He stepped into the chaos of the library, which looked even more out of order than when hed left it. Had servants been in trying to find things, or maybe a noble bored from the feasting? It didnt matter, so long as he could still find the book he wanted.

What had it been called? For a moment, Greave thought perhaps he might have forgotten the title, and he had an instant of panic at that thought. What if he couldnt remember? What if the chance to find out what his stepmother was involved in had slipped from him through simple thoughtlessness?

No, he remembered it: On the Body. There, it seemed that a mind used to remembering vast tracts of poetry and plays had its uses. Idly, Greave wondered what his father might make of that thought.

He couldnt tell him, of course, couldnt tell anyone. Until such time as he found a cure that might save his sister, then just by telling people that he was looking, Greave would place them all in danger.

No, he said. I need to find the cure first.

That meant finding the book, and that was easier said than done in a library like this. Greave started to search the shelves.

It took what seemed like forever, with book after book tossed aside. Observations on philosophy went the way of Fauna of the Third Land and Notes on River Navigation. On another day, maybe Greave would have glanced at them, reasoning that all knowledge was worth having, but not today.

On another day, of course, he would have given up by now, his efforts washed away in the sense that all was worthless. If there had been one thing Aurelles arrival in his life had shown him, though, it was that some things were worth the effort. Greave kept digging through the library.

And then, it happened.

He froze.

Greave caught sight of the book he wanted almost by accident, buried behind a collection of works on the architecture of the kingdom back in the days when it had been unified.

With trembling hands, he reached out and took it.

It was so frail in his fingers.

On the Body was a slender volume, so old that Greave barely dared to open it. He did so with trembling fingers and started to read.

What he read there made no sense to him. He had read many books in his time, but here there were notes on dissections and the chemical processes of the body. There was a whole section on the scale sickness, detailing the process of the transformation, and the damage to the body that it could do, tearing people asunder as it sought to reshape them into… into…

…things. Greave stared at the pages, unable to believe the horror of some of the things there. Would his sister become one of these? No, not if he could do anything to stop it.