Sorry this is so late. But here we are now.

Read on! Let's see what you can determine.

(Chase's POV)

The door led into a library.

If that isn't boring enough of a destination, I don't know what is.

Not that I terribly minded libraries. I find them nice places to store information and stories. Certainly, more reliable than the elders. But for a naraka, we expect some mystic gem or some cursed room or other monster, if a room is under as heavy of a guard as a monster. At least that I could understand.

I was rather underwhelmed by the shelves of books that greeted my eyes.

"Seriously?" I had to laugh. "Send a pyrobear to guard a library?"

"That just means there's something in there that Wyvern doesn't want anyone else finding," Amos replied, entering the room. "Keeping a pyrobear outside? It's an effective doorstop, I will say. Especially with how wide the hall was. And I'm going to find out why Wyvern placed that doorstop there – even if I have to tear apart the library."

Like an idiot, I followed him, with Vinny Lee on my tail.

The place was huge, and surprisingly well maintained. No dust or cobwebs anywhere. The books immediately in front of me were all old leatherbacks, some with the spines worn off them. I was willing to bet those weren't all Wyvern's, and that he hadn't been the one to read them. And the weirdest thing – several other rolls, which were too familiar to me from the elders' portrayals of ancient human culture, settled in cubby holes in a wall.

"Scroll cases?" I asked incredulously. "Where would scroll cases belong in a library to a Revolutionary-era mansion?" It seemed too surreal.

Vinny Lee smiled. "Echemos un vistazo. Maybe then we'll find out." He then grabbed a book off the shelf. "Plus, I could catch up on some reading for my English class."

"Those aren't yours, VL," Amos chided.

"Let him read, Amos," I responded. "He looks like the smart one. Let him enlighten himself. Plus, I don't see Wyvern poking his big beak nose through all these texts."

"And I'd watch how you throw that 'beak nose' comment around," Amos replied, rubbing his own hooked nose.

I didn't have a good answer for that, so we continued on.

We walked among the books, but didn't find anything useful at first. I caught some older texts of Plato and Archimedes, along with Cicero and Marcus Aurelius. (Great guy. We narakai always looked to that war general.) There were some other modern writers as well – Huxley, Orwell, the lot – which didn't seem right if Nep was inhabiting the place. I caught Amos grabbing a book and glancing at the cover. He gasped, then mouthed O-M-G.

"What?" I asked him, curious.

"Catcher in the Rye. I didn't think Wyvern even had that one. Wasn't it banned in schools?"

He then peeped through the rest of the bookshelf. "Hmm… Oliver Twist. David Copperfield. Great Expectations. And some other Charles Dickens novels. A few volumes of Poe's best works. Ooh, Sherlock Holmes! Some Agatha Christie. Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm–"

I snorted. "Animal Farm?"

"Don't take it lightly," Amos replied, his expression grim. "I had to read that book in eighth grade. Not a pleasant read, I will tell you."

I decided to just take his word for it. "What sort of school made you read it, then? Must've been uptight about it."

Amos frowned and rubbed his chin as if trying to recall. "It was a private school. All-boys. The only time I stayed through more than one grade."

"Okay." I was about to ask him what had happened at the other schools, but again, I thought it was best not to know. So, I changed the subject. "So, this fighting-monsters thing… How long have you been at it?"

Amos shrugged. "Four months? I mean, we started around the first week of June. We didn't exactly ask for the business, either. Kinda got tossed into it. Me, I ran into Amy a couple of days before that big quest."

"What sort of quest are we talking about here?"

Amos yanked off another book and studied the cover. "Ah, Alexandre Dumas, the father. Excellent writer. And to answer your question, the sort that starts with a run-in with some bullies, where you have to whip them with your belt to knock some sense into them, then an attack by a mountain giant, and a melee with a golden automaton snake. Then you wind up in the middle of this pocket of space known as the Eye, with a guy named the Doctor, who turns out to be the Vortex – it's a very long story, in other words."

"I can guess. So, the Vortex chose you?" I'd gathered that much from Vinny Lee's little Clue seminar. I had some inkling of what the Vortex was like from my conversations with Knuckles. He was incredibly powerful and just as wise. He also didn't dole out commissions willy-nilly. If he'd picked these four humans for the avatars' liaison, he had to have a very good reason for it.

"Yep. Singled DJ out as the leader. And you don't argue with the Vortex – Ahem, this guy has Austen? How is that good literature?" He shoved the book back on the shelf. "As if any of us need to hear about Victorian era dresses. Problem is that commission doesn't make life any easier for us."

"I can imagine." I remembered the avatars could dismantle the veil by their presence. If Amos had run into one prior, that explained why he'd seen the draco. And seeing the monsters beforehand – "And you have… hung by the avatars since then?"

"Some of us longer than others. Imira had her avatar buddy a full week and a half before we met her. Knuckles. They had a run-in, and he helped her control her strength…" His voice trailed off as he caught my confused expression. "Trust me, they're not a thing. I got punched for saying that once."

"Good to know." I wasn't sure how to take that answer from Amos. There is a naraka saying: if you want to know the blade's past life, ask for its memories first. I'd need to talk to Imira and/or Knuckles – something I did not look forward to doing. Knuckles because I was supposed to be keeping my distance from him (since we'd "broken it off" – full air quotes here), Imira because she might get mad and punch me. And narakai might be unkillable by our nature, but that didn't make us immune to pain.

"What have you got, Vinny Lee?" Amos asked his comrade, apparently eager to change the subject before I started asking any further questions about his comrades.

"1984, Frankenstein, Hamlet." Vinny Lee made another swipe toward the shelf. "Ooh, Cervantes! More Shakespeare. Joseph Bruchac – which I didn't think I'd see around a mansion as old as this. Machiavelli – of all things. The rest… meh. Lotta d– not my taste."

I couldn't pretend I hadn't caught his slip of the tongue. He'd been about to say dead white males, the derogatory term used by diversity seekers to remark on old literature.

Amos must've caught it too. He cleared his throat. "Vinny Lee, I had to read some of that, you know. At least try it."

"Okay, I tried not to say it," Vinny Lee replied.

"Both of you, stop," I said.

Surprisingly, they did.

We headed over to the cubby holes. I grabbed one of the scroll cases, checking the seal on it. "Do you know anything about Wyvern being interested in ancient literature at all?" I asked, not too concerned which one of them answered, because it was clear they knew more about humans than I did, being such.

I opened up the scroll case and pulled out the parchment. It had held up surprisingly well. And it looked like one of those old Irish pages written by monks a full millennium ago. I didn't think Wyvern would have kept this around the library, as it was too artistic. I set it back in the case and in the cubby hole.

"Not his style," I decided. "Wyvern wouldn't be interested in something this old and fancy. Not a shipman's son."

I then noticed something on a shelf besides. A picture frame bearing a man who definitely was not Wyvern – brown hair, brown eyes full of life. He wore a blue henley shirt and khakis and held a girl of about fourteen who resembled him a bit – perhaps a daughter. A family.

"Try the old dueño," Vinny Lee answered, his face lighting up. "Matthew Norgate. And he was very interested in it. Enough to try to decipher the old writings – and the native legends, from the Bruchac here."

"Who's this Matthew Norgate? Have you looked him up?" I tried to keep the tension out of my voice, but I was still remembering his previous near slur of the books. I happen to have a great appreciation for human authors – all human authors. I just often don't have the time to read.

"Sí. Humans have more than just books and libraries, you know. We have Google and – that's probably not importante, is it? Anyway, he was a professor at TJU back in his day. Specialized in historia antigua. Came close to a major discovery at the time of his death–"

"His death?" I asked, not sure what he was talking about.

Amos snapped his fingers. "You know, that was never truly figured out. Whether it was actually murder or–"

"Okay, I'm not sure what is going on here." I knew the guy had died in a tragic accident. Of course I'd glossed over it, because human lives go at a quick hour in relation to those of a naraka, but from Amos's tone it sounded like there was more to the story.

"There was a news story a couple of years ago," Vinny Lee said. "Matthew Norgate had rightfully inherited the mansion, as he was the only son of his father. But then he broke ground on some old pergaminos he'd translated. He thought they led somewhere inside his mansion – this mansion. Two days later, he was found dead by a pair of cops, along with all his servientes. Their bodies were found in a dumpster."

I muttered a naraka curse.

"Sé. I know."

It wasn't the desecration of their bodies that really bothered me. What had Matthew Norgate discovered in those scrolls? It must've been quite dangerous if it led to his death. Did it relate to the dracos buried at Norgate? If so, someone must not have wanted it out. And if that was the case, I could think of much better ways of silencing someone. Discrediting them, sure. Killing them would have to be a very last resort, if anything.

Doing it immediately was something a monster would've done…

I grabbed a random scroll. It was inscribed with some sort of map – with an X on the Wissahickon Creek. On the location of the mansion.

"I think we found what he was looking for," I said. "We have to tell the others. But first things first–" I reached for my skinning knife – "how do you like spoils of war?"

Looks like we're getting somewhere with the books. I always view them as a good resource.

Verse for the update: Sirach 37:14.

Please review! No flames! And stay tuned to see more - turning pages really helps!