“But Sofya, how can you be sure?” Niles asked for what felt like the hundredth time, but Sofya knew was only the fifth. “You’ve said yourself that your divination spells aren’t always the most trustworthy. Why are you so certain this time that something’s wrong with Veronica?”

  Sofya ground her teeth, trying to keep herself from shouting at the large man in front of her who was acting as dense as he occasionally looked. “Because, for the fifth time, while my divination’s aren’t the most reliable when it comes to giving me the details for a specific scenario, they are very reliable when telling me if something is Wrong. And something is Wrong with Veronica.”

  “Plus, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Veronica’s not here, and she’s not answering her door,” Nuereddin added helpfully. “That’s a pretty good sign that something’s not right, I would say. She would absolutely have come out by now if she were OK and knew that we were looking for her. Even if she didn’t know that we were looking for her, she would have come out by now to, I don’t know, do more paperwork or see if there’s a case for us yet.” He shrugged. “You know how much she loves paperwork, and the fact that we haven’t gotten a case yet must be making her antsy. So why isn’t she here yet?”

  Niles looked away, abashed. “You have a point. I suppose I just didn’t want to believe that something may be wrong, with everything else that’s been going on lately.” He shrugged, his face mirroring Sofya’s own helplessness. “So what do we do?”

  Sofya had hoped he wouldn’t ask that, because she didn’t have an answer. “I’m not certain,” she said slowly, trying to see if she could come up with a better answer as she spoke. “Perhaps we can look around and see if anyone here remembers where they last saw Veronica, and start from there?” As the words left her mouth, she realized it was a solid idea, and she brightened. “We should start with Murchy, because I know he talks to her fairly regularly.”

  Niles and Nuereddin groaned simultaneously, though only Niles looked ashamed when Sofya gave them her patented glare. “I’m sorry, Sofya,” Niles said, elbowing Nuereddin who was still rolling his eyes. “I understand what you mean, and I agree that reaching out to one of Veronica’s known associates in the Library is a good place to start. But the earl is, well…” He trailed off and looked at Nuereddin helplessly.

  “He’s a pill,” the dwarf added helpfully. “An absolute nut, and not our favorite person to talk to. I have no idea how Veronica puts up with him, or how you do, for that matter.” He looked at Sofya skeptically. “How do you put up with him, anyway? He seems like the kind of man who would cause you to pull your hair out.”

  Sofya paused, thinking. It was true that the earl was not the kind of person she would normally spend time with, being a little too flashy and fanciful for her tastes. Still, he did the job, and had been doing it for longer than either Sofya or Veronica. “You have to respect his dedication to the work,” she finally settled on. “And right now, having someone who knows the ins and outs of the Library is exactly what we need in order to learn more about where Veronica might be and if something has happened to her.”

  Niles cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable, but nodded. “Very well. Oh! I think I see the earl heading to the commissary now. Perhaps we should join him and ask him what he knows over a cup of something hot?” He brightened, and Sofya smiled to herself. A while back, she had introduced Niles to hot cocoa, and he had fallen head over heels in love with the sweet, creamy drink. He had held himself aloof from the packets of hot cocoa mix at the tea stand, however, finding them “far too thin and insipid” for his tastes. The commissary had the good stuff, and he learned quickly that he needed to avoid going every day for his fix, else he end up going into withdrawl when he returned to his home universe. She knew that a mug of hot cocoa would be plenty to keep him in his seat while she talked to Murchy, and she nodded, standing carefully from their table.

  Sofya watched Nuereddin as he ambled into the commissary ahead of Niles, and realized with a start that she’d never seen the dwarf in the room before. She knew that he had a problem with eating food or drinking beverages that had been prepared by someone other than himself or his brother, because he was constantly on the lookout for people who may poison him for reasons Sofya was never quite clear on. She wondered if he was actually going to eat or drink anything from the commissary, or if he was just going to watch them eat with his customary scowl.

  The commissary was one of the most brightly-lit rooms in the Library, as far as Sofya was aware. It wasn’t far off the main portion of the Library where she and her team spent most of their time, but the difference between the two areas was beyond night and day - more like a night in Las Vegas and a day in Nuereddin’s dreaded forests. Sofya squinted, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the harsh florescent lights, and hoped that it wouldn’t be enough to trigger a migraine for her. Next to her, Niles and Nuereddin were both squinting as well, though she noticed that Niles relaxed more quickly of the three of them. He nodded in the direction of the food line. “I believe the earl is getting his luncheon now. Should we join him in line? The sooner we begin the conversation, the sooner we can end it.” He sounded grim, as though he were discussing a plan of battle, and Sofya hid a smile.

  “That seems reasonable to me,” she said. “Besides, I’m actually quite hungry. Worry tends to build up an appetite for me, and I see there’s a shepherd’s pie there that looks like it has potential.” She took the lead, trusting the other two would follow her, and joined the end of the line where Murchy stood.

  The earl was a personality that stood out in the Library, Sofya had to admit, and she didn’t have the warmest of feelings towards him the same way Veronica did. Then again, Sofya didn’t spend as much down time in the Library as Veronica did, so she didn’t get to know the other teams as well. Her few interactions with Murchy had made her see him as a bit pretentious, putting on airs and regularly acting as though the money he had in his home universe entitled him to special treatment in the Library from the other teams. Still, he’d been polite when speaking with Sofya and the others, and his condescension was nothing more than she was used to getting by virtue of being a plain, middle-aged woman in a modern universe. He was staring off into space, fiddling with the chain of his pocket watch, when Sofya joined him in line.

  “Earl Murchand! Just the man I was looking for.” She forced an extra level of positive intonation into her voice, hoping it would make up for what she was sure were the looks of irritation Niles and Nuereddin had on their faces. “I don’t know if you remember me - I’m Sofya, UrbFan, working with Veronica? This is Niles, S&S, and Nuereddin, EpicFan, who are also teammates with Veronica.”

  The earl started when he first heard Sofya’s voice, but he smiled warmly when he turned to her. “Sofya! Darling, you must call me Murchy. And yes, of course I remember you and the rest of your merry troupe. Veronica says nothing but the best about you, so I feel I know you almost as well as I know my own team!” He chuckled to himself, then his face got serious unexpectedly. “Have you seen Veronica today, then? I’ve been desperately worried since last night, but she hasn’t appeared yet.”

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  Niles, Nuereddin, and Sofya all exchanged glances, and Sofya squashed the urge to do the “I told you so” dance only with great effort. “We had actually come to you to see if you knew anything about where she might be,” Sofya said carefully, shuffling forward as the line moved. She picked up a tray and balanced it against her hip, allowing her to continue to use her cane in her left hand. “We know that she’s a good friend of yours, and we were hoping you might have an idea of where she might have gone.”

  Murchy picked up his own tray and ran a finger around the outside edge, studying it carefully. “Well, I don’t know what I should tell you,” he said after a moment. With an effort, he plastered a smile on his face and faced the satyr at the first food station. “Hello, darling! Can you tell me, is that shepherd’s pie or cottage pie there?”

  “Shepherd’s pie, your earlship,” the satyr responded in a quaking voice. Sofya felt sorry for the poor thing - the earl had turned the full force of his personality on her, and she was clearly not accustomed to that much oomph being aimed directly at her. “Made with lamb, not beef. W-would you care for a serving, sir?”

  “I would be delighted! It’s a rare delicacy in these parts, actual shepherd’s pie, eh?” he said to Sofya, grinning broadly. “It’s also very nice to hear from someone who knows the difference between the two. So many people call everything topped with mashed potatoes shepherd’s pie, and it’s a true disservice to the dish, don’t you agree?”

  Sofya nodded solemnly, knowing that the earl was doing his best to keep the conversation light while other people were around. She glanced behind her and saw Niles, his brow furrowed in confusion, and Nuereddin, hands empty. Apparently, the dwarf was not going to eat, or at least didn’t feel the need for a tray; Sofya wasn’t surprised by this. “Niles? Is everything all right?”

  “Why is it called ‘shepherd’s pie’ if there are no shepherds in it?” he said sotto voce, trying not to get either Murchy or the satyr’s attention. He looked so earnestly confused that Sofya had to fight to keep her composure. The last thing she wanted was to hurt his pride by laughing at him.

  “It’s called ‘shepherd’s pie’ because it’s made for shepherds, not of shepherds,” she replied, keeping her voice low as well. “Shepherds take care of sheep and lamb, so they would eat the flock around them. That’s why shepherd’s pie has lamb in it, instead of beef.”

  Instead of reassuring the king, Niles looked horrified. “If they take care of the lambs, then why are they eating them? That’s the very definition of not taking care of them!”

  Sofya opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again. He had a point. “Perhaps we can ask Murchy about that once we’ve gotten information about where he saw Veronica last,” she finally answered, nodding to the earl who was waiting for them at the end of the food line. “We should probably get going, anyway.”

  Still looking concerned, Niles accepted a biscuit offered by the satyr and followed Sofya to the table where Murchy had settled. It was out of the way, and Sofya noted that Murchy sat with his back to the wall; she’d never known him to be particularly paranoid before, so the change in behavior struck her as odd. She sat across from him, with Niles on one side and Nuereddin on the other. She gave Murchy her most comforting smile, which he matched with a smile betraying his anxiety.

  Before Sofya could say anything, Murchy put down his fork and leaned forward. “Darlings, you must be careful. I’m terribly worried that something has happened to our dear Veronica, and if you spend too much time obviously poking your nose into things, you might have something happen to you, as well.” He spoke quickly, his tone much less jolly than usual, and it took a moment before his words made sense to Sofya.

  Niles had no such issue. “What do you mean, something happened?” He leaned forward as well, though in his case it seemed more like a loom than a lean. He kept his voice down, all of his focus on the earl. “What do you know?”

  Nuereddin nodded solemnly. “You need to tell us what you’ve seen, sir,” he added, just the faintest hint of disrespect on the last word. “We’re her team. If something happened to her, then we need to know so we can fix it and get her back. Start talking.”

  Sofya didn’t say anything - she didn’t need to. She just watched Murchy steadily, willing to use silence to get him to talk. She knew that some people were uncomfortable with silence, and would do anything to fill the air, and Murchy struck her as just that kind of person.

  He crumbled after less than a minute. “My dears, you must be careful,” he pleaded. “I’m still not entirely sure what I saw, but I know that Veronica was here last night, well after you all had gone to your apartments. She spent time at her desk, and it looked like she was doing some research - something about a book in which an author had entered her own universe?”

  Sofya started, not expecting to hear that Veronica had gotten results so quickly. “We had encountered something like that in our last mission - I wonder if she found something else?” She shook her head as she watched Niles loom again, and motioned for Murchy to continue. “What else did you see last night?”

  Murchy had taken the opportunity to shovel a few bites of shepherd’s pie in his mouth, and he hurriedly swallowed before speaking again. “Well - goodness, that is good,” he exclaimed as his tastebuds caught up with his head. “They seasoned that beautifully! I wonder if they got a chef from one of the new cookbooks in the kitchen these days - I’ve heard that the cookbooks have gotten quite exciting in recent years.” He smiled weakly, then cleared his throat when all three people facing him showed little interest in cookbooks. (Though, to be fair, the shepherd’s pie did smell wonderful, and Sofya hoped that it would still be around once the current emergency had been handled.)

  “After a bit, I was working on some research at my desk, trying to figure out how to write up the report about the were-pigs and the Tommy gun. I went to find Veronica to see if she might be able to give me some advice, and I saw that she was packing up that satchel of hers - the one she usually takes on missions, you know? She had the heavy-duty flashlight and a couple of the big notebooks in it, and she looked determined.” He shook his head, his gaze drifting to the distance. “I wish I had said something then, but I was concerned about interrupting her. I didn’t draw her attention, but rather headed back to my desk. The last I saw, she was moving towards the report center.”

  Niles frowned. “There’s no one there in the evenings, though. They close up after supper. I know, I’ve tried to get reports from them after supper, and Randulph looked at me like I was mad as he was locking up.”

  Nuereddin groaned. “Oh, no. She decided to break in, rather than ask Randulph to find something for her,” he moaned, his hand on his forehead. “She doesn’t trust him, remember? Because of what she overheard with Cassidy? She must have decided that there were things she needed to see, and she had to go looking herself rather than asking him to help her.” He covered his face with his hands. “She must have gotten herself caught.”

  Sofya stifled a groan of her own. She knew she had to try to keep up some kind of appearances, but the idea of her friend trying to break into the report center and getting caught was almost too much to bear. “Why wouldn’t she ask one of us for help? Why would she try to do something like that on her own?”

  Murchy smiled. “Darling, you know how independent Veronica is. She wouldn’t ask for help until she knew for certain that there was something to be done, and my understanding is that she had a bit of a falling out with at least one member of your team.” He took a moment to ostentatiously look around the table, then turned innocent eyes to Sofya. “Where is your young man, anyway?”

  “Never you mind about him,” Nuereddin answered in a growl. “The important thing is that we find Veronica and bring her back from whatever mess she’s gotten into. If she’s been kidnapped somehow, then she’s being held somewhere and we need to find her.” He scowled. “Unfortunately, from the Library she could be literally anywhere.”

  Sofya closed her eyes, trying not to think about the enormity of the task in front of them. She turned to Niles to see if the king had any ideas for how to go about the process of finding their friend, only to see that he was staring at Murchy with a perplexed look on his face. “Niles? Is something wrong?”

  “Were…pigs?” He sounded as though the word were in a foreign language and he was trying to sound it out without understanding what it meant. “Tommy gun? Lord, I do believe you need to explain some things.”

  “WELL.” Murchy sat back, spreading his hands, and Sofya could see he was getting into storyteller mode. “You see, there was this village…”