CHAPTER 103

"She's her old self," Yuki continued. "From before. And she'll talk to me, but I can never hear what she's saying. I try so hard to listen, to hear what she has to say. Every time I feel like I can hear her words, she changes. It's like someone throwing a sheet over a lamp, and the whole room dims. And now that I can hear her, all I hear is hate in her voice. And then I wake up, and I'm crying, and I hate myself, because I can summon spears of ice, or command Death himself, but I've let this mortal cut me deeper than any blade, and I feel weak."

"Love and compassion are never a sign of weakness," Mike said. "It takes a brave heart to believe in either of these things."

She trembled beneath him, but remained silent. He stroked her hair for a little while longer and continued doing so even when he could tell she had dozed off. Once he was convinced that she was out, he slowly shifted her onto her bed and carefully covered her with a blanket before leaving.

Once in the hall, he looked over at Dana, who now sat on the floor near the rats with her computer and a notebook.

"Trying to crack the code?" he asked.

"Got nothing better to do," she replied.

"Just make sure you keep it down," Mike told her, keeping his voice low. "Yuki really needs her sleep."

Dana threw him a thumbs up and he left her behind, her unblinking eyes staring intently at her screen. Several minutes later, he was in his own bed, his eyes on the wall. How many years had he suffered as Yuki did, teetering on the edge of exhaustion only to be startled back to alertness each time his mother yelled at him across time and space? Thinking of his mother, he could hear her calling for him, her voice dripping with venom.

"Love and compassion," he muttered, treating the words as a talisman to guide him safely to the shores of his mind.

When Mike walked into the office the next morning, he saw that Death was busy with the stereoscopes. While the grim reaper muttered something about consent, Mike let himself into the Library.

"Sofia?" he called when he noticed she wasn't waiting for him. She hadn't been at breakfast either, the only trace of her presence being the continental style breakfast she had clearly set up for everyone.

Curious, he crossed over to the floating globe that sat in the Library's lobby and waited for a few minutes.

It wasn't long before the movement of a floating carpet caught his attention and the cyclops descended from above. She wore a long cloak and carried a magic staff that glowed with a pulsating green light.

"There you are." He smiled at her and stepped onto the carpet once it landed. "Thanks for breakfast, it was good."

"Of course it was." She tapped the staff on the carpet and it rose into the air. Invisible hands pressed against him, holding him in place. "Sorry I wasn't there to greet you. I got up early to try and find the area of the Library that we needed. This place has seen a surge of activity recently, which means books aren't always where I think they are."

"Really? Like what?" He looked over the edge of the carpet. Down below, he saw no movement.

"The Library is constantly reorganizing itself." Sofia turned her head and the carpet slowed. "If you could see this place from high enough up above, it would make you think of thousands of giant gears that turn constantly, albeit slowly."

"But why?"

"Expansion. Books made in your world all end up here, and at a frightening rate. The Library was built to accommodate this, and the pillars rotate in groups so that works that fit in multiple genres at least face one another. New pillars will often form near primary pillars, and everything has to shuffle about to accommodate it."

"Primary pillars?" It was just now occurring to him that despite spending plenty of time here, he had no idea how the place worked.

"Yes. Think of them like the purest form of any particular genre. As the pillar expands, it may blossom outward, like a fractal. The new pillars will break free as a genre is redefined, or even as a sub-genre is formed."

"That's...really cool. How come I've never seen it move?"

She tilted her head at him and scowled. "Your trips here tend to be very goal oriented."

"Can I see one of the pillars that's expanding?"

Something like a smile crossed her lips. "I suppose, if we have time."

"I think I should see it. The Library is just as much a part of the house as anything else."

"Except it isn't part of the house. It's a separate place, remember?"

He shook his head. "I don't see it that way. You're a part of the house, and this place is a part of you. I want to know more."

She looked away from him, her long braid bobbing in the breeze as the carpet accelerated. They were moving fast, and the pillars were moving past him so quickly that he could barely make out the shelves.

The pillars condensed momentarily, and the carpet swayed between them until they entered a large open area. At its center was a gigantic column that stretched upward into a portion of the roof that had been raised, and all he could see in it was darkness punctuated by the occasional appearance of a book. The column was easily the size of a small skyscraper, but instead of being a perfect circle, it looked more like a weathered gear with smoothed out teeth all along its perimeter.

It rotated at a slow pace, and the carpet moved alongside it for a better look. In certain places, the bookshelves looked like they were melting out of the walls and forming into organized rows along the surface of the gigantic column, and books fluttered about like tiny birds as they fell from above and drifted to their resting place.