Prerecorded Golden Rule diary entries had a ten-minute maximum. Jewel had broken her own app rules for a book.

“I have a headache.” Alex groaned, sitting up with an intense frown.

Luna slid off the bed, grabbing his hands and pulling him into a standing position. “The map says we’ll pass a kitchen to get there. We’ll get some water on the way. Come on!”

They were already down the hall when Alex realized he’d forgotten his tablet and had to go back to get it.

Ten minutes and one pit stop later, they arrived outside their designated door. She entered their code and tried to get her expectations in check. Maybe it’d be a small and intimate room. A couple of bookshelves, some plush chairs perfect for lazy reading days, and some cozy window seats.

Alex whistled as they walked in. “Je-sus.”

Natural light from the glass ceiling spilled into the narrow three-level library. There was a staircase on the left and right, both leading to a second- and third-floor U-shaped landing with an open space in the middle. The built-in shelves were packed with books, the spines a mixture of old binding and new. But strangely, on the first floor, the wooden bookcases protruded from the walls.

“I wonder if it has one of those slide ladder things in here,” Luna said. “I’m totally going to pretend to be Belle.”

“Wait, does that mean I’m the Beast? Because there are two main characters in that story and that’s not happening.”

“No.” She laughed as she walked to the left to search for their envelope. “I’m talking about the scene when she’s in the bookshop. If anything, you’d be the wizened old bookstore employee who lets me have the book I keep borrowing before a sheep rudely eats some of the pages.”

“That ain’t it either.” Instead of checking the right side, Alex had followed her, which … was unhelpful.

“Gaston, then?”

“How dare you.”

“Running out of characters here.”

“It’s fine. I prefer Ariel anyway.”

“Ah, so you’re a Prince Eric?”

“If you ever need saving from a sea witch, I’m your man,” he said.

“That’s funny. Ariel and Prince Eric’s daughter’s name is Melody. You can save her instead.”

“Or not,” he muttered, pulling one of the books off the shelf. “We broke up.”

“What?” Luna momentarily paused her search. “Why?”

“She didn’t want me to come here.” He shrugged. “And if I didn’t, that meant you couldn’t. I wasn’t gonna do that to you.”

“Okay, um, well, thank you. But that’s not worth breaking up over?”

“It was. Melody said it was her or you,” he said.

“Oh.” She took a step back, realized what she was doing, and stopped.