Other people visit libraries to discover facts, or to find out how to make things—sometimes even quite dangerous things. Some people go to libraries to learn how to read tarot cards, or write in secret code, or create a detailed astrological chart, or write novels, or install a washing machine without a plumber. There is not much that cannot be learned in a proper library.

And then there is the small, rather niche group, whose members go to the library looking for the precise spell that will help them in their plan to take over the entire universe.

“I do not see why,” said a Russian voice, “we are wasting our time in this library to which almost everyone in every known world has access. The spell will not be here! It will be hidden.”

“The spell is here,” said a clipped Northern European voice. “Hidden in plain sight, as all the best things are.”

“What does that even mean?” asked a familiar sulky voice, the kind that went with the kind of hair that has been overstyled with a heated comb. “ ‘Hidden in plain sight?’ It’s always sounded a bit stupid to me, to be honest.”

“In my experience,” said a haughty voice that made Lexy’s blood run a little cold, “if you want to hide something from the masses, you put it in a prayer, or a book about antiques, or a poem. Some of the greatest secrets about this world are still hidden in Plato’s Republic. Yet more are published every day in a popular newspaper’s Country Diary column. The more you hide something, the more likely people are to look for it.”

“Yes, well, we have the poem already,” said the Russian voice.

“And most importantly we have the author of the new universe,” said the Northern European voice hurriedly.

“Ow!” said the Russian voice, as if its owner had just been kicked.

There was then a strange period of silence.

Raven looked at Lexy. They were crouched down between two shelves in the section of the library that seemed devoted to spell books. The library was not arranged in any normal way. There was no catalog, as the librarian had said. Raven and Lexy had had to turn a large brass winder to get these shelves apart at all. No dead bodies had dropped out, thankfully. Raven had just found a book called Spells for Healing Your Spider—which was either very lucky, or in fact proved the existence of cosmic ordering, the zero point field and magic in general—when the voices had entered this section of the library.

The voices—and their owners—were now in the next stack along.

“Yes, I told you,” said the Northern European voice. “Here it is. Instructions for Entering Other Dimensions by Thomas Lumas. Oh, and a companion volume by the same author called Pedesis for Beginners. Bingo.”