Bellis had stood still and read the names again and again, and felt suddenly claustrophobic. She was encased in stolen books, buried in them as if in dirt. The thought of the countless hundreds of thousands of names that surrounded her, vainly scrawled in top right-hand corners-the weight of all that ignored ink, the endless proclamations that this is mine this is mine, every one of them snubbed simply and imperiously-took Bellis’ breath from her chest. The ease with which those little commands were broken.

She felt as if all around her, morose ghosts were milling, unable to accept that the volumes were no longer theirs.

That day, as she sorted through new arrivals, Bellis found one of her own books.

She sat for a long time on the floor with her legs splayed, propped up against the shelves, staring at the copy of Codexes of the Wormseye Scrub. She felt the familiar fraying spine and the slightly embossed "B. Coldwine." It was her own copy: she recognized its wear. She gazed at it guardedly, as if it were a test she might fail.

The cart did not contain her other work, High Kettai Grammatology, but she did find the Salkrikaltor Cray textbook she had brought to the Terpsichoria.

Our stuff’s finally coming through, she thought.

It affected her like a blow.

This was mine, she thought. This was taken.

What else was from her ship? Was this Doctor Mollificatt’s copy of Future Tenses? she wondered. Widow Cardomium’s Orthography and Hieroglyphs?

She could not be still. She stood and walked, tense, wandering vague and stricken through the library. She passed into the open air and over the bridges that linked the library’s vessels, carrying her book clutched to her, above the water and then back into the darkness by the bookshelves.

"Bellis?"

She looked up, confused. Carrianne stood before her, her mouth twisted slightly in what might be amusement or concern. She looked terribly pale, but she spoke with her usual strong voice.

The book dangled from Bellis’ hands. Her breathing slowed, and she smoothed the crisis from her face, arranging it carefully once more, wondering what to say. Carrianne took her arm and tugged her away.

"Bellis," she said again, and though she wore an arch smirk there was genuine kindness in her voice. "It’s high time you and I made a little effort to get to know each other. Have you eaten lunch?"

Carrianne dragged her gently through the corridors of the Dancing Wight, on up a half-covered walkway to the Pinchermarn. This is not like me, Bellis thought as she followed, to let myself be tugged along in someone’s wake. This is not like me at all. But she was in a kind of daze, and she gave in to Carrianne’s insistent pulling.

At the exit, Bellis realized with a gust of surprise that she was still carrying her copy of Codexes of the Wormseye Scrub. She had been clutching it so tight her hands looked bloodless.