“We don’t know how to fix time. We don’t know how to beat Mr. January. But we know how to stop the Stories. It’s the one thing we can do, and I’m not going to sit around waiting for my best friends to vanish,” Eleanor said.

Pip looked at Otto. “Come on. Back me up here,” she said.

But Otto looked at her gravely. “You forgot your mom. What if you forget your dad?” he asked. “What if I forget my sisters and my parents? Eleanor’s right. We’re not going to win by being heroes. We’re going to win by being us.”

Pip’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t want to forget my dad. I don’t want to forget any of you,” she said. “But I’m scared that . . . that just Pip won’t be enough.”

“But it’s not just Pip,” Ben said, his voice warm. He put a hand on Pip’s shoulder. “It’s Pip and Eleanor and Otto, the three coolest kids I know. And it’s me and Claire—er, whoever you are—and Barry, too.”

Slowly, Pip nodded. “Okay. We go to the Library. We destroy the Stories,” she said heavily.

“And we fix time,” Otto said.

“And then we beat Mr. January,” Eleanor finished.

“It’s not much of a plan,” Pip said.

“We’ve had worse,” Eleanor told her. Pip laughed quietly. And then she looked Eleanor in the eye and took a deep breath.

“Let’s do this.”

Sixteen

They decided to leave immediately. There was no sense in waiting around for Mr. January to show up and stop them, after all.

“I’ll get Thea,” Eleanor said.

“We’re bringing her?” Otto asked.

Eleanor nodded. “I don’t want to leave her here when Mr. January is skulking around.”

“I’m coming as well,” the hedgewitch said. Eleanor gave her a surprised look, and she arched an eyebrow. “I’m not going to pass up visiting the greatest treasury of knowledge in all the worlds.”

“Knowledge. That’s all you care about, isn’t it?” Eleanor asked. “You’re not coming along to help us. Just to satisfy your own curiosity.”

The hedgewitch was silent for a moment. “Claire thought that I would hurt you, to stop Mr. January. So she fought the Story tooth and nail, and when it started to take her over, she ran. She was alone and angry when she became the hedgewitch, and that’s what the Story devoured, and that’s what I became. The only thing I have had for comfort is knowledge, and that is gone, too. I’m trying to learn how to be something more, but it isn’t easy, Eleanor.”