE

THE WOODS OF WONDER

DIS

…?