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A foolish grin was plastered on Prika’s face, a book splayed out on the surface of the boulder in front of her. A movement from the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she raised her head. “Vur? That was the shortest nap in the history of naps. Where you going?”
Vur yawned and stretched his arms over his head, arching his back. He closed his eyes and soaked in the sunlight for a few moments before putting his arm down. He glanced at Prika. “I’m going to the library,” he said. “Do you want to come?”
“Library?” Prika asked, her eyebrows perking up. Her eyes shifted, and she made sure Vur wasn’t eyeing her pile of books nearby. “Which library?”
“The one at Tafel’s home,” Vur said.
“Oh, the one where we went to back when you were little?” Prika asked. She nodded. “Didn’t we rob, err, obtain all the books we wanted from that one? They’re still in Sera’s cave. I thought you read them all already.”
Vur rubbed his chin. “Don’t libraries get new books over time?”
“You want to rob them again?” Prika asked, raising an eyebrow. “Humans and demons are pretty slow writers.” She closed her book, placed it back on the pile, and hopped off the boulder, landing in front of Vur. She bent her legs and gestured for Vur to climb on her back. “Get on. I’ll take you somewhere even better.”
Vur jumped up with the help of a simple wind spell and landed on top of Prika’s head. He sat down and crossed his legs, not caring about being polite. “Where are we going?”
“There’s a little island chain between here and the eastern continent,” Prika said. “They’re occupied by owlcats. As the self-proclaimed most voracious reader of love stories, I can vouch for those little guys and their story-telling abilities.”
A fairy’s head popped out of the tattoo on Vur’s chest. “I’ve never heard of owlcats before. Isn’t this exciting?” Stella asked. She stretched her neck up and rolled her eyes to make eye contact with Vur. “See? There are so many new and weird things you’ve yet to encounter. Aren’t you glad I convinced you to go out of your cave?”
Vur grunted and braced himself as Prika launched herself into the air. The red dragon flapped her wings and let out a snort. “Can you believe Grimmy and Leila just left me behind and completely ignored my awesome idea? It’s almost as if they have zero respect for me just because I’m single.” She snorted again. “So, what kind of books are you looking for anyway? Romance novels? How-to books?”
“Books on interesting things to see in the world,” Vur said. “Tafel likes adventuring to interesting places. I’ll explore them all first, and if any of them are fun, I’ll bring her there later.”
Prika blinked. “If that’s the case, the owlcats won’t have what you’re looking for,” she said. “They’re very creative, but almost everything they write is fiction. Luckily for you, I know just the place to go to find what you’re looking for.”
“You know a lot more than I thought you would,” Stella said.
Prika’s eye twitched. “And what’s that supposed to mean? You think I’m boring just because no one thinks I’m interesting enough to take as a mate, huh?” She let out a sigh before Stella could respond. “Forget it. I’m not going to argue with something tinier than one of my scales.”
“Are we still going to a library?” Vur asked.
“In a sense, but not really,” Prika said. She scratched her head, her claw nearly bumping into Vur. “The locals of where we’re going call the place the Recordkeeper’s Palace. You know what ravens are, right? The black little birds that always seem to show up when something bad is going to happen?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, roughly a quarter of the ravens in the world aren’t actually ravens,” Prika said. “They’re the Recordkeeper’s eyes and ears. They’re like little homunculi she created to monitor the events happening in the world.”
“Wait? Really?” Stella asked, her eyes widening. “How come I’ve never heard about this before?”
“Because you’re just a fairy,” Prika said and rolled her eyes. “In the grand scheme of things, fairies are completely insignificant. Why would the Recordkeeper ever interact with you?”
Stella pursed her lips. “And dragons are important enough?”
“Duh.” Prika said and snorted. “This world practically belongs to dragons. Have you not noticed?”
***
Tafel raised an eyebrow. Beneath her pillar of ice, on the surface of the ocean, there seemed to be a chain of islands; either that, or her eyes were playing tricks on her. According to the traces left behind by Susan and Emile, the two phoenixes had gone down to the island chain. Was this where they were hiding? The islands weren’t located on any map that she knew of, so it was a high possibility.
Tafel’s horns glowed silver, and after a minute of calculating, she opened a portal and stepped through. Her foot made contact with a sandy beach, and the first thing she did was raise Minerva’s feather. The golden glow illuminated a small region around her, showing red traces leading in and out of the water. Evidently, Susan and Emile had gone fishing. A furrow appeared on Tafel’s brow, and she waved her hand. The pillar of ice, which was now in the distance, crumbled.
The nearest trace led into the water, but it didn’t seem to go very far. From where she was standing, Tafel could see dozens of shells lining the shore. They were massive, each one nearly the size of her head. A splash of water caught Tafel’s attention, and a strange creature burst out of the water. It looked like a cat, but it had a pair of wings growing out of its back, and its head was that of an owl’s. Its four paws were holding a large clam, and the strange creature flew high up into the air before dropping the clam. The clam hit a nearby rock and shattered, splitting into two halves, one of which had am exposed fleshy blob clinging to it. The creature swooped down from the sky and landed by its handiwork. It gave Tafel a glance before pecking at the poor clam.
Tafel tilted her head. Was the creature an owl? A cat? Either way, it didn’t really matter. As long as they didn’t eat Susan and Emile, then she honestly didn’t care about them. It didn’t look like they were tough at all. Unlike the monsters in Fuselage, the ones she could kill and harvest for materials, this creature seemed to have no value at all.
Shortly after Tafel left, following the traces revealed by Minerva’s feather, a second owlcat flew down from the trees and approached the first. “What kind of creature was that?” the second owlcat asked.
“I’m not sure, but it looked pretty miserable, didn’t it? It must’ve lost its wings somewhere.”
“It probably went to look for them.” The second owlcat’s eyes lit up. “You know what? I think that’d make a great story. I’m going to write a book about an owlcat that lost its wings and had to go on a journey to find them. I think I’ll call it … Cat.”
“Ooh, you should add some romance to it. I bet that big red owlcat will love it.”