The stacks are mostly empty at any given time; Margaret can whisper occasional recommendations and carry the books Brenda picks out and eventually check them all out, plus one or two for herself.

Brenda can carry the books, since they will turn invisible when she picks them up.

"I specifically put that feature in for this exact sort of reason and then forgot I had done it, wow am I silly." she mutters.

Brenda giggles as quietly as she can.

If anybody hears the giggle they assume it was Margaret.

And eventually they go back inside. Brenda hugs her again.

Margaret hugs her back. "I'm going to grab some lunch at the Chinese place before I go home; want to come along or shall I leave you to your books?"

"I'm down for Chinese!"

"Cool! I like the idea of hanging out while actually able to have a conversation."

"It does have some advantages," says Brenda.

They start off for the restaurant. "So what did you end up getting books on? I saw the covers while I was checking them out but I didn't read the jackets."

"Sequel to some stuff I like and didn't realize it had a sequel out, one on jewelrymaking, one on French history, one on golf - I've seen golf on TV but I'm curious what someone trying to fill a whole book about it has to say."

"Yeah, I know everything is interesting if you get deep enough into the details, but I'm not sure how anyone brings themselves to look that deeply at golf when there are so many other things. History is cool, though."

"Well, if there's anything neat in the golf book I'll tell you."

"Thanks. Is the history book on any particular subset of French history?"

"One of the revolutions. The Pimpernel one not the Les Mis one."

"That one was a mess. Such good intentions, and it ended up as awful as any other war."

"Yeah. ...I mostly know about it from the Scarlet Pimpernel."

"We had it in World History but only for a couple days, and I haven't taken European history yet. Did your history classes cover the Extinction War at all? I've seen references to it in library books but of course I never learned about it in school."

"Uh, I think it was mentioned but wasn't even a whole history class, it's not like we know a whole lot about it from the historical record, and the participants are, y'know, extinct. I did read what the library had on it one time. Sometimes people mutter about it if something looks like it might turn into a whole feud thing?"

"I wonder why the historical record is so terrible. Most wars have way better records, and not *everyone* involved died."

"Most wars aren't between, like, people whose existence is secret."

"Yeah. As far as we know, anyway, there could be aliens living on Earth having secret wars and we could be as ignorant of them as humans are of us. Once you know there's one global conspiracy it starts seeming less implausible that there are two."

"...huh, I never thought of that, but I actually think that would be really cool? There could be aliens, and fairies, and time travelers, and sliders, and wizards. Non-runecaster wizards, I mean. All not knowing about each other. Except there's a lot of critters who seem human and don't find out till later - so if any of the others ever met a human someone would know two things -"

"Somebody knowing two things doesn't mean they'd tell them about each other, though. Like . . . maybe the other group is really tiny and they're worried telling critters about them would be just as bad as telling humans. Or the other group is sketchy and there's a risk they'd tell humans about critters or something. And then there'd be a person stuck with multiple layers of secrets."