When Ponyville was founded, it had no library. The first settlers had been mainly farmers, and could afford little time to read for pleasure. The single exception was a gray unicorn who had accompanied the Apple family in their settling of the land. He had an extensive personal collection, ranging from ancient tomes giving instructions on performing powerful magic to cheap paperback novels to thick cookbooks with dog-eared pages. It was this unicorn who had the dream of a grand library in Ponyville, and it was he who planted a sapling near the center of the small town and cared for it, growing it healthy and tall over the course of a decade.
By the time his sapling had grown, the unicorn had seen the town of Ponyville take shape around him. A collection of shops formed a ring around his garden with its solitary inhabitant. Like every night for the past decade, the unicorn trotted up to the tree and judged whether it was finally ready; unlike every other night, he decided it finally was. The moon hung in the sky, a tangle of branches swayed gently in the breeze before him - and the gray unicorn began to sing.
As he sang, a miasma of magic grew around the tree. The few present at the time of the magic's working described it later as awe-inspiring and mysterious. It was unlike any magic they had ever seen or even heard of before. The gray unicorn continued his song, and the tree began to grow. Before the eyes of the ancient inhabitants of Ponyville, it bulged outward and shot upward. Its branches, trunk, and roots formed shapes that were unnatural, but purposeful. Inside the tree, hollows were formed, and the wood of the sapling became stairs, doors, a series of rooms - and many, many bookshelves. When the gray unicorn had finished his song, the tree before him was no longer a sapling - but a building.
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"And thus, the Ponyville Library was created - or, like I said before, grown."
Twilight closed the thin book she was reading from and set it back atop one of the many precariously stacked piles scattered throughout Salchonic's front room.
"So I have the song," she added, addressing the white unicorn in front of her, "but I can't read, or probably even pronounce the words - it's all in some obscure ancient Equestrian dialect that I've never seen before, probably from wherever the gray unicorn was born. I thought you might recognize it. If you can guide the growth of the tree, I can provide the magical power needed to fuel the process."
Chrysalis looked over the lyrics Twilight had copied out for her. The librarian had been right - the language was very ancient indeed. The characters were strangely twisted and foreign, and many of them appeared nowhere in the modern Equestrian alphabet. Some looked more like hieroglyphics than letters.
"I don't think this language is from anywhere anyone was born in a long time, Twilight. There are a few particular runes used throughout that predate Discord's original reign, and haven't been used since. When Ponyville's original librarian wrote this spell, he was writing in a dead language. I'm surprised he got the pronunciation right at all."
"But can YOU read it? I mean, if it's that old..."
"I can read it just fine. You just focus on pumping out the energy to cast it." An image of Cheerilee's class beaming at her flashed through Chrysalis's mind, but she shook her head to clear it away. Using them as sustenance was harmless, but harnessing their energy for such a large spell would undoubtedly be detrimental to their health.
Twilight checked a few boxes on the list she was holding before rolling it up. "Well then, all that's left is choosing a time. I think the spell needs to be performed in darkness to have full effect - any night good for you?"
"I'm open every night, Twilight. You know that. Whenever you're ready, I'll be ready.
--Four Days Earlier--
Chrysalis walked casually to her apartment, leaving the hidden green flame smoldering behind her. The books of the library were a small token to take in comparison to her Changelings, but their destruction would be revenge enough. Chrysalis didn't think Twilight herself would be caught in the conflagration; that was never the intention. The destruction of what she cared about, on the other hand... Smiling a bit at the thought, she unlocked the door to her apartment and went inside to plan her next lesson, shedding her disguise as the door swung shut.
Much later, after she had crawled into bed for the night, Chrysalis was woken by a symphony of screams. She sat bolt upright in bed and gazed out her window. Looking over the rooftops of Ponyville, she saw an ominous green glow coming from near the center of town.
"Are you ready to share my loss, Twilight Sparkle?" Chrysalis swung herself out of bed and trotted leisurely to her door, cloaking herself in the guise of Salchonic as she made her way outside and began to walk toward the distant blaze.
As Chrysalis drew near to the library, she began to see the extent of the devastation she had caused. The upper half of the library was engulfed in emerald flames, which hissed and sputtered as buckets of water were levitated and upturned above them by a small group of unicorns below. They were making little progress - the flames flared back up in the absence of water, and were only just held back by the unicorns' efforts.
A line of earth ponies was passing buckets back and forth, providing the water that the unicorns were throwing. Beside them was a crowd of gawking onlookers, faces lit with the grim light of the enchanted inferno. It was with these citizens that Chrysalis took her place and watched. She looked around for Twilight, who she expected would either be in the crowd or with the unicorns throwing water, but frowned when a quick scan of the ponies present failed to locate her.
Her gaze quickly shifted to the front door of the library when a pony burst out of the burning building, silhouetted against the fire. As they emerged, Chrysalis felt a powerful wave of empathy wash over her, knocking her to her haunches with its potency. It was a blast of anguish and despair such as Chrysalis had never felt, unparalleled even by her own devastation at the loss of her army. The pony rushing from the library was Twilight Sparkle, and she was levitating a huge pile of books in her stead.
"Keep the water coming!" Twilight shouted to the unicorns at the end of the bucket line, "I'm going back in!"
An orange mare Chrysalis recognized as Applejack leapt after the purple unicorn, but too late - Twilight had disappeared back inside the building. Applejack paced nervously outside, but didn't have long to wait before Twilight emerged once more, tail smoking slightly.
"More water! See if you can focus it at- aaauugh!"
Applejack tackled Twilight as soon as she was a safe distance from the library and pinned her to the ground. "Ya'll can't go back in there, Twilight! It's too dangerous! You'll get yerself killed!"
Squirming against her friend's hold on her, Twilight let out an anguished cry coupled with a second blast of empathy that hit Chrysalis like a stone. This wasn't how things were supposed to be. These were just books; Twilight should never have cared this much for them. Sitting silently on her haunches, Chrysalis was being forcibly treated to a range of emotions she had known were coming, but of an intensity she had never expected. She could feel every pang of loss radiating out from Twilight as the restrained mare twisted and fought to run back in and save as many of her beloved books as she could without considering the risk to herself. It was as much hers to bear as Twilight's, and unlike anything she had dealt with before.
Overhead, a blue Pegasus with a rainbow mane was combing the skies for clouds, pushing the ones she found into place over the library before blasting them apart with her hooves, letting loose a torrent of rainwater onto the branches below. It was this more than anything else that was keeping the flames in check, and even slowly beating them back.
And the night wore on.
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A gray unicorn stood inside his new home - a beautiful library grown from a living tree, just waiting to be supplied with books to fill its empty shelves. But the unicorn had not yet finished his spell - not quite. Trotting over to a bookshelf seemingly at random, he knelt down and peered beneath the bottom shelf.
Below every other bookshelf in the library, this space was solid wood, grown there to elevate the books housed on the bottom shelves so as to protect them from water or dust on the floor. Below this bookshelf, however, the space was empty.
The gray unicorn pulled a thin volume bound in tough brown fabric from his saddlebag and looked at it for the last time. The cover was unmarked, but he had grown familiar with it across a number of years. With a sigh of regret, he slipped the book into the space beneath the bookshelf, and quietly sang the last measure of his song. As he did, the floor swelled up to join seamlessly with the wood of the shelf. The bookcase with its hidden treasure was now indistinguishable from all the rest.
"It's for the best," the unicorn muttered to himself. "The world isn't ready for that kind of magic just yet."
His goal accomplished, the unicorn trotted back out into town. In the coming years, he would fill his library with all manner of books - mainly for the noble pursuit of knowledge, but partly to better hide what he had gone to such lengths to protect. After all, even if it was found, what attention could one book ever get in a library, surrounded by so many countless others?
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The last flicker of enchanted flame was extinguished just after two o'clock in the morning, over three hours after the first cry of alarm was heard across Ponyville. Many ponies trudged back to their homes, eager to get to sleep. A feeling of exhaustion hung in the air, mingling with the smell of burnt wood and scorched pages.
Sitting alone amongst the milling groups of ponies was a purple unicorn, sobbing quietly into her hooves. The flames may have been extinguished, but they had taken a considerable amount of the library with them. Her friends had all stopped to give her words of condolence, but drifted back to their own homes when she had failed to respond to their efforts. Half an hour after the last bucket of water had been emptied, Twilight sat quietly in front of the husk of the library next to a thoroughly downtrodden Spike. The two were alone in the night, save a white unicorn mare that had been equally still throughout the ordeal.
Chrysalis stared at the ground muttering to herself, occasionally glancing up at the pony that had once been her foe. "She caused you so much harm... She is the reason your army is dead," Chrysalis whispered to the patch of ground between her hooves. "She was the only pony who managed to find you out. If she hadn't, you would sit in the Equestrian Throne right now. But... She cares. She cares about her books. They are HER army. So I've done as much to her as she has to me." Chrysalis glanced up once more and decided to act on a wild impulse. Standing up to a chorus of cracks and pops from her stiff joints, she slowly trotted over to the librarian and her dragon assistant. It was time for her to make amends.
Chrysalis stopped slightly to Twilight's left and had cleared her throat before she realized that she had no idea what she was going to say. Twilight turned to face her in surprise, revealing wide eyes with brilliant glittering tears in their corners.
Best to feign ignorance, I suppose, Chrysalis decided. "Um - it's Twilight, right? I think I bumped into you this morning."
Twilight rubbed a stray tear away and looked up at the unicorn. "Oh, yeah. I remember you. I'm sorry; I don't think I ever caught your name."
"My name is Salchonic. I just came to Ponyville recently, and I've been helping Cheerilee teach her students foreign languages." Chrysalis shifted her weight between her hooves. "The library - um, well, you live here, right?"
Fresh tears began to well up in Twilights eyes, and Chrysalis cursed herself silently. "Well, used to live here. I guess I need to find somewhere else, now. And I still need to see how many books made it..." She let out a deep sigh and sunk to the ground. "I just don't really know what to do now."
"Well, you need to find a place to sleep to start with. I have an apartment on the edge of town. If you'd like, you’re welcome to stay there until you can clear out your house. It's not very big, but you've been through so much... It seems like the least I can do."
Twilight blinked up at the white unicorn with her mouth slightly agape. "Y-you'd do that for me? I mean, I hardly even know you, and..." she trailed off, a smile hinting at her lips for the first time in hours.
"It just seems like the right thing to do. You and your, uh-" Chrysalis tilted to the side to get a better look at Spike "-servant can stay with me as long as it takes to fix up your house."
Twilight stood up quickly. "Spike's not a servant! He's my assistant!"
"I dunno," Spike grumbled as he walked over to stand by Twilight, "sounds like she's got the right idea to me.
"Spike! That's just uncalled for." Twilight cast a scorching glance down at the baby dragon.
"Yeah, well we'll just see who ends up cleaning up this mess."
The corners of Chrysalis's mouth twitched up as she interrupted the bickering. "Look, it's really late. Let's just head back to my apartment, and we can discuss who's cleaning what in the morning. Deal?"
"Deal," Twilight said, smiling back.
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By the time Twilight had been living with Chrysalis for two days, she had covered every available surface of her apartment with paper of some kind. Books stood stacked precariously in chairs and lists cataloging the library's collection were taped over the walls. Returning home from a day teaching Cheerilee's class, Chrysalis gingerly pushed open her door, sliding the books stacked against it across the floor. She had to carefully step across a carpet of loose notes before she reached her table, where Twilight was pouring over a book propped up against a stack of encyclopedias.
"What are you working on, Twilight?" Chrysalis craned her neck over the table to see what appeared to be sheets of music.
"Well, you know how I told you that the library was originally grown?
"You never told me the rest of that story."
"Irrelevant. I've been researching how it was grown, and a few sources are saying the first librarian in Ponyville sang some sort of magical song to it. I've been trying to find a copy of it, but I just haven't had any luck so far..." Twilight slammed her book shut, causing a small cloud of dust to drift from the pages. "Well, I can always look for it later. Ready to go do some more sorting?"
"Sure. Just let me drop off my bags first." Chrysalis worked her way through the crowded room and stumbled into her bedroom, which was blissfully clear of books. As she unhooked her saddlebags, she called to Twilight over her shoulder. "How much do we have left to sort? I only have so much space here, you know."
Twilight's voice came floating back from the front room. "I managed to convince the mayor to let me use some of the extra offices in city hall as temporary storage. We just need to box up what's left and send it over. Shouldn't take more than another day or two."
"Good, I just know I'm going to trip over these things and break something if they stay here much longer." Chrysalis stepped back over the books scattered across the floor and joined Twilight at the door. "Alright. Let's go sort some books."
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A light purple aura surrounded a cardboard box and lifted it onto the back of a wooden cart parked in front of the remains of the library. "Alright, it's all loaded up!" Twilight called to the stallion hooked to the cart. "Tell the mayor thanks again for me!"
The stallion merely grunted in response and began to haul his heavy load off to the town hall. Twilight watched the cart go down the street, and then turned to head back into the library. Inside, Salchonic was packing some of the last of the books salvaged into stacks of cardboard boxes. Light shone through gaping holes in the ceiling, and the shadows of twisted, charred branches overlaid the debris littering the floor. Having finished loading up a box, she sealed it with a roll of heavy tape and stacked it on top of a considerable pile of similarly packed boxes. She wiped a bead of sweat off her brow and turned to face Twilight.
"Whew. Well, that's all mathematic books done. Once we pack up what's left of the biology section and clear out all the ash and dust, we should be ready to start repairs."
Twilight looked around at the small piles of debris scattered around the library and frowned. "Ugh, easier said than done. I've never seen the library this messy. Well, at least it will all be clean before I have to start reshelving." Twilight trotted over to a soot-stained shelf housing such titles as Parasprite Husbandry and The Complete Timber Wolf Reference Guide. She scanned the shelf for a moment before letting out a small "Ah!" and extracting a very thin volume that looked very old. "I was afraid something had happened to this one; it took me forever to get a copy, and now I think I might actually have a use for it."
Twilight levitated the book over to Salchonic, who glanced at the title, did a double take, and immediately proceeded to drop the book on the floor. It landed splayed open, face down. On the spine, the title was printed in neat silver capitals: A Moste Incompleat Treatise on the Race of Changelings.
Twilight gasped and rushed over to pick up the book and brush the ash from its pages. "Careful! That book is really, really old!" She flipped open to a page at random and scanned over it. "This treatise was written centuries ago, back when Changelings were a common threat to Equestria." She flipped back to the front of the book and ran her hoof along the lines of the introduction. "It contains all the knowledge the Princess's scientists knew at the time. They'd planned to expand it into a full guide on Changelings, but the project was cancelled when conflict with them subsided. The records are a bit unclear, but the general consensus is that the Changelings decided Equestria was too powerful to keep fighting, and that they went somewhere else." She carefully closed the book and placed it in a box before turning to face Salchonic. "Evidently, they were wrong. Have you heard about what happened at the royal wedding?"
Chrysalis forced her mind back into gear to reply to Twilight. "Oh, uh, yeah. Didn't a bunch of Changelings show up there?"
"Yes!" Twilight stormed back to the bookshelf and started to throw books into boxes across the room. "And they almost ruined everything. Luckily, my brother is really good with shield spells, or I don't think we could have held them off."
Chrysalis suppressed a wince over the memory of a wall of solid love slamming into her. "So it would be fair to say that you don't like them very much, then."
Twilight abruptly stopped packing books away and dropped to sit on her haunches, staring into the middle distance. "Well... That's the thing. I mean, obviously I don't like them for what they did..." she turned to face Salchonic with one eyebrow raised, "but isn't it kind of in their nature to feed on our love?" She stood back up and began to pace the room. "And really, that's not even that bad. Wolves and hydras will actually kill ponies; Changelings feed on love, but that doesn't make them inherently evil. The problem is that they STEAL love." She stopped pacing and turned to face Salchonic. "And that's why I want to start researching them. I want to know why they do what they do, and how to deal with them in the future. But, well - I need to finish fixing the library before I can research much of anything."
A slew of possibilities raced through Chrysalis’s mind as she revaluated Twilight's motives. "Well, if you want to fix the library sooner, you should head back to my apartment and look more into that song. I can finish up here."
"Thanks, Sal! I think I'll do just that." Twilight sealed the box she had been filling and stacked it with the others. "Hopefully, I'll be able to find a copy of it somewhere. I think I'll check the old newspaper archives. Maybe they'll tell me something about the song..." The unicorn mare trotted out of the library, already dipping her head and muttering about potential sources of information. Chrysalis watched her go trot off down the street, and then sat down to be alone with her thoughts.
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"Salchonic! Hey, Salchonic! Wake up!"
Chrysalis shot upright to the sound of Twilight pounding at her bedroom door. When Chrysalis had returned from the library late the night before Twilight had been engrossed in her research; presumably she had just found something. Chrysalis quickly got out of bed and assumed the form of Salchonic, thankful that she had remembered to lock her room. She twisted the lock and Twilight burst through the door, slamming into Chrysalis and sending both to the floor.
"Oof! Sorry about that, Sal. Are you alright?" Twilight rubbed her head and she got to her feet.
"It's, like-" Chrysalis grumbled, glancing at her clock "-four in the morning. What gives?"
Twilight clapped her front hooves together, a smile wide on her face. "I found the song! We can use it to rebuild the library! All I needed to do was look in the old town construction archives. The blueprint for the library had a copy of the song right next to it!"
"I still don't really know what you plan to do with that song. What did it even do in the first place?"
Twilight extended a hoof to help Salchonic up. "Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you how the Ponyville library was grown."
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Twilight and Salchonic sat in the front room of the apartment as the sun rose. Soft beams of light filtered through the curtains, casting oddly shaped shadows to creep from the many stacks of books and spread across the room. Twilight had spent the last hour relating the story of how Ponyville was founded, and how the gray unicorn had created the library so long ago.
Twilight checked a few boxes on the list she was holding before rolling it up. "Well then, all that's left is choosing a time. I think the spell needs to be performed in darkness to have full effect - any night good for you?"
"I'm open every night, Twilight. You know that. Whenever you're ready, I'll be ready." She stifled a yawn and stood up from the pile of books she was sitting on. "But for now, I need to get back to sleep. When will the library be ready to work on?"
Twilight hoofed her way through her checklist and found the entry she was looking for. "Well, as far as I can tell everything is packed up, so as soon as we move out the boxes we can get started. We could probably try for tonight."
"Alright, I think I can handle that." Chrysalis picked up a copy of the gray unicorn's song and scanned it. "This isn't an easy bit of music, to be sure, but I've yet to see a language that I can't crack. You should head over to the library and make sure everything gets loaded into the carts alright. I'm going to start reading through this and figuring out how it sounds." She stepped back into her room and sat on the bed, pouring over the page of lyrics and notes. As soon as she heard Twilight closing the front door, she stripped pretending and collapsed back onto the bed, asleep.
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Outside of the library, a grumpy brown pegasus stallion with a stubbly beard and a black cap was helping Twilight load the last few boxes of books into his cart. A steady stream of dust was floating out of the library door, accompanied by the disgruntled mumbling of Spike.
"Hey miss," the stallion called out to Twilight, "we're startin' to run low on space here. 'Bout how many boxes do ya have left?"
Twilight emerged, coughing, from the rising cloud in front of the library. "This is the last one!" She levitated the cardboard box over to the cart and set it gently inside. "There. All done. Thank you so much for helping me move these! You have no idea how helpful you've been."
The stallion shrugged and closed the cart's back gate. "Would've been faster if I'd had that ditzy mare here. She keeps getting called to make deliveries at the worst times. I swear she's gone to Sweet Apple Acres a dozen times in the last month, Celestia knows why." He let out a small sigh and headed to the front of the cart to hook himself to the harness. Pausing for a moment, he glanced in the direction of the library before turning back to Twilight. "You mind if I ask you a bit of a personal question, miss?"
Intrigued, Twilight shook her head. "Not at all. What do you want to know?"
The stallion tilted in toward Twilight and spoke in a hushed voice. "Just between you and me, why are you keeping that dragon around? Seeing as how he started the fire and all."
Twilight jumped back in shock. "What! What in the hay makes you think THAT?! Spike would never do something like that!"
The stallion tilted back and held up a placating hoof to Twilight. "Whoa, whoa there miss. I never said he intended to do it. It's just that, well, he's the only fire-breathin' thing around, and he's just a baby. I mean, accidents happen, and well... you saw the color of the flames."
Twilight's nostrils flared in rage as she leaned in to face the stallion. "How dare you accuse Spike like that! Why don't you just take your cart and go!"
"Alright, alright. Don't get your mane all twisted, I was just putting a theory out there." The pegasus hitched the cart's harness over his shoulders and started slowly down the street. Turning his head, he called back, "Just don't blame me if it happens again." And, with that, he trundled off.
Twilight stood huffing in the street for a few seconds before calming herself down. "Don't be ridiculous, Twilight!" she muttered to herself. "Spike could never do something like that." But as she turned to face the library, Twilight couldn't help but think that Spike was only a baby - and that green fire was especially uncommon.
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"Are you ready to sing, Sal?" Twilight stood next to the white unicorn, the moon visible above them through the blackened branches of the library. For a moment Chrysalis considered asking Twilight to call her by her full (albeit false) name, but conceded that it really was a bit of a mouthful.
"I've been practicing all day, Twilight. I'm ready. I just need to sing, right?" She turned to see the purple unicorn, who was running her hoof down a page of notes and calculations.
Twilight stowed the paper in her saddlebags and faced Chrysalis. "Yep, just sing. What I'm going to be doing is releasing lots of ambient energy into the area surrounding the library. In theory, that energy should be formed by the song and cause the tree to grow into exactly the same shape it did when the gray unicorn first sang to it. That's why we had to move out all the books. The wear on the wood over the years means the library as it stands now is in a different shape than the original. It wouldn't do to have books destroyed by warping wood." As she finished speaking, her horn began to glow with a brilliant aura. "Alright, Sal! Start singing - NOW!"
Twilight sent a jet of magic shooting at the library. It stopped abruptly a few feet from the wall and blossomed out into an oblong dome, surrounding the tree with a strangely distorted light. As the dome settled into place, Chrysalis began to sing. Her song was slow and flowing, and was less comprised of words than of a sequence of sounds. There was no comprehensible meaning to it - presumably, it meant something to the tree, and not even Chrysalis could speak that language.
As Chrysalis sang, the tree slowly began to warp and twist inside the dome. Some branches faded away into nothingness, while others appeared as ghostly images before solidifying. Leaves popped out of twigs in an accelerated parody of spring budding. The trunk bulged and deflated in various places, changing to become what it had once been so long ago. As the last note left Chrysalis's lips, the dome dissipated, and before the two unicorns, the tree stood whole and healthy.
Unbeknownst to either, on the inside of the library a small compartment under a shelf slid open, revealing it's long hidden treasure of a single book.
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Twilight and Salchonic trotted around the library, admiring the sharp edges of the wood. Everything had been restored to its original state - the library looked better now that it had before.
"I can't believe it actually worked," Twilight exclaimed in awe, "I thought I would have to patch everything up with planks." She turned to face Salchonic and cleared her throat. "Well Sal, I think this means I can finally get all those books out of your apartment. With everything fixed up I can go back to living here."
Salchonic smiled back at Twilight. "Hey, don't worry about doing that tonight. I'll help you with the reshelving tomorrow. For now, just focus on putting a bed in here so you can sleep on a mattress instead of in a sleeping bag."
"I think I'll do that," Twilight giggled. "Spike! Ready to start moving our stuff back in?"
"Way ahead of you, Twi." Spike stumbled through the door carrying a stack of blankets and pillows taller than he was. "No offense to your floor, Salchonic, but I'm looking forward to getting my old bed back."
Salchonic smiled at him as he mounted the stairs, and then turned back to Twilight. "Well, I should be heading home. Got to get ready to teach tomorrow and all. I'll stop by after school gets out to help you reshelve, all right?"
Tears dotted the corners of Twilight's eyes, and she pulled Salchonic into a brief, unexpected hug. "Thank you so much for your help, Sal. You really, really don't know how much this means to me."
Embarrassed, Salchonic rubbed the back of head with a hoof. "Hey, it was only what any decent pony would do. Don't sweat it."
Twilight wiped her eyes and sniffed, a smile breaking across her face. "You're too modest, Sal. If you ever need anything, just ask. I'll do what I can."
The two stood on the middle of the new library for a moment in silence. One was filled with joy over her home being fixed; the other did her best to hide her guilt. "Aaaanyway," Chrysalis said, "I've got to head back home. I'll see you tomorrow, Twilight."
"Alright, see you tomorrow, Sal." The two exchanged a quick smile, and then Salchonic turned and headed out into the night. Looking around once more, Twilight decided to see just what had changed in the tree's rejuvenation. An empty space under a book shelf caught her eye. "Huh," she thought, "I could have sworn there was solid wood under all the shelves.
She crossed the room and bent her front legs, peering under the ingrown shelf. "Oh!" she cried, spotting a thin book, "I guess we must have missed a book." She reached an arm under the shelf and fished the book out, noting it's lack of a title as she trotted up the stairs to bed.