We had come, at last, after much trial and worry, to Borges’ Library. I took stock — tired, hungry, empty of spells and ideas, pursued by persons unknown for reasons unknown, the Library was as good a place as any to hide. You could find anything there, which made it next to impossible to find anything there.

“Where’d they go?” I asked Nadia.

She looked over the balcony’s rail. “They’re down throwing paper airplanes at some of the librarians and Don Quixote. Come see.”

“Thanks just the same,” I said, “but—”

But she wouldn’t take no. She collared my arm and hauled me next to the rail, next to the infinite well of that damnable tower. Endless heights, and endless depths; the library’s octagon approaches infinity whichever direction you travel. There are theories, which I have never put personally to the test, that claim that an object, or, say, a person, dropped into the great central well, will eventually pass some critical point, slow down and reverse course and begin falling up until another, equally critical point is passed and the process repeats.

I could just see Stephen and Marissa across the well. Throwing airplanes, as promised.

The seductive well tugged at my coattail and I sank to the ground, arms wrapped around a stanchion, and whimpered. Face be damned.

It took all three of them to pry me loose again.