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Our own Blondie’s response was to kiss Sarah-Blondie, the Original’s body ainst her very own shape

I felt a hand touch the saze He looked as curious and as unco fro and Magog guarding the little white van, only Hiral ith us But he was eyeing what now sounded like a rather heated reunion with lascivious glee, and I felt Anyan use a heavy swath of power to turn the little creature around so he was also facing the door we’d just entered Hiral looked around just long enough to stick out his long, black tongue at Anyan before he wandered forward to begin browsing through book shelves as if doing so had been his original intention

"What is she?" I whispered The way Sarah had morphed her shape hadn’t been like a shapeshifter--I could tell she’d nocolors

"A doppelg&aue shape as they do autola ine how itwhat it felt like to look into ain, Blondie seemed to have no trouble My libido couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to make love to oneself, which totally shorted out ht, I didn’t hear whatever clued Anyan in to the fact the little reunion was over and we could rejoin the party But I automatically moved with him as he steered me back to the tomen

Sarah had ain, whatever that was Her for, an to slon until the shifts were again subtle Blondie, oing on but knowing that not a lot shook her up Yet whatever there was between her and the librarian had done so

"So," I said, to break up the tension, "I’er’s hand, or anything, as I knew I’d end up shaking my own

"And I’ to Anyan

"And you are Anyan Barghest," she said, a note of awe in her voice A stack of books ca, to land in a stack at her feet

"Anyan the Great," she said, picking up the first book "This details your greatest triun of Drina the Despotic And here," she said, throwing the first book on the floor only to pick up the second and third, one in each hand "Here we have an exposé on your early life, and another detailing your skill as a strategist" The books joined the first on the floor, and then a bunch of paperbacks floated up in front of our faces They had lurid covers featuring a hunkya black wolf pelt "My favorite, the ro his way through all of the courts"

I cocked an eyebrow at Anyan, who looked suitablya rare shade of beet

But I was less surprised by the fact someone had tried to turn him into a supernatural Fabio than I was that he had a critical (and not so critical) volume of work dedicated to him I’d been told he was a hero, over and over, but I never saw that version of Anyan The version of Anyan I knew, my Anyan, never took himself that seriously

"And e, leather-bound tome towards me I plucked it from the air, and nearly tipped over it was so heavy

"The definitive biography Everything you ever wanted to know about Anyan Barghest is in those pages," Sarah said

"And we don’t have ti," Anyan said, his voice fir second I handed it to hi it jump to the thousand, mostly horrendous, conclusions on which it wanted to pounce, like the fact the book would prove Anyan was quite the Casanoghest, or that he had a thing for livestock, or was a known cannibal

You have the man in front of you, I told myself, firmly You don’t need another creature’s version of his life He gets to tell you that hi back towards Sarah

"What’s a Great Repository?"

Sarah’s ever-changing eyes e and black, ain and she was bustling away from us towards a cart stacked with stuff There were really ancient scrolls, and equally ancient roughly bound books There were also a few more properly bound books, but they, too, looked incredibly old Incongruously, the final articles on the shelves hat looked like modern-day, if outdated, textbooks

"What your human history calls Great Britain, your supernatural side calls the Great Island," Sarah said, acknowledging racefully than did raphy, supernaturals and huh their fored, and the relationship has since evolved, there is still a syreater than anywhere else on the planet"