Kim was surprised at how the golden, glowing arrow appeared in the elf. The elf's head lolled to one side, his eyes closed, and he had a painful rictus look, like he was listening to jazz played on recorders by kindergarteners. The speed of his demise suggested he'd been hit directly in the heart.

  Fiora responded by using the elf as a shield as she turned to face the direction the arrow had flown from. "Who's there?" Fiora shouted. "I see your shadow! Come out into the light."

  A large shape lurked in the nearby alley, covered in an even larger cloak. Even the hood atop that cloak seemed malevolent all on its own, although that appearance of evil could have been due to the fact that it had glowing red eyes inside it. Smoke drifted out of the hood in a dramatic way that reminded Kim of the fog machines at the Anvil concert. Oddly, she could hear an echo of music that sounded suspiciously like a guitar solo. Did this monstrous figure have its own soundtrack?

  "INGVAY!" Damon said. She was pretty certain it was the same word he'd said in the library, but before Kim could ask Damon continued with: "That's the song I hear. It's 'Demon Driver' by Yngwie Malmsteen."

  It continued to be disturbing that someone of her age knew so much about ancient songs. "This isn't a name that tune competition," she said, which she thought sounded calm and clever in the situation.

  The large shape drifted out of the alley. It made a gesture, and all the people watching fell back, and their windows and shutters slammed shut.

  "This is bad," Fiora whispered, still holding the dead elf up. "Prepare to flee valiantly."

  The figure approached so smoothly that Kim realized their enemy was floating a few inches above the ground.

  "Do you want me to ready a spell?" Damon was holding his staff like a pointer.

  "A glowing nose won't frighten this horror," Fiora replied. "Instead, hope that there was only one arrow."

  The figure was growing larger, which Kim hoped with her tiny mortal heart was an optical illusion.

  "No closer, stranger," Fiora commanded. She shook the dead elf to accentuate her words. "It's clear you can slam windows, I can slam my claws through you."

  "Claws can't be slammed," Damon whispered. "It's more of a poking or slashing motion."

  "Shut it!" Fiora hissed. "Or I'll slice you a second mouth beneath your chin." Fiora pointed her claws towards Damon.

  "The aberration is right." A deep voice thundered out of the hood. Kim couldn't tell if it was male or female. "Claws can't be slammed. Proper use of words is the only way to be civilized." The figure drifted closer, and Fiora drew in a breath, preparing her flame. But the hooded one stopped about six feet away, and the dragonspawn let her breath hiss between her teeth. Their enemy, which had grown, was now much larger and taller than Fiora, although the floating added a few inches to that calculation. The voice rumbled out of that foggy, glowing-eyed opening. "Hand the mortal man over to me and depart with your scales and your innards intact."

  "If any innards are going to be touched, I will do the touching!" Fiora promised.

  "The man-child has rainbow vision," the voice replied.

  "This sapling doesn't have rainbow vision." Fiora again shook the elf. Kim wondered if his head might come right off. "He isn't even worth the flesh on his bones."

  Kim expected Damon to protest, but he nodded in agreement, clearly understanding Fiora's tactics here. If the cloaked enemy didn't think Damon was valuable, then the cloaked enemy would go away and everyone would get to keep their innards. Though she didn't think of them very often, Kim was fond of her innards.

  "We can only know for certain if we pry open his brainpan and gobble down his brains," the voice said. "With a tasty Axel wine, of course."

  "You test my patience, you puffed-up cloak," Fiora said, dropping the elf and showing her claws on both hands. She spread her wings, making herself even bigger.

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  "You are right about one thing, dragonspawn, these pufferies are below me." The red glowing eyes went out. The smoke dissipated, and their enemy floated down to the ground. "Let us talk beak to snout." A feathered hand pulled back the hood."You shall face the wrath of Günter of The Great Archives of Hair."

  The eagle-faced librarian glared down at them.

  "Not you," Fiora said.

  "Yes, it is I," Günter replied. Her beak looked as sharp as her eyes. "I hired the idiot elves because Poisonites already fear librarians so much that they are not using the library enough, so our rates of borrowing are down. I should have known Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap would fail me. Now, you will give the abomination to me or with one source word, you will die in an explosion of scales."

  "I have no defense against source words." Fiora stepped back and, to Kim's surprise, put her hands up in a placating move and closed her wings. "Now that I see who we face, I bow down to your wisdom concerning this spawner's fate." Fiora reached back without looking, grabbed Damon by the shoulder and pushed him in front of her, so that he was nearly standing on the dead elf. "You can have the whelp and his brains, and I will beg you to allow me to escape with my life. Take the other spawner. She has no gifts but perhaps enough skill to peel glue from old vellum scripts."

  "A wise choice, dragonspawn," Günter said. "I shall take the boy now."

  "Hey!" At first, Kim didn't know where the third voice came from. It was as if someone somewhere were having a delayed thought. Then she looked down slightly. She had said it, and it had been her delayed thought. "You can't have him." She stepped up beside Damon and started to pull out Strümbringer.

  "Hold your blade," Fiora said, grabbing her arm. "Source words are unstoppable. This librarian is going to eat his brains, and there is nothing we can do to prevent his fate. Keep your useless life, Kim."

  "Listen to the scaly betrayer." The librarian reached out with long, feathery arms. Her feathery fingers had talons at the end. The ragged bird tongue licked the bottom of the librarian's beak, suggesting that she might eat Damon's brains right in front of them. She didn't want to see that, so despite Fiora's advice, she continued to pull out her sword.

  Before she'd unsheathed the blade halfway, she was shoved downwards along with Damon.

  Fiora shouted:

  "We're not gonna take it

  Instead, we will bake it

  And then we will take it."

  Kim had no idea why Fiora had yelled a short poem, but she knew it wasn't haiku because this poem rhymed, even though it had used the same word twice to complete the rhyme.

  "No!" Günter shouted. "Nonsensical rhyming poetry." She put her feathery hands to her feathery bird ears. "And with a bad rhyme!"

  And then it got hot. The flames that came out of Fiora were a dark crimson shooting upwards at the librarian; only a few tongues licked down enough to catch Kim's hair.

  The bird librarian held out a hand. The feathers of her arms were turning to ash, and the librarian was clearly in pain, judging by how tightly her beak had clamped together. Despite the flames, she wasn't falling over—nor was she burning up. She did blink a few times and take a step back. Then she snapped her feathery fingers, and the flames went out.

  "Run!" Fiora shouted. "Run for your lives!"

  Kim turned and ran one way; Damon ran the other.

  "No, you fools!" Fiora shouted. "Run with me." Kim looked over her shoulder to see that Fiora had gone in a third direction, and both she and Damon turned to follow.

  She stole one glance back at the librarian, who had thrown off her cloak, which was completely in flames. Kim didn't know if a librarian eagle without clothes was naked and whether she should avert her eyes. The eagle-faced librarian ran after them. Her little wings flapping were clearly not large enough to lift her into the air. Good thing, Kim thought. She won't catch us.

  Well, it was a good thing until Günter levitated up several inches and sped towards them like she'd been shot out of a cannon.

  "She's coming after us!" Kim shouted.

  "Of course she is," Fiora replied. "She's hungry."

  "You won't let her eat my brains, will you?" Damon said.

  "Not today," Fiora said. They took a sharp turn. And another. Then a third down ever-narrowing alleyways as the librarian got nearer and nearer.

  "Why isn't she using a source word?" Kim shouted.

  "Because of my poem," Fiora said. "Librarians hate rhyming poetry. And this one had a repeated word for a rhyme, so it's stuck in her head, going around and around so she can't find her source words. Mother taught me that trick." Fiora pointed. "Turn here."

  Kim managed another glance backward. There was no sign of the librarian. "We might have lost her."

  "You don't lose librarians," Fiora said. "Like a lost book, they only find another way to find you. Now, tell me, Damon: Do you really have rainbow vision?"

  "I—I might," Damon said.

  "Well, we have to live long enough for me to kill you," she said. "It's good to have goals."

  Kim saw some motion. The librarian was above them, floating fully fifty feet in the air, tracking them. She opened her hand, and a golden glowing bow appeared. A moment later, a burning arrow came hurtling towards Kim. She went to draw her sword, hoping to knock it out of the sky, but a clawed hand swiped the arrow away.

  "Just flee!" Fiora shouted.

  Kim found another gear. They approached the edge of a roiling river. "Can you swim?" Fiora shouted.

  "Yes," Kim said.

  "Good," she replied. And in a sickening sense of Déjà vu, Fiora snatched Damon up and flew skyward, leaving Kim standing on the edge of the river. "Duck!" Fiora said. "Remember to duck!"

  An arrow struck the ground and exploded, knocking Kim over.

  "Duck and jump, I meant to say," Fiora was flying backward, extolling her advice from above.

  Another arrow was burning literally through the air in Kim's direction. A third went towards Fiora.

  Kim dived into the river.