No kids were allowed in unless the librarian invited them. I couldn’t believe Rumpel would just leave it open, unless maybe the library had other defenses. We didn’t even have to search the bronze shelves, or look through the three-foot-tall books stacked on them. The current volume lay unguarded on the table. The leather cover was a deep violet, which grew even darker along the edges. The pages were gilded, and inside, all the ongoing Tales were writing and rewriting themselves, just waiting for us to read them. Maybe the Canon had booby-trapped it. Maybe an enchantment would turn us to stone as soon as we lifted the cover. Because the Water of Life would break most spells, that wouldn’t be the end of the world, but we’d definitely be caught. I expected Lena to be even more nervous than I was, but she was a Character on a mission. She was the only kid at EAS who’d ever been invited to the library just because Rumpelstiltskin liked her. So she knew exactly where she was going, straight to the back.
