Now that he’d seen it, there was no way he could walk away. Plus, what was to say there wasn’t a library-loving prince? If all the princes in the capital were shut-ins, didn’t it follow that one of them would frequent the library? It was totally in line with his objectives!
…Also, he just wanted to go to the library. Was it really a crime?
I wonder if I’ll see my favorite cat inside? Az did seem to like visiting the various libraries. True, last time they’d met, he’d declared himself as ‘only a Tier 4,’ which wouldn’t be able to get through the storm (barring Lira’s underwater water sprite route) but then, it was pretty obvious that he’d been lying about being Tier 4. If he was a betting man, he’d put money on Az being able to enter this region without so much as getting his fur wet.
Wait, would that be a barrier to him? Getting his fur wet? It was a storm in the ocean. He’d need to be a seriously powerful mage to dodge every single raindrop out there.
Then again… I did just say I’d put money on that. And I really do think he could do it.
There was only one way to find out if the strange cat had crossed into this region to invade yet another library. Rhys stepped forward and pushed open the heavy doors, stepping into a cool, cavernous chamber. Books of thousands of shades and colors populated shelves that stretched to the ceilings hundreds of feet up, lining every single wall within the space. Mages floated freely around, selecting books from various levels. Those that couldn’t yet fly made use of the library’s shared brooms, which piled up in barrels by the door. Rhys almost grabbed one for the novelty of flying on a broom, but after a second’s thought, left them for those who actually needed them.
Walking quietly along, he simply took it in. It was beautiful—not in the quiet, dignified way most libraries were, but in its raucous of colors and the hum of constant, low conversation. It wasn’t loud—except for the colors of the books—but there was noise, which set it apart from Az’s library, Purple Dawn’s empty halls, the Empire’s locked-down, forcibly orderly room, or Daran’s abandoned room. It was alive, Rhys realized; that was the difference. Used and loved by people, with people constantly interacting with the books and shelves, this was a beloved, living being, an organic part of the community that it tirelessly supported. This was how a library should be.
As usual, he drifted toward the fiction section, which, in a world where knowledge was literally power, was relatively unpopulated. Rhys didn’t mind that either. He didn’t have an objective and he was just here to browse, so it made him comfortable to be in an emptier section, where he wasn’t getting in anyone’s way. Tucking his hands behind him, he wandered down the shelves, craning his neck to see the higher titles from the floor. It would’ve been easier to fly, but his addiction to walking and his mage eyesight made it possible to stick to the floor, too.
Mage libraries tended to favor nonfiction, like any college’s depressingly businesslike educational library, but this library had a good selection of both. Of course, it was still biased toward nonfiction, but it did have a pretty serious fiction section, too. Rhys leaped up a few times, holding onto the shelf while he browsed a prospective new read. He didn’t have to wander long before he found a book he liked, nor did it take him long to find a sun-dappled nook to read it in. He settled in and lost himself in the narrative.
A few minutes in, he felt a familiar aura brush his. He looked up and couldn’t find Ryota, but he’d recognized the aura nonetheless. Rhys snorted under his breath and shook his head. He shouldn’t have joked so much about killing the other princes. Well, to be fair, I wasn’t planning to actually go through with it at the time. I might still not. It all depended on if he happened upon a trash prince before they ran out of time. And now that he’d found the library, he might just laze around here until it was time to mosey. He’d come here to have a vacation, after all. That hadn’t really panned out, but he could always start now. Lounging around doing nothing and enjoying some good books sounded almost like that vacation. Sure, he only got a week of it before he was back to hard work mimicking a Tier 8 mage, but what was it they said? No rest for the wicked.
Without the need to eat or sleep, he was free to simply spend his time quietly reading. The other library goers left him alone, and he fully indulged in his hobby. Books piled up next to him, until at last he looked at the pile and felt a faint pang of guilt for the librarians. Rhys slung his legs off the windowsill he’d been sitting in and climbed to his feet with a sigh, bending to pick up the pile.
A weight landed on his shoulders the second he bent over, pinning him in place. Four small feet pressed on his shoulders, and a familiar voice greeted him with a meow.
“You could’ve just greeted me normally,” Rhys complained, still bent in half.
On his back, Az began purring.
“Yeah, that’s not your style.” Rhys stood slowly, giving the cat time to grapple up his clothes onto his shoulder. The tuxedo cat continued to purr, now using the opportunity to rub his face on Rhys’s chin. Rhys chuckled and rubbed his ears. “Good to see you, buddy. How’d you get all the way over here?”
Az ignored his question, preferring to continue purring instead.
He is a cat, after all. If he doesn’t want to answer, he’s just going to refuse. “What’re you doing here, huh?”
“I’m utilizing my most formidable weapon to sneak into their inner sanctums of knowledge,” Az replied, his voice half-muffled by the purring.
“Oh? And what’s that?”
Az harrumphed. “My cuteness.”
Rhys barely bit back a snort. Don’t laugh at the mysterious and powerful cat elder. He can kill you with a fingertip. Don’t laugh…
“And what are you doing here?”
“Reading,” Rhys said innocently.
Another harrumph.
“I’m looking for some trash princes. Would you happen to know any people who fit that description?”
Az stretched, arcing his back high. He crossed to Rhys’s other shoulder for no apparent reason. “Perhaps… if you’d offer me some assistance.”
“Sure. What do you need?”
Perching on his shoulder, Az sat down and began to lick his paw. “There is a woman here who is untouched by my cuteness. She is what we might call… a dog person.”
He said it with the same amount of disgust that others applied to filth and spiders crawling in their sheets at night. Once again, Rhys had to bite back a chuckle.
“Unfortunately for me,” Az continued, “she guards the inner sanctums with severity and an eagle eye, and it is the rare visitor who is brave enough to speak with her. Even when they do, she is quick and efficient, and they fail to distract her for long enough for me to complete the complex work of twisting past their magical and physical defenses.”
“So you need me to distract this scary librarian so you can sneak into the holy-of-holies and snitch their most valuable books?”
Az sniffed. “You make it sound so trite. I only seek the noblest goal of freeing knowledge. Libraries are meant to share knowledge, not lock it away.”
Rhys laughed at that, trying not to let his mirth at this whole situation extend his giggles. “It’s better for me if your goals are trashy, you know.”
“What a troublesome path you have.”
“Truly.” Rhys bent again to actually pick up his books, and Az used the opportunity to hop free. “I’m in. Point me at the lady, and let’s get this heist on the road.”
“Heist? It’s but a momentary distraction. Don’t oversell this endeavor.” Az paused, looking over his shoulder. “Do well here, and I might invite you to a true heist in the future.”
“Whoa, really? Hell yeah.” Heisting with a literal cat burglar? Now that was some real trash material right there. Not to mention that it was just plain awesome. Heists were cool, cats were cool, cat burglars were cool. Add all three together, and you got everyone’s favorite Batguy villainess… ahem. Villain, for Az’s sake. And she wasn’t the only example. It was a classic trash combination, and a classic one, too, with the same kind of evergreen status as the shounen berserker. If Az wasn’t just joking and was truly serious, it’d be hype as hell.
Az snorted dismissively. “Though… you might need another tier or two first if you wish to survive.”
“I thought you were but a lowly Tier 4.”
“Did I say that?” Flicking his tail, Az strutted away.
Rhys shook his head and followed after him, his books piled on one hand. He emerged from the fiction section and reentered the larger library, where Az led him directly toward the back. At the very rear of the massive space, an enormous desk dominated the far wall. Behind it, a vault door stood firmly in the way of any further entry.
Between the desk and the vault sat a straightbacked, serious, bun-wearing silver-haired lady who was every inch the stereotypical librarian. She wore half-moon glasses with a beaded chain, her robes were high-necked and comfortably unflattering, and while most mages chose to freeze their age in their twenties or thirties, she had the austerity of a grandmother about her—her age frozen at least at sixty, if not seventy. For all that, her body was strong and her aura even stronger. She was somewhere at the top of Tier 6, nearing Tier 7.
Az glanced at Rhys, but he really didn’t have to. It was obvious from the moment he saw her: this was the one. “How long do you need?” Rhys murmured.
“Long enough,” Az replied. Without another word, he ran off, vanishing into the stacks and leaving Rhys all alone.
Damn cats. Rhys sighed internally, shaking his head at Az. Steeling himself, he approached the librarian, putting what he hoped was a disarming smile on his face.
She was deep in some indexing task when he arrived, taking tiny but precise notes on notecards and filing them into a neatly organized box. As he drew closer, she sat up even straighter (a feat he hadn’t known possible) and adjusted her glasses, setting the filing cards down. “May I help you?”
“You may,” Rhys replied, his childhood, deeply ingrained answer to pedantic English teachers who still wanted to differentiate between ‘may’ and ‘can’ slipping out before his adult brain had time to intervene. It wasn’t a good comeback, but it was what he’d said since he was old enough to comprehend the concept of comebacks, and habits that old didn’t die easily. It didn’t help that he said it with a poorly-executed haughty English accent, either, but… like he’d just contemplated, old habits died hard, and all that.
She raised a single icy eyebrow at him.
Rhys coughed. “That is. Ma’am. I mean. Could you help me with replacing these books?”
He felt a little bad asking a librarian to help after he’d just had the thought to not bother the librarians with his mess, but he was helping a friend rob her library, so the situation was different now. Wait, when I put it that way, I feel even more bad about it!
She waved a hand. Gentle gold light surrounded the books, and they turned weightless as they lifted out of his hands. For a moment, they hovered in the air, and then they shot off, flying back through the library to their intended locations.
“Oh, um…” Rhys licked his lips. No wonder no one could distract her for long. Quick, Rhys! Think of something! Something that takes lots of time, that she can’t just efficiently dismiss with magic!