“Of course, not,” Loki rubbed his forehead.
“Don’t sweat it. No one even knows what it means. It could be a new hamburger in Sorrow for all I care,” Axel said. “Come over here. I want to show you why I brought you to Bedtime Stoories in the first place.”
“I’m listening,” Loki said.
“Yes. I’ve found evidence that the princess we encountered yesterday is, in fact, the real Snow White, and that she’s always been a vampire,” Axel repeated proudly. He climbed up the ladder then dropped thick volumes of ancient books, thudding onto the table.
“I don’t care what she is,” Loki said. “I just want to find a way to kill her,” he tried to neglect the guilt he felt inside saying this.
How could you still want to kill a girl who spared your life, and needs you to save her?
“Look, I don’t know why you’re so keen on killing her, but if you really want to, knowing who she really is should help you find her weakness. Yesterday, when she had you in the grip of her hands, I thought you were really going to die.”
“You actually have a point,” Loki nodded.
Axel climbed down the ladder then stood next to Loki, facing the table with a set of books. “Let me see,” he said, searching through them. “You know this library has some intriguing books that I have never heard of,” he started reading titles. “Listen to this: The Books of Always and Never. I skimmed through it and it’s crazy. It’s full of lines like these, ‘Always brush your teeth, never sleep without brushing them.’ And ‘Always be brave, never fear anything.’ And ‘Always love, never hate.’ It goes on like this, forever.”
“Can you please show me the important book?” Loki tapped his foot.
“I’m looking for it—and here, listen to this title,” Axel said. “’The Secret History of Nursery Rhymes’ See? I told you there’s something wrong with them. And here, another one, ’The Book of the Purpose of Good and Evil,” Axel read, and flipped to another book. “’The Unlawful Laws of Evil’ I like that one,” he said. “It goes on like this: ‘And Then They Were Gone’, written by ‘One of Them’,” Axel laughed. “’Think and Go Witch’ I have to save this one for Fable. ‘The Common-sense of Nonsense’, ‘To Kill a Ladybird’, ’Gone with the Wand’, ‘The Snow in the Sorrows: An Incomplete and Unreliable History of the Town of Sorrow’, and finally the strangest title of all, ‘How to Win Friends Even When they are Minikins’
“Let me see that,” Loki grabbed the book.
“You know what a Minikin is?” Axel wondered.
Loki didn’t know what to say. He didn’t understand what this library really was, but very few people called humans Minikins, mostly half-angels and Dreamhunters. “Let’s just get to your book,” Loki said, unable to confront Axel with the truth about being a Minikin himself.
“Here it is,” Axel said, “‘The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm.’”
“Are you going to read me a bedtime story?” Loki wondered.
Axel dusted the book off with his palms. “This book is a treasure. You couldn’t find this out in the main library. It has most of the Brothers Grimm original fairy tales,” Axel tried to sneer at Loki for an effect on his words, but he had dust plastered all over his face.
“Again, what exactly do you mean by original?”
“Since you’re not a superhuman nerd like me, and you hate comics and fairy tales, I assume I have to repeat myself and tell you that all the fairy tales we read about today were forged,” Axel ranted, wiping his face clean.
“Well, I always hated that true love’s kiss that solved everything in the end,” Loki said. Charmwill had been feeding his brain with fairy tales from the Book of Beautiful Lies; stories that didn’t interest Loki.
“You will like the real fairy tales in the Brothers Grimm un-published version. They are full of blood spattering, eye-shattering gore, and unhappily ever after’s.”
“Sounds awesome.”
“And you think I am weird,” Axel chewed on the words. “Anyway, here is what you need to know. Whoever created this secret library did it to preserve some of the town’s many secrets—it should be obvious by now that this isn’t a regular town.”
“I noticed.”
“Fable only knew about this secret library because she’s into witchcraft, and read about how to get to it through secret scriptures in books. It means we don’t know who we’re dealing with here. What matters is what I discovered reading some of these books.”