Miss Philaxter waited until Alex stood by her. For a moment he thought he saw a faint smile on her face. "I counted several separate tests. Footstep noise, tactile clicks using your fingers, self-speech, and directional whispering." Alex blinked. He hadn't realized the librarian had been keeping such a close eye on him. She nodded once. "Good, curiosity is encouraged here; ignorance is not. There might still be some hope for you yet."

  Was that a compliment? He wasn't entirely sure what she meant by it, but it sounded like a compliment. "What do you mean?"

  "My expectations for you weren't high when you arrived with that Kahrn boy," she said, her eyes focused on his face.

  Kahrn, another word he did not know, but maybe that was the point. She was keeping such a close eye on his face. Was she trying to provoke some kind of reaction? Given the context, it was clear she was talking about Aro. How she had seen him arrive with the lion-boy was beyond him for now. The upperclassman hadn't even entered the library. But Kahrn, was that the name of his race? Or was it some kind of insult?

  "Kahrn? You mean Aro?" Alex asked tentatively. His eyes flicked towards her, trying to read her challenge. No immediate reaction, no further clues as to whether it was his race or an insult. He had to pick one. Race it was. Miss Philaxter didn't seem like the kind of person to use an insult so carelessly. "I assume that's his race? I'm not familiar with the term, or at least I can't remember it. But then again, I can't remember much from anything past yesterday."

  Miss Philaxter's expression didn't change, but something in her eyes sharpened. "It is. Good, you're at least capable of deduction. That will be needed on this job. Aro of the Dawnpride is one of the few Kahrn on campus. His family is one of an even smaller subsection of the race that sees the point in educating their children. A shame the young noble doesn't take it seriously."

  Of course, Aro's a noble. That explains his attitude and the fact that he had a personal chef. Alex wondered how much power nobles had in this world. Were they basically the rulers of the world like he'd read about in a fantasy novel? Or would it be closer to the situation back on Earth, with some places still holding them in high regard, while others essentially forgot they existed. He added that question to his long list of things to look up when he had some free time in the library. And that list was getting long by now.

  Miss Philaxter pulled a small stone sphere out from under her black jacket. Even from where Alex stood, he could see the stone was covered in the same type of geometrical symbols he had seen all over the campus by now. Those had to be the way magical instruments of this world worked. He wondered what the sphere was for. The plate above his desk had produced an orb of light. Would this produce something similar?

  "This is a Catalogue Stone attuned to this library. Under no circumstance, do you lose this," the head librarian said as she held the sphere in front of her. She grabbed a book from a nearby shelf to use in her demonstration. "Whenever you are unsure of where a book belongs in the library, you lightly touch the stone to the book until you feel a slight pulse. When you feel the pulse, you release the connection between the stone and the book. A small orb of light will rise out of the orb and point you towards where the book belongs." During the whole demonstration, she was watching his face instead of the stone, gauging his reaction to the magical item. Just as she said, a small orb came flying out of the stone sphere and slowly floated towards the shelf she had just taken the book out of. When it reached the empty spot on the shelve it lingered for a few seconds before dissolving.

  "You got that, Mister...," she started her sentence before realizing something, "I don't believe you told me your surname."

  "Oh, uhm..., sorry, it's Vansteen, Alex Vansteen." Alex apologized.

  She nodded, as if she were internally cataloguing his name. "That's an unusual surname you've got, mister Vansteen. I don't believe I've heard anything like it before." While that probably should have frightened Alex and made him worry that he said too much, in reality, it wasn't the first time he had heard that. Even back on Earth he got that comment more than he liked. As a child, he had looked up his name for a class, and apparently long ago his family had some Dutch roots.

  "Did you understand my explanation, Mister Vansteen?" She continued after a lingering pause.

  Alex nodded. From what he gathered, it didn't look too complicated to use. "Yes, ma'am."

  "Good, one last thing. Don't use it for every book. The stone has a limited charge, and recharging them takes more mana than I like to spend." With that, she handed the stone over to Alex.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Partial Power Source connection detected.

  Continuing Initialization...

  As soon as Alex touched the Catalogue Stone, that strange voice spoke inside his head again, scraping against the back of his skull. He winced in pain, but just as quickly as it had appeared, the voice was gone again. What happened? Until now, the voice had only spoken to him while he was half asleep and waking up. Why did it suddenly speak while he was wide awake? It said something about a partial power source, didn't it? Was it somehow drawing power from the Catalogue Stone?

  "Are you alright, Mister Vansteen?" the head librarian asked, her eyes darting over his entire body, trying to assess what might have happened.

  "Yeah..., I'm fine. It's just these headaches I get from time to time," Alex tried to explain. Headaches were the closest he got to describing what the sensation was without mentioning the strange voice in his head.

  "Hmm," Miss Philaxter hummed in thought again, like she was debating whether or not he was telling the truth. "I've sent for Ms. Fillibaxter anyway, but if you say you are fine, we can continue our briefing on the job at hand."

  Alex nodded to confirm to her he was good to go. He didn't want to give her a reason to doubt his small lie about the headache. How he was going to explain what happened when Fillonia or someone else with medical expertise came to check up on him was going to be a problem for future Alex. How had Miss Philaxter even sent for help?

  He checked her for some kind of messaging tool, but he doubted they would have something like a cellphone in this world. That's when he saw small black tracks staining the floor, starting from where the librarian was standing and heading towards the door leading back to the hall. Golems were a thing in this world. The kitchen was full of them this morning. Had she created a small golem without him noticing and used it to send for help? That had to be it.

  "Now then," the librarian restarted her explanation, walking over to a small cart filled with leather-bound books that was standing nearby. "You will start with this cart of books that need re-shelving. Most should belong on one of the nearby shelves, but you can use the Catalogue Stone if you are not sure where it belongs. Unless you have any further questions, I will leave you to it. I'll come back in an hour to see how you are progressing."

  Since Alex didn't have any further questions, the librarian headed further into the library towards another cart filled with books. Alex too walked over to the cart she had assigned him. He quickly counted all the books he could see on it. Eighteen, that should be too bad. According to Miss Philaxter, they were all supposed to be shelved somewhere around here, so he wouldn't need to go looking for their spot all over the library. The books themselves were all hard-covered, leather-bound books in muted colors, none of the colorful paperback books he'd grab at his library back on Earth. He had to start somewhere, so he grabbed a random book from the cart.

  The Noble houses of the Dawn Coast

  The cover of the book was decorated with what looked like the crests of six noble houses in an upside-down triangular pattern. One of them looked like a roaring lion with a rising sun behind it. Alex wondered if that might have been the crest of Aro's house. It would make sense. His house name was Dawnpride, and this book was about a place called the Dawn Coast. He shelved the book away in his mind on a list of books to check out later while looking at the nearest shelf to find where it might belong.

  The first book he found was called _Of Drake Dominion_. Out of curiosity, he pulled it out to check and see if it had a small summary on the back like books on Earth had. It did, and apparently this one was about the five largest Drake houses and the territory they ruled over. He put it back and looked at the books next to it.

  To the right of it was a book called _Old Bloodlines of the Dawn Coast_ and to the left a book called _Of Ancient Lineage_. From those three books alone he could gather some information. He clearly was in the library's subsection that dealt with politics and noble houses, so it made sense that the book he needed to shelf was about it as well. But most importantly, they ordered the books alphabetically. Which meant that the place of the book he was holding was farther to the left. With that information, it didn't take long for Alex to find the proper place for the book he was holding.

  Now that he knew how the library was sorted, finding the right place for books was a breeze. In just half an hour, he put away almost the entire cart. There was just one book left on it. One book that clearly didn't belong in this section of the library. It was a book about the different applications of wards. While Alex didn't exactly know what wards were, he did know they probably didn't belong in this section.

  He pulled out the heavy Catalogue Stone Miss Philaxter had given him and held it to the book's cover. It was strange, while he could see the geometrical symbols on it and they looked engraved into the stone, there was no actual hole in the stone. Its surface was completely smooth. He would have to check the stone plate above the desk in his room to see if that were true there as well.

  As the librarian had explained, Alex only had to hold the stone to the book a short while before he felt a pulse run from it through his hand. He was certain that the stone itself hadn't made the pulse. After all, he hadn't felt the book shake in his other hand. But if the stone hadn't made the pulse, then what did? Either way, it was the signal the librarian had told him to look out for, which meant it must have worked. He pulled it away from the book, and a small orb of light floated out of it. It hovered in the air for a moment, seemingly searching for which direction to head.

  Partial Power Source depleted.

  Initialization paused at 61%

  The voice ran through his head with more pain than any time before. He closed his eyes as his right knee almost buckled. Once the pain was gone, he opened his eyes again and searched for the floating orb of light. It was gone.