If that were the only problem, she might have just gotten used to it, used the extra exercise to gain mana. But of course, it's not. Books, especially magical books, are finicky and proud things. There are no due dates for library books here, but you'd have trouble keeping them for any extended period of time anyway. If they feel they're being neglected, or ignored? If they've been too far from their shelf home for too long? If another student also needs a book on this subject while the first one is hoarding it? It'll just leave. Good luck ever finding it again, even if you made note of where it had originally been shelved. It'll avoid you out of spite, if nothing else. Books used in the first year of school, baby's first magical tome and the like, tend to be more forgiving. They understand that they're dealing with children, newly ripped from their homes and dropped into a void suspended school filled with monsters that are sometimes maleficaria and sometimes human. As magical books go, they're very patient and gracious.

As the students grow in power, and need tomes of corresponding strength, it starts becoming very necessary to see that books are treated very politely indeed. Yvette has taken to keeping careful track of where the books she needs come from, in a tidy little notebook she keeps on her. Title, catalog number on its label, which aisle it's in, how many bookshelves from the end, which shelf from the floor, how many books on either side of the shelf, and the names of its immediate neighbors. The aisles are, in her notebook, color coded. When she is done with her books, which should be promptly, they are to be reshelved right where she found them. 'Promptly', in this case, means 'when you are not using them,' and 'when you are not using them' means 'directly making use of them right that second to learn or work on something.' No taking them away for later reading, no keeping books for after dinner study, and especially no holding books overnight. They have a purpose, and they have a place, and she will respect them or she will not have access to them, and none of them will broach or tolerate any argument to the contrary. Yvette thinks this is very fair. Also rather charming; she's occasionally been tempted by the idea of becoming a librarian.

This sort of careful and dutiful treatment of the contents of the library is not very conducive to long periods of time to work with the books when one is taking books to places besides the conveniently placed reading rooms that she will likely never set foot in. Studying in the stacks themselves works fine with singular books, safely kept in her lap and off of the floor, but this strategy falls through when she's juggling several to compare their contents. The best she could do with that situation after her second year was grab an empty classroom to study in, instead of trekking all the way to her room, and that comes with its own dangers. Mostly mal related dangers. Not to mention, the conventional way one navigates the library is by staying in the main aisles, where the classification of the contents of each row is tidily written on the end. If a student doesn't keep track of where they are in the library at all times, they could very well get lost, and, well. Getting lost doesn't tend to go well. The oldest and least used works are further in, too, and late last year she'd had a project involving the comparison of several old languages. Which meant a lot of walking in, grabbing her book, walking back to the main aisle, then walking back in again. All of this with no cheating by doing her reading on the floor, because by then she'd had it good and impressed upon her that books are precious and to be respected. Eventually, she'd gotten frustrated with the inefficiency, and decided to risk going around the back to save time.

Her gamble had gotten her a viable shortcut that saved quite a lot of time, a forced crash course in Sanskrit (from paying a bit too much attention to the titles of that particular section of the library to keep from getting lost), and a true library treasure. A studying desk, tucked away in a little nook that could only be seen from the back, tucked away in darkness beneath one of the mezzanine walkways and between scrolls and tablets so old the language has been forgotten. After it showed up in the same place several times in a row, she did the only sensible thing and traded for a mostly empty bottle of wood oil (courtesy of Alexei) and lovingly got it cleaned up. From then on, it became her desk. Nobody else knew where it was, and it liked her at least well enough to stay where she thought it would be.

She's known for disappearing mysteriously into the stacks and not coming out until the bell demands it of her, and this little bastion of hers is usually where she ends up. In fact, it's where she's heading off to right now, to work on Liu's history homework.

Someone intercepts her before she can do that, though.

Since the bizarre conversation he had with Scorpius a few days ago on Thursday things have been... odd. Odd is a way to put it. Scorpius and Yvette have gone mal hunting a couple more times, and he's been sitting at the same table as her more often than not. The same table as Alexei more often than not, what with how he's also been spending a lot more time with Yvette. Sofia and Natalya are both kind of unhappy about this—Sofia most of all—but they're getting used to it, and that extends to other people, too, with various other indies who previously barely-tolerated Yvette now actively seeking her out.

All because of Lake. Everyone's noticed by now that he seems to have taken a shine to Yvette (and Alexei notes with some anxiety that they may notice that Scorpius's taken a shine to him too, the one time he didn't sit with Yvette this weekend he sat with him), and while New York and London seem to have given up on her (and Alfie seems to be chumming up with him), there are other enclaves making overtures. Paris didn't even try, but Manchester, Munich, and Lisbon are all variously trying to get in Yvette's good graces, and even Shanghai has been making some noises.

Yvette is wrong, that she wouldn't be welcome in the reading rooms. If she didn't escape into her stacks more quickly than anyone could catch her Alexei is virtually certain that she'd start getting invitations, especially if she wanted to bring a friend with her.

But Alexei has been kind of on the lookout for her most of today because while all of that's been happening he's been sort of ruminating on something and it's driving his anxiety levels up the roof and, and he needs to talk to her, so unlike the enclavers he succeeds at intercepting her before she's gone.

And then he... doesn't know what to say. Because of course that's exactly what would happen, isn't it, so he's just standing there, awkwardly, looking at her expectant face.

For others, she’d politely say a greeting, and then nonetheless resume her escape without so much as a backwards glance. For him, she stops, and he gets a smile that looks as warm as sunlight, and an, "Alexei! Hello."

oh

He lost track of what he'd been thinking. It must be the anxiety. What was he anxious about again...? Oh, right.

"Uh, I meant to ask," he starts, and then stops again, because help.

She tilts her head a little. Ah... huh. Whatever this is, it's making him nervous. So probably they shouldn't have this conversation here, whatever it's about. Since they're still visible (and audible) to some of the general public, this close to the stairs.

"Well, all right. Can you ask while I get books for homework?" she asks, tilting her head towards the privacy of the stacks. "I'm a little behind." This is a lie, she's fine. Knocking out her shop project has put her tidily ahead of schedule, and she's already sorted out her maintenance shift for this week.

He blinks slowly, looks at the stacks, then back at her, and nods.

Right! Off they go.

"How private do you want?" she wonders mildly. No one's following them (and nothing's currently trying to ambush them), she'd have noticed, but, well, she's aware Alexei is a little bit shy. If he wants to be really and truly hidden from all the world, she can provide that service. Besides, it'd be kind of nice, to have someone else at her desk.

He looks around then nods. "Privacy would be good."

She returns the nod, begins to walk, then stops and hums thoughtfully. "... You don't speak any Old English or Sanskrit, do you. Then you should not look at any of the books."

Instead, she holds out her hand. To lead him, without catching too much of a language that he doesn't want from looking at foreign book titles.

He looks down at her hand. Then up at her. Then down again. Then up at her.

aa?

"... We can not, if you'd rather, just, um." Oh no, is he worried that she's going to try to kill him, because that'd be ludicrously stupid for so many reasons! Including but not limited to 'He's really great and she likes him'!! "I caught Sanskrit by accident last year, I cannot imagine it'd be any more fun as an artificer so close to the end of term."

So he is carefully led through the stacks, down a very, very long aisle, and to the back of the library. There, nestled in a dark nook between a bunch of stone tablets and scrolls, there is an ancient and sturdy looking desk, scarred and worn, but recently taken care of. Its wood is shiny and smooth, and it has not one, but two chairs.

"You can look, now. The scrolls and tablets are hard to get an accidental glance of." she says, still in Russian, but she's beaming at the second chair.

He finally looks up—he had been getting a bit nervous, there—and blinks at the desk.

Then he smiles. "I should have known," he says (except as soon as he says it he feels like maybe he shouldn't have said it??? aah).

She giggles, even as she carefully checks for mals, just in case. "Yes, it's very obvious when you consider how often I disappear here, isn't it?"

Nothing untoward found, she takes one of the available seats, smiling at him. "If you wondered what I did with the wood oil from your midterm sophomore project?" She pats the desk.

He walks over to inspect the desk, lightly trailing his fingers across its surface, his anxieties momentarily forgotten, and he breathes out a sigh of contentment. He knows by now that Yvette takes better care of her artifice—whether it be artifice she made or found or traded—than half the artifice-track kids, and it's only because the other half has a lot more materials and time to dedicate to the exclusive maintenance of their creations, but it's still always refreshing to see in person.

Alexei is very cute when he's caring for mostly inanimate objects. It's very charming.

But of course she immediately needs to justify things not being perfect, because she's herself: "I haven't had the material for fixing the scratches yet, and," okay she does not have the Russian to manage this sentence, so she switches to French, "I'm not sure how different types of wood would integrate together with make and mend, and I'm not entirely sure which kind of tree it came from..."

He turns to look at her and he is taken over by an absurd, overwhelming desire to kiss her. Since that sounds insane and terrifying it's actually suddenly quite easy for him to say the thing he'd been meaning to say instead, all at once, its prior ability to induce anxiety in him suddenly dwarfed in magnitude: "Areweinanalliance?"

"Oh! Ah." She sits up, then begins industriously fidgeting. She continues in French, because that was the language she was last speaking and her brain is now stuck. Besides, it's so much better to babble in. "Well, I, I mean I figured you'd want time to think about it, it's kind of a big decision and, I mean, you, um. Probably have better prospects? And if I'm the first person you get in your alliance I might scare others away, with my, me-ness, so I don't particularly mind being secretive about it or just being generally helpful or, um. Something? I just don't want you to die."

He continues to want to kiss her and he is absolutely not going to so he carries on: "I want to. And I wasn't sure. But I want to."

And it occurs to him with a start that actually that's more than a kiss, that's deeper and more important in this place, because you can kiss anyone you like and that doesn't mean anything but being allies means everything. It means more than friendship, more than love, it means life. It means having someone who will try to save you as much as you do, and whom you will try to save as much as they do; it means saying that you're together until one of you dies or you reach the end of the world (this world).

So now he's blushing. There's that.

... Well. Well. She. Is also blushing. And absolutely failing to watch for mals at all, shame on her, she should do that right this instant because that is how she continues to live.

".... I also want to," she agrees, softly. "Though you should probably know, ah. My affinity is, sort of. Sadism? Inflicting death, destruction, pain, and sorrow? That. Sort of. Thing. So."

"Huh. That... makes sense." Pause. "...mine is automation. Things that make decisions on their own. That have a mind of their own. Things with opinions."

And while that's not as bad as literally sadism, most things that wizards make are already trying to become smart and from there it's a short trip through bad circumstances to becoming maleficaria. If the stuff he makes is by design meant to be smart, then that trip is even shorter. It's a very, very dangerous affinity which demands very, very good and precise workmanship to use.

"Oh. No wonder you're so careful about not... involving yourself directly in projects, or making too many things for people. Why you sell materials instead of what you could make out of them. But then you trusted me to not drive them to...? ... I suppose I did find a desk in the library and near immediately get it wood oil, didn't I. And told my old knife that I would happily keep it for the rest of my life if it wanted to stay even after I went and rudely made another, but that I wished it well if it would rather, when, um, I'm babbling, I'm sorry." She lets out a little self conscious laugh. "Anyway, yes. Um. I'm still. We can put our names on the wall together if you'd still like?"