“Well,” Crenia said, too cross to easily catch her breath, “That was an idiotic move.”

Ceres just looked at her, blue (and yellow, and white) head cocked as though in confusion. Perhaps he truly was confused, but she doubted it. Truly he couldn’t be that stupid. “What did I do?” His face was so nonplussed and aghast that she almost felt bad for him, but he never thought about others and so he deserved it. Probably.

There was no proof he didn’t.

She opened her mouth to speak, before she heard a child calling to them. It wasn’t that Crenia hated children, but rather that she had spent little time in their company as she had little use for them. They were small, and untrained, and usually curious in directions she didn’t care to understand. Recall seemed a little different - she might be able to actually learn something before she matured. Tulip was… well, a product of her parents. Very cute, very sweet, but Crenia had yet to see a single original thought enter her head.

But anyhow, a child was calling.

“Guys…” Recall said, voice smaller than usual, “I haven’t been around many books, but… they’re moving by themselves. Is that normal?”

It was true - the books were moving by themselves, floating from the shelves to open to seemingly random pages, the wind riffling them back and forth gently as though searching for something. 

Ceres tried to play it off as something he’d done. “Haha - magic is so fun. I just thought it you needed something to keep you on your toes, after the scary of the water.”

“I don’t think so,” Tulip piped up, blue eyes wide. “There are… things picking the books up. Can you really not see them? They’re whispering to themselves.”

A flash of jealousy crossed Recall’s face, but she quickly shook it off. “I can’t see any of them! What are they saying?”

Tulip stepped forwards slowly, cautiously. “Galatea, Galatea - I think they’re looking in the books for a Galatea?”

As though saying it three times summoned something, the figures turned to stare at her, eyes changing from dark and inscrutable to a red she never knew she never wanted to see. Their mouths opened wider, though she wasn’t sure how she could tell that there were mouths at all in the inky darkness of the figures, but the books started to fly. “You can see that, right?”

“Books flying in our direction as though they want to eat us? Yeah, I think I can!” Surprisingly, it was Ceres who was snapping just a bit, and Crenia didn’t realize she was smirking that his facade was slipping. “Let’s just go!”