Rhode cleared her throat. "You said that like it was supposed to be super important, but I have no idea what you're talking about, so...?"

"The Great Library is a large pocket dimension where the Grand Coven stores their research. Witches have been building its collection of knowledge for ages, as long as magic has existed." Daphne smiled to herself. "I've always wanted to go there, ever since I was a little witch! It's supposed to have a giant clock that tracks the movements of planets, and the only copy of the Red Grimoire, and shelves that go up to a vaulted ceiling and..." Sabine and Rhode stared at her blankly. "Sorry, I'm rambling. But if anywhere has information on Reliqua, it'll be the Great Library."

"Great! Let's go!" Sabine exclaimed.

"We can't just go," Daphne scoffed. "It's obviously forbidden. In fact, opening the portal to get into the Library requires a huge surge of magical energy, which the Coven needs to approve. I'm not done with my training," she shrugged. "They'd never let me in. And if they found I was bringing mortals into one of their secret spaces, well..."

"They'll erase our memories?" guessed Rhode. "Daph, they were gonna do that anyway. I say we go, learn some more about the baddies we're trying to fight, and bash some monsters."

"How are we going to get in, though?" Daphne asked. "We need more magic than I could ever make myself to form the portal to get in."

"Why don't we use that?" asked Rhode, pointing at the still-glowing emergency box.

Daphne's eyes widened. "You're a genius, Rhode!" she whispered. "Okay, you two, stand back! I've only read about this spell's theory in my mother's book, but I've never tried it before." She shook out her orange hair (which was matted with blood, she realized, but no matter) and rolled back her sleeves. Poking the end of the wand into the pulsing box of magic, she siphoned the power into her wand and into herself. It felt shivery, as if the magic was eager to be used. And it would be.

Library, she thought, forcing her mind to concentrate on what she knew of the endless rows of books. Library. Pushing with all her might, Daphne forced the magic out of her wand in a concentrated stream of energy. It hit the wall and splattered like liquid, leaving a drippy, shimmery residue trickling down the wallpaper.

"Ew," said Sabine. "Was that what was supposed to happen?"

"Uh..." Daphne said, hesitantly inspecting the gooey magic. "Maybe?"

As it turned out, it was. With a flash and a rushing sound like trees in a windstorm, the magic on the wall began to emit a bright, almost blinding light, and swirl with color and flashes of scenery.

"I guess it was!" Daphne yelled proudly over the roaring of the portal. "Let's go!" She was met with silence; her friends seemed a bit less excited than Daphne to rush headfirst into a magical vortex. "It's perfectly safe, I'm sure of it!"

"You weren't too sure a minute ago!" Rhode reminded her, but Daphne managed to tug both her and Sabine into the portal with her. It felt like jumping into a freezing pool, if the pool was filled with glowing, stinging water. All three girls screamed and closed their eyes as the noise and light intensified to an almost painful level.

And then everything stopped. It was quiet. The air was dusty and rich with the smell of the best spice in the world: books.

Daphne opened her eyes to a cathedral of ink and bound pages. All around them were rows and rows of books wrapped in leather and linen, every one colorful and solemn at the same time. Some were stamped with gold while others were plain, some were thick as Daphne's thigh while some were as thin as her pinkie, some spines were warped and cracked with use while others looked as crisp as the day they were printed. Shelves, stairs, balconies, and ladders reached up like trees to...

"What's that up there?" asked Sabine in an awed whisper.

"They're clouds," she replied, her voice cracking with emotion. The vaulted ceiling reached high enough for clouds to form inside the towering building. The Great Library was truly great.

"We don't have time to wait around," said Rhode, but even she was quiet in the face of the grandness of the library. "Let's get what we came for and get out."

Although she could have happily spent the next few hours, or the entire day, or a couple of lifetimes, staring up at the shelves, Daphne agreed, pulling herself away from the beautiful books to follow Rhode deeper into the library.

It took all her willpower to keep herself from pulling books off shelves at random, but she managed to stay focused as they hurried down the aisles, looking for anything with "Reliqua" in the title. Daphne's eyes scanned over hundreds—no, thousands—of covers, but they didn't find anything until a solid twenty minutes into their search.

"Here!" Sabine called from a few rows away. "Upon the Origin and Destruction of Reliqua," she read aloud. Daphne and Rhode rushed over to her. Clutched against her chest she held a large book almost too big for her to fit in her arms. The cover was cracked, dry leather, and the pages were so yellow it was nearly impossible to believe they had ever been anything close to white.

"Read it!" Daphne exclaimed.

Sabine opened to the first page and recited, "'The creatures known as Reliqua (singular Reliquus) have long been the subject of intense scholarly scrutiny—'"

"Oh, just skip to the useful part!" Rhode groaned, taking the old book from Sabine's hands and roughly opening to the middle. She started turning through pages randomly.

"Stop!" cried Daphne. "Go back a page. I saw something." Rhode obeyed her, flipping backwards. "Here!" All three girls leaned over the page while Daphne read aloud: "'Following popular belief at that time, early scholars of the Grand Coven were convinced Reliqua were the aftereffects of the magical power bestowed to witches at birth, giving them a name meaning "remainder" in Latin. However, more recent research has confirmed that Reliqua, while composed of excess magic, are not derived from witch births. Rather, the use of magical power from any witch at any time creates a small amount of leftover magic, which will ultimately join with other such magic remnants to form the creatures known as Reliqua.'"

Daphne stepped back, her mind reeling after what she had just read. "I don't understand," said Rhode, her voice seeming to come from far away. "What does all that mean?"

"Witch magic makes Reliqua," Daphne whispered. She looked down at her hands in horror. "Every time I used magic to fight them, I was just helping make more." And what about magic she had used for silly things, like turning off the lights when she was too lazy to get out of bed, making cat toys zoom across the room for the strays to chase, or send colorful sparks from her wand for fun? Had her lighthearted charms led to the creation of monsters?

"Wait," said Sabine flipping feverishly through the book. "This doesn't make sense. If the Coven knew how Reliqua are made, why would they use magic to fight them?"

"They... they mustn't have known," Daphne replied faintly.

"If they didn't know, why do they have a big book on it?" asked Rhode.

Daphne shook her head, refusing to face what this might mean. "No. The Coven may be strict but they would never—"

She was stopped by a gentle hand on her arm. "Daphne," said Sabine, her voice almost as careful and delicate as her hand on Daphne's forearm. "I think you should read this." Sabine pushed the book, now opened to a new page, back towards Daphne.

Half fearing what she would discover, Daphne's hesitant eyes traveled slowly down the aged page. She read in a hoarse whisper, "'It is well documented that Reliqua are unstable creatures and will attack mortals seemingly at random...'" she trailed off, not wanting to read what was ahead. With a dry, hard swallow, she continued. "'This unfortunate loss of mortal life is the inevitable result of magic use. Although the Grand Coven discussed putting limits on the amount of magic witches would be able to use, it was unanimously decided that this sacrifice was too great in exchange for the lives of a small number of mortals, and the Grand Coven voted to graciously allow witches everywhere to continue with their way of life.'" Daphne stopped, staring blankly at the page. It seemed the breath had been sucked out of her.

"And 'graciously allow' mortals to die?!" Rhode exclaimed, her voice ringing out through the dusty shelves. "Who does this Coven think they are?"

Daphne was feeling too sick to pay much attention to Rhode's ranting. "How could they... just vote to let people die?" she whispered in a broken breath. "They're people."

"It's okay, Daphne," said Sabine, soothingly wrapping her arms around her. "We'll find a way to fix this."

Daphne shook out of her embrace. "It's not okay," she shot back. Anger was building in her, right along with revulsion and betrayal. Her voice was rising too. "People are dying! And the Coven knows! And they're letting it happen!" She was practically screaming now. Her chest heaved up and down, and she fought to keep back the vomit pushing on the bottom of her throat. Even Rhode was quiet in the face of this unexpected wave of Daphne's rage. "They don't have the right! Just because they have magic doesn't mean they should be in charge of people's lives!" She threw down the old book face down on the floor and kicked it to the end of the shelves. "How dare they put you in danger! How dare they!"

"Excuse me, miss, could you please lower your voice?" asked someone politely from the next aisle.

Daphne's anger disappeared immediately, replaced by fear. Before the girls could do anything more than look at each other, the speaker emerged from behind the shelf.

The old man, dressed in dark robes and tiny silver glasses, moved much faster than Daphne would have guessed possible. Before she could even blink, his twisted wand was out and pointed at her face. His bespectacled eyes scanned each girl before he spoke. His voice was still light and polite, but now there was an edge of metal to it. It was a command. A threat. "I think you three should come with me."