I had to hand it to the archives. Whatever they may have skimped on, the quality of their bookshelves wasn’t one of them.

  Several ihick, it roving difficult to rot through at a reasonable pace. Instead, individual spots would take sed after agonizing sed as magic simuted the effects of fungi on it, slowly chewing through inch after inch till it was down to a thiess I might punch through.

  There was no question about what this was doing to me. I squirmed as I could feel my tail re-emerging, poking through my skin. My horns slid bato pce, bone ain pushing skin aside. My toes melted bato the end of my leg as the hoof reformed. Bones lengthened, flesh moved about. None of it hurt, but it felt weird, prickly and strange. And….good.

  It is not like the smooth sensation of making flesh glide with biosculpting. Diabolism felt like a sensation, ae the prig of my skin, I couldn’t make myself dislike it. It felt good to have flesh pushed aside, almost pleasant.

  Probably not a good sign.

  I’d fihe circle, and spent some time with my hand pushed against the ter, letting rot seep out into the ter and spread from there. Unnecessary, but every additional sed would make it easier, and build on that sensation growing-

  With an irritated growl, I stopped feeding power into the w. The internalizing of its run-off ceased, and ainess pricked at me.

  “Did you make it feel that way?” I asked as I moved forward a little, preparing to punch the weakened board.

  No. Why would I o? Diabolism itself has its way of rewarding uses of it.

  What did I expect? Even if the answer was yes, the Imp would never say. I puhe ter of the board, the feeling of my knuckles smashing against it and wo to resist distrag me from that fardiiness.

  One blow. Two. Three, and cracks were f. Four and my fist was through, hitting the back of several books and sending them off the shelf.

  That gave me leverage and from there I pulled on wood, splitting pieces off and tossing them back. A row of books was in the way and I pushed them forward. I grabbed a rger one, ying it across the bottom of the hole so I’d have something to lie on as I moved through. I didn’t want to move across the jagged outline of the hole I’d formed. I didn’t need splinters of any size inside me.

  There was enough nastiness in there already.

  Emerging from the hole I’d rotted in the shelves, the ceiling of the archives caught my attention. The ck of one.

  Looking up at the sky, I stood in disbelief. Above me, the os stretched out. Stars glowed a soft gentle light, a pair of moons cutting a path with their slow orbit through the sky. Occasional ets carved perpendicur paths across it, trailing light behind them in patterns across the sky. Backdropping it all was a deep blue night, holy, a richer blue than I’d ever seen in my life.

  The trailing patterns of lights reformed into ars, all of them blinking. The ets, I realized, weren’t actually solid matter, looking more like blown-up versions of the are lights universalist mages would jure because they didn’t want to waste the s on nterns. Smaller ones littered the sky, f the stars, thousands of them providing an ambient glow to the entire pce.

  I opened my eyes into the astral and immediately closed them, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  Okay, far too much magic to look at unguarded. The riotous mess of eant this pce was lousy with spirits. That meant no more diabolism for now. Diabolism was ao most spirits, a treat to others. The disruptions in those movements would be a signal fre to any half-det mage watg.

  So many spells were yered across the sky, there’d be at least one.

  This all had to be a spell. Outside the impossible astrology and looking like spells, I had not spent that long rotting the bookshelf!

  her Gregory nor Elise had mentioned any of this! If I made it out of this pce alive, there was going to be a very frank discussion with the both of them about preparation, their desire to keep secrets about this pce be damned!

  Looking down a little did nothing for my emotions. Far off in the dista looked like someone had just taken this floor and rotated it y degrees. Ahose little dots moving among those bookshelves people?

  No time to gawk. Instead, I moved to put the books bad hide the rotted wood remnants before anyone happened upon it. While doing so, I firmed a few unfortuails.

  First, I had beeirely correct when I’d said going through that tunnel was going to leave filth all over the pin dress I’d brought in with me. Torn in some pces, smeared and discolored in others, the pale blue garment had already seen quite a beating that would help give me away.

  Not as much as the sed. Internalizing the Infernal energies of rotting a hole through the blocked-off passages had eroded my disguise more than just bringing back my other limbs. I looked at one of my arms. Patches of skin turned a familiar blue...and possibly something else. Those fine scales, like the skin of a fish, like on my cheeks. Those must have always dotted my forearms. I must not have noticed before now. Surely they’d always been there.

  Right, they probably hadn’t, but at least they were more like those on a fish than a reptile. Might as well have them be matg if I was being ged.

  I sighed, turning my attention to my immediate surroundings beside the artificial sky and the y-degree floors in the distance.

  The bookshelves were oall side, twenty feet, and each with an attached dder on rails. The shelves were spaced far apart, enough that I could see the four sideways floors without having to move from the middle. They’d carpeted the entire floor, as opposed to just rugs like you’d find in most houses. The definitely had more of a stake in this than Lord Montague, sidering his meagre business I’d found when doing research.

  Then again, I’d missed this pce being managed by him. Maybe I just wasn’t that good at ferreti business is out.

  It widened further down, opening into an area with multiple tables and chairs, fat cushions ying all over the pce. Ah, a den for book-readers, I thought enviously. Before all this, I owned a single, very thin cushion I had worn through to paper thinness. Could I perhaps steal one on my way out?

  Sounds broke me out of my thievery-happy thoughts. Boots on the ground, voices in versation, talking with each other. Further down from me, so not an immediate .

  The bookshelf down from me groahen, to my disbelief, shifted. With a groan two ses of it pushed forward like a door being opened.

  I didn’t let disbelief hold on to me for long, running to take cover over by the reading room.

  Three humans in blue-gold uniforms pushed forward, nterns in one hand and pistols iher. They moved through, sparing a gnce for either side before tinuing to move through. The shelf split open, only thirty feet down from where I’d emerged from it. They were gone in a few seds.

  Huh. That was…..no wotempting to stare into the Astral had made my eyes water. Was there anythihat wasn’t magical?

  Above me came a thrumming, and one of the moon’s shuddered, an invisible force carving into its surface. A chiming noise like a church bell rang across the library as it did so, then a voice repeated the words, now carved into the moon.

  Attention all. Entrances betweehird and Fourth Layer are currently closed. The newly installed meisms have not properly interfaced with the underlying spellwork. Please do not attempt to travel between those two yers until we fix these issues.

  And then they vanished, leaving the surface of the moon bnk.

  Are lights that could search the bookshelves, patrols that could open up passages through them at a thought, a moon that could dispy messages. Where had this been when we’d discussed me getting these damn records? ‘A featrols typically, they aren’t that hard to evade normally’?

  This better result from that refiguration they mentioned Lord Montague doing, I thought bitterly as I crept forward some more. If not, we’re going to have a talk about how much bookshelf climbing they thought I’d be doing on a broken leg.

  Although even if my leg had beehy, that route would be out. Giveher parts of the archives at ao this o would be much easier to spot me crawling on top of there. Now, if I had a uniform, that might be different.

  More footsteps now, ing from the other side of the nook. I moved to that side, out of view of the passage into this reading room.

  “-gormless, hazing little shites. Sure, leave the newbie behind, just happen to close the bookshelf right before he make it through.”

  Huh. Who should I thank for this? I wasn’t fond of anything g to be a deity or simir in power, so instead I settled for pig up a book aing ready.

  A guard entered sight, a young human with a full head of red hair. He didn’t seem too focused on anything but pining about his co-workers. Easy prey. I tossed the book behind his bading on the opposite side of the room.

  “Is someohere?” The guard asked, creeping towards where I’d thrown the book with their sword drawn. “If you’re a patron, there’s nothing to worry about. I know things may have ged a lot in the past few days, but as long as you’re a legal member-”

  I hit the back of the helmeted head with a very thie oing habits ons, sending the guard reeling forward. I o move fast, because despite the thiess of the book, through the helmet that should only buy me a few seds.

  The guard was already trying to turn around as I threw the heavy tome at his face. It instead hit his chest but sent him backward.

  I shoved him, f him to the ground in a ctter of armor. I could only hope no one else heard. I ed my arms around his neck, g down where I khe two major arteries were.

  He filed, a fist eg with my eye, but I held on. A greave kicked my leg, luckily my unbroken one, as pain shot up from my shin.

  One-ohousand, two-ohousand, three-ohousand, four-

  The guard went limp in my grip halfway between seven a, and I let go before I did any perma harm. Well, any more that I might have. I looked around for something, anything, to tie him up before he returo sciousness. One of the tapestrys would have to do.

  I stripped him first. Only of his outer uniform, which atterned off the army. No backward-bending trousers, unfortunately, but it would have to do.

  In a few minutes, I had a trussed up and gagged guard, who I moved to underh one of the reading tables. Hopefully, he’d remain undiscovered until well after I’d left.

  I checked as best I could fns of more perma harm. I might not have cussed him? Perhaps? I hadn’t held back, and it had knocked him out in a single blow, but that didn’t mean brain trauma.

  Then again, the book I’d hit him with had been on mating habits with non races. That meant a very thick book.

  I’d left instrus on how to handle him, immediate treatment, and what kind of doctor to see afterward, so that might make up for the probable cussion.

  The uniform fit detly well on me. Good. I didn’t want to go around hunting staff members till I found oh the same size of clothes as me. I took my dress off and then started putting the stolen uniform on. Too tight in some spots, not enough in others. It would be enough to serve at a distance.

  Well, assuming they ighe horns. And the skin. Maybe the staff members wouldn’t reflect the prejudices of this pce’s current caretaker?

  Probably not. Fine, maybe it would buy me a few seds before the guns started firing.

  I went to the dder on the bookshelf, climbing up towards the top.

  Hopefully, I’d just look like a member of the staff trying to get their bearings when climbing up here.

  Making it to the top of the bookshelf, I got a better view. There was a third moon of in the distanced, low enough to be hidden by a bookshelf the way the walls hadn’t.

  I settled in, just trying to get a sense of the rhythm of this pce, anything I could use to move around in here. I doubted the Montague’s instrus would work. sidering they hadn’t mentiohe several moons, probably not.

  A fake et would streak across the sky, dipping lower than the rest, bright light illuminating anything within in view. Silent as it was, the view was surreal, but incredible, seeing those giant balls of pale luminesce dip so close to the ground. Standing on the bookshelf, you might even reach out and touch them as they pass.

  Probably not advisable to do.

  Soon after, a guard squad would follow through the shelves, spread out c a hundred-foot swathe of the library.

  Give it twenty minutes, and another et would pass o where the first one had.

  I’d expeething more random, but this wasn’t even the yer with the books they wao restrict access to, so perhaps security was more rexed? I had gotten lucky, I must have emerged from the bookshelf iween the light and the guard patrol.

  I couldn’t lie. sidering what this yer was like, part of me wao see that third yer.

  I waited for four ets to pass, occasionally dipping down back to the floor and walking a fair distance before re-emerging. Hopefully, I wouldn’t raise too much suspi by doing this, but I wao firm where the ets were heading out from.

  They’d dip down from the sky, plummeting towards a specific point in the middle of this ter floor I was on, then head out at different ahey only altered their paths when they would hit the walls, instead ging their path to s the bookshelves there as well.

  What were the odds that was just a misdire, a way to throw people off the path of where the actual offices for the staff were?

  Then again, this was a library. A library with a very restricted list of guests, but still a library. And besides, what other leads did I have? I looked up at one of the stationary moons to have a stable ndmark to work off of, then started the climb down.

  I had a dire to head.