While the Academy's various gears turned along their separate paths, the Western Library received a visitor of its own.
The library occupied the oldest wing of the Academy, where dark stone walls veined with faintly luminous crystal rose around shelves several stories high. Narrow bridges and staircases shifted whenever the governing formations judged another route more convenient, while unsupported lamps drifted between the stacks, their pale flames brightening as readers passed beneath them.
Books rested in more than ordinary silence. Some whispered behind their bindings, others rearranged their titles when approached by the wrong person, and a few had to be persuaded before revealing their contents. The oldest tomes remained sealed beneath protective scripts that glimmered like frost across their covers.
