As the fairy lights on campus flicker on and the most daring of the stars enter into their nightly watch, Constance heaves a book cart across the cobblestones. Laden with two hundred and three books, the wheels turn slowly. Her arms burn, and she begins to regret taking this detour. She's supposed to meet Dr. Carulus at the library before the eighth bell toll. At this rate, she'll be fortuitous to get there before the twelfth.

She yanks on the cart, willing it to go faster. Her foot slips, its slipper popping off, and she sprawls onto the cobbles. "Ow," she curses, suppressing other, unladylike words.

Huffing, she pushes to her knees, then back to her feet. She really should have just gone straight to the library. But the Inky Well isn't far now. And the bruises will heal (though that, regrettably, doesn't make them hurt less right now).

She's tempted to rouse Rosaline, but the fairy has been hard at work all day helping Constance turn her personal library into potential fairy-tomes. The foiled, flowered, bedazzled, and otherwise ornamented books set a strange weight in Constance's stomach. Dr. Carulus insisted she use her own, that way no bitter bureaucrat could add theft onto her list of potential charges, and she had said in her proposal that she was willing. She is willing. It's just the loss of them—some childhood favorites, some collected from foreign lands, some early editions she picked up in tucked-away bookstores—stings more than it has a right to.

Still, they are only things. Things can be replaced. Even the worn copies that her father used to read to her. He would be honored to see them used as fairy-tomes. She's not betraying him; she will not let sentimentality betray her.

Throat inexplicably tight, she tugs again on the book cart, then again, conquering one stubborn cobblestone at a time. At last she arrives, sweating despite the cold, at the Well.

She's later than usual upon tumbling inside. Most of the dinner crowd is gone, which is good since her cart is now stuck on the threshold and she's forced to negotiate with it as if it were a petulant donkey. She's almost resigned herself to leaving it to prop open the door when Marek appears at her side. One handed, he pulls it into the room as if it were no more trouble than a baby stroller. She wants to scowl at him, but she's too tired. Instead, she plops gratefully into a seat at the bar (much closer than her normal corner).

"I was starting to wonder if you were going to eat tonight, Konnichiwa."

She raises her head from her folded arms and, breathless, says, "No time."

That single brow quirks. "You don't look like you're going anywhere anytime soon."

"No," she tries to protest. "I need... to be... half an hour."

He disappears into the kitchen before her (not-quite-a) sentence is even complete. By the time he comes back with black lemonade, a wedge of cheese, and a bowl of fried apples, her stomach is grumbling, and she reasons she's no good to anyone if she passes out among the fae.

Marek parks her cart next to her, then leans against the bar. "What exactly is this? An offering to appease the capricious library gods?"

His smirk falls when she nods. She covers her mouth with her hand. "Something like that." Swallowing, she says, "I just stopped by to let you know I wouldn't be dining here tonight—" She frowns at her meal. "Well, I hadn't planned on it at least, and I didn't want the oddity to..." Make him worry? She wasn't really sure how to phrase it. "Rouse any alarm," she decides on. A warm apple slice sets her mouth tingling, but she doesn't let it linger long before swallowing. She is in a hurry after all. "I might not be back tomorrow either."

Marek frowns, and it does not look natural on his face at all. In fact, it sort of turns the whole thing into a thunderstorm, his short, dark bangs hovering like clouds over the intense valley of his eyes and crooked mountain of his nose.

Constance drops her gaze back to her food. "You disapprove?"

"No, I—" Motion catches her eye, and she looks up to find him pushing his bangs back. Her lips purse in confusion. A patron calls for another round, and he sighs. He points a single finger at her, just inches from her nose. Her eyes widen. "Don't go anywhere, you."

Her eyelashes bat for a few seconds even after he's gone. Then she scarfs down the end of her meal, feet kicking impatiently beneath the stool. Marek bustles around (slightly more curt than usual), topping off drinks before beckoning Jamison over. The boy nods, and Marek takes off his apron.

"Now," he says, pushing her cart toward her normal spot, "what exactly is going on?"

"I really can't stay," she says, hurrying distraught after her trove.

"Then I won't keep you." His voice lowers as he slides into the booth. "But I want to know what you've gotten yourself into, and I get the feeling it's not the sort of thing you want everyone overhearing."

She frowns, but takes her usual seat. "You're the one that told me to come up with a plan."

"For your department chair."

"I did," she says. "I just... ended up sort of being part of that plan? Oh, would you please stop looking so angry! I don't even know what you're angry for."

The storm clouds abate some. "I'm not angry. With you, at least."

"Well, don't be angry with Dr. Carulus either. He's helping me do the right thing."

Marek opens his mouth to say something, closes it so tight the muscles tic, then draws a breath. She prepares for an explosion, but his question is measured, gentle even. "What, exactly, is the right thing?"

She senses he's not asking for a lecture on morality but rather on the specifics of the operation. Normally it would be a waste of time to explain, but if any layman should understand, it would be Marek, so she succinctly lays out her plan.

"Alright," he says, slowly digesting. "So then who is your second?"

"I... don't have one," she admits.

"Fairy-trapping is supposed to be done in pairs. You taught me that."

"That condition is hard to achieve when no volunteer is available," she snaps. She doesn't like the weight of his gaze, and her arms cross.

"This is illogical, Constance."

Her scowl deepens. "Not every set of conditions is perfect."

"You shouldn't have to be the one to do this."

"That is quite an ironic statement considering last night you told me that I most certainly should!"

"Tell me you've thought this through."

"I wrote a twenty page paper on it."

"Did that twenty page paper star you as the principal researcher?"

"Well... no," she admits.

He leans over the table, voice softening. "These people are using you, Constance. Your conviction, your intelligence, your talent, they're turning it against you, as if you were no more than a well-written spell. You deserve better than that."

The depth in his voice and the weight of his eyes catch her off guard. She swallows. Throat dry, she swallows again. "And yet," she says carefully, "I am going into the library."

She starts to slide out, and he lays a hand at the edge of the table: not stopping her in any way, but asking her to stop, and so she pauses.

"Is this," he asks, his tongue seeming to form the words as slowly as if each were glass, "what your father would have wanted?"

Embarrassingly, tears (very unwanted and certainly intrusive) spring to her eyes. "My father would have wanted me to follow my conscience," she says sharply. Blinking her vision clear, she starts to slide out of the booth again.

Unexpectedly, a warm hand helps draws her up. She looks up at him—she doesn't think she realized how tall he was until he was standing over her. He steps back, and she breathes a little easier.

Irritatingly, his voice is as warm as his hand was. "I don't think he would have wanted you to go alone."

She scowls (though there is perhaps less bite in it now). "You hardly knew him."

"You talk about him perhaps more than you realize." His usual crooked smile graces his face. "And he's the one that taught you fairy-trappers work in pairs, right?"

"Who else?" she answers quietly.

"Then if you're set on going, I'll be your second."

"But you don't know—"

He raises a hand. "You also talk about fairy-trapping more than you realize. And fairies. And the second is just there for when things go wrong, right? And nothing is meant to go wrong."

"Plans of war never survive first contact with the enemy," she quotes reflexively (another of her father's favorites), before realizing it was a trap.

"In which case it follows," Marek says, "that having a backup plan would be a good idea."

She deflates, not sure that it's a good idea at all, but all of her protests fall on deaf ears. He packs dry food for them (though she says they are in a hurry, he counters that the plan can't really start without her, and they're going to want to eat at some point) and deposits coins for the difference in the till.

He claps Jamison on the shoulder. "You ready to captain the ship?" The boy nods (though he looks more nervous than her students on presentation day), and Marek chuckles. Quickly, he jots down some notes and suggests Jamison ask the girl who works dayshift to stay on if he's not back by the afternoon.

Constance's foot taps, and she begins to consider leaving without him, when he takes the handle of her cart. "And are you ready?" he checks.

"I was ready twenty minutes ago," she says primly.

There is something to his smile, a certain warmth or amusement, that she doesn't like, so she looks away. Her eyes catch Marek's poor substitute (wide-eyed and hand-wringing despite only few customers in the tavern). She frowns.

"Try not to fret, Jamison," she says as they head for the door. "You might burn the Well down, but it would be improbable. It is filled with liquids after all." Her chin clips in what she hopes is a reassuring manner before she muses, "Well, flammable liquids. But improbable nevertheless!"

For some reason, Jamison's face drops into his hands, and Marek chuckles as they push out into the night. "We might need to work on your motivational speeches."

Her arms cross. "I give speeches for a living, you know."

"Yes, Konnichiwa. I know."

She harrumphs at him. But at least she doesn't have to drag the cart all the way to the library.