“With our luck, he’s going to disappear again and we won’t see him until next Halloween. If we’re even still alive,” Eleanor pointed out. She glared at Bartimaeus. “So talk.”

“Really? Now?” Bartimaeus asked.

“You heard the lady,” Pip said.

“Spill,” Otto added, doing his best to look intimidating. He managed “exhausted and cranky,” at least.

“I believe the answer lies in the Library of Endersea,” Bartimaeus said.

“The who?” Ben asked.

Eleanor frowned. Where had she heard that before? Wander had mentioned it. And so had Thea. “That’s the library that contains every story from every world, right?”

“That’s the one. It is famously impossible to reach. So impossible that I hesitated to even mention it to your father. But you . . .”

“We have the Wending,” Eleanor said. Bartimaeus nodded. Ben looked between them, sighed, and seemed to give up on trying to understand any of it. “You think that the Library can somehow help us?”

“My research suggests that the Prime Stories—the actual, physical originals of the tales that have possessed you—are in the Library’s collection. If you destroy them, their hold on you will end,” Bartimaeus said.

“But the Stories aren’t books, are they? They’re in us,” Otto said, frowning.

Bartimaeus harrumphed. He gestured in the air with one hand, like a lecturing professor. “Stories in the wild are mercurial things, constantly changing. Put one of them in a person and it changes to match them, doing no harm at all. Stories like the ones attached to the three of you have to keep their shape. And for that, they have to be written down in books.”

“Hey, I mean, you can destroy a book,” Ben said, clearly lost but trying to help.

“You can absolutely destroy a book,” Eleanor said, cracking her knuckles.

“If you can get past the Librarian,” Bartimaeus said.

“Naturally,” Ben said, nodding.

“Then we’re going to the Library of Endersea,” Eleanor said, and felt a heavy burden drop from her shoulders. There was a way out of this.

“No, we’re not,” Pip cut in. “Eleanor, have you looked around? There’s a permanent eclipse in the sky! People are vanishing! Mr. January’s going to come for us tomorrow! We do not have time to be worrying about the Stories right now. Besides—without them, we’re weaker. We need them.”

Eleanor crossed her arms, matching her stubborn glare for stubborn glare. “We beat Mr. January without the Stories before.”

“Barely. And he’s had a whole year to think up new tricks,” Pip said.

“But we did it. We didn’t have powers or a magical sword. We had an old walking stick and good ideas,” Eleanor reminded her. “We need to get that thing out of you before—”

“I’m the one who gets to decide that!” Pip snapped. “They’re my memories. It’s my life.”