As Nicholas reviews his old notes in preparation for writing the truth spell the next morning, Maram enters and tells him about her and Richard’s plans. She requests that they be undisturbed for the evening, with “a firmness to her words as if she were relaying something more important than mere logistics” (125). When she leaves, he finds that she has left him a note with the location of a book in the Library’s collection.

Going to the Library as instructed, Nicholas remembers his kidnapping, at the age of 13 in San Francisco, when he’d been interrogated about “how the books were being written and by whom” (133). He later woke up in a hospital bed. He remembers learning he’d been found because of a tracking spell the Library includes in all their books, and he recalls his uncle’s promise that he would never be in danger like that again. He finds the book in Maram’s note, which contains a spell for turning chemical propellants (like gunpowder) into bees. The book contains another note from Maram with another call number, and its book “causes solid unliving objects to become translucent and breachable” (138). Nicholas is surprised to find the book had its last page rewritten to be rechargeable.