Going back down the hallway and into the large circular room, Scott turned to his right, leading us into the next hallway. A few meters in, Scott opened a door on the left. Inside was a large wall of books. Unlike Mordred’s mess of a desk, these books were put in a condensed and controlled space of carefully structured bookshelves. The books lining the shelves lacked a single speck of dust on them, and the only books that weren’t on shelves were sitting on a small table near the door. The room itself was like a maze of these bookshelves. There was a bookshelf in front of us that connected to the wall on the right, with only a small gap on the left side between the shelf and the wall. Lining both walls to the sides were even more bookshelves. Walking to the left, we curved around the shelf, to see that there was another bookshelf running from the left wall outward with a small gap on the opposite side.

Continuing through this zig-zagged path, we arrived at an open space where a young woman sat at a desk with her head buried in a book. A teapot sat beside her on the desk, steam rising from the spout, with a single cup of equally steaming tea sitting on the other side of her desk. She didn’t seem to notice us at all as we piled in, similar to Merlin when we entered Mordred and his office. Strangely, she was motionless. It was as if she was a statue rather than a person.

“Mary? Are you dead?” Scott asked, knowing that was not the case. The woman let out a pained sigh—a common reaction to Scott, apparently—before lowering the book from her face to reveal her black hair, death-like expression, and tired demeanor. She didn’t look much older than thirteen or fourteen, but she had bags under her red eyes like she hadn’t slept in years.

“Of course I’m dead; I’m a vampire. Now, what do you want, Scott?” Mary asked with an annoyed look that seemed to cause her pain by doing so.

“We need to know how to kill a Willowisp. If you don’t happen to know anything, then we could always ask your husband,” Scott said, cutting straight to the point. Though, his last comment was obviously to get under her skin. He could feign ignorance easily if she got mad, but it was still harsh. Mary gave him a hateful glare, but it was hard to tell what she was thinking. Her face wasn’t the most expressive, but she looked like she was physically trying to be.

“I think I have something on Willowisps somewhere in here. Though, you should know that that man is more like my ex-husband now,” Mary said without any sign of remorse. Setting her book on her desk, Mary stood up with a blank face, as she tried to think about where the documents would be. For some reason, I felt as if there was a loading symbol spinning around in her head for a second.

“Oh, really?” Scott said, pretending to be surprised. His reply snapped her out of her mental daze, causing her to start re-taking in the room.

“Yes,” she said, rolling her eyes, before realizing that Elysif and I were standing beside Scott. “And who are these two, Scott?” she asked with a somewhat forced look of intrigue.

“This is Elysif, You should have already met her, though I may be wrong about that,” he said, gesturing at her. “And this is Lou, my apprentice.”

“Well, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," she said with a nod, before shuffling over to the bookshelf on her right. Waving her hand over a few of the books, she skimmed up, down, and between shelves, before removing a book. “Here it is!” Mary exclaimed in a monotone voice.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A book of Fae and Fae types based on Table field studies over the past five hundred years,” she said, flipping through it, before stopping on a page somewhere towards the end. “Here we are.”

“Alright, what does it say?” Scott asked, before pulling out his flask and taking a swig. She gave him a look of disdain, but decided not to say anything.

“Nothing of use. Those, Knuckle dragging, curs, I bite my thumb at the, elephant faced, asshat, pieces of shit,” she shouted obscenities from what was at least a few different generations. Scott just stood there, but Elysif and I were a bit weirded out by the strange amalgamation of words she just spewed.

"“What do you mean by nothing of use?!?!”” Elysif and I asked. Scott just shrugged as if he expected there to be nothing.

“I mean that there is nothing useful. They barely included the creature's weakness. Just what kind of field agent doesn’t write down proper details?” she said, showing us the page.

On one page was a horrifying sketch of a creature that looked like it came from a creepypasta. It had the skull of an elk, whose eyes glowed yellow, for a face. Both its arms and legs were as thin as bones, but as black as night. The body looked as if it were starving, because all of its ribs were showing, but it was covered in jet black latex-like skin, all except for its skull. To finish off the creepy aesthetic, it had hair down to its waist that resemble the branches of a weeping willow.

The page beside it read as follows:

“Year 1712, June 8th. Day 3 of our search for an unknown creature:

We have come across a creature that does not die from silver for reasons we cannot explain. However, we have found that it can be harmed with iron. We believe it to be of Fae origins, and despite its physically lacking body structure, it is quite strong. The beast can blend into the forest-scape with ease during the night, making it hard to track. We will continue to observe it for more information.

Day 12:

The creature has attacked a child in the woods and attempted to eat it with a mass of tentacle-like appendages that hide under its skull. The five Agents with me, prevented the child’s death, but the beast killed three of them before fleeing into the dense woods.

Day 14:

It attacked us in the night as if it was hunting us, waiting to strike like a common predator. It killed the other two Agents. I was able to escape when it stopped to count the sugar and salt that had spilled from our ration bag during the fight. Its speed is immeasurable, and its strength is enough to rip a man in half. If you see one of these creatures, DO NOT FIGHT IT, RUN, and pray that it didn’t see you. I have dubbed this being the Willowisp after its long Willow branch-like hair, and the Fae known as Wisps, for its ability to hide.

~Agent Mora Seld, Rank Five Star.”

“Jesus Christ!” Elysif exclaimed in shock. She and I must have had the same thought about this job being too much for us.

“Welp, now we know what we are gonna be fighting,” Scott said casually. He sounded as if he were completely unafraid of such a beast.

“We are not fighting that thing,” I said, trying to deter him from this mission.

“You’re right, we aren’t. We're fighting several of those things,” Scott said with a heinous grin.

Scott swiftly and yet ungracefully strutted off back through the maze of bookshelves with only a wave of his hand to say goodbye back at Mary, even though she couldn’t see it. “Thank you for your help, Mary. I’ll see about getting you some fresh blood when I’m done with this job,” he said. Elysif and I quickly followed behind him through the maze of books.

“That’s unnecessary, since I don’t need human blood,” Mary yelled back so that Scott could hear her, as she placed the book back on the shelf where she had pulled it from.

“I know. Though I also know that you like it better,” Scott yelled back, unprofessionally, from the entrance to the maze, before pushing open the door and holding it open for us. Once we had gone through the door and Scott had let it shut, I turned to him.

“What are you thinking? We are going to get ourselves killed,” I practically yelled at him, with fear in my eyes and feeling pretty rational for it. Elysif nodded in agreement as she too thought this was a suicide mission. Scott cocked his head to the side, then looked down at the ground, before he started chuckling.

“Were either of you paying attention?'' he asked with a humoured smile. We both looked at him like he was going insane. before he spoke again. “She just told us the Willowisps' weakness,” Scott said in response to our expressions. Despite this, we both continued to look at him like he was insane.

He couldn’t help but sigh at our lack of attention, “Salt and sugar have been used to distract Fae for centuries. Despite Willowisps being made of humans and animals, they are still Fae, and have the same instinct to count those grainy chunks no matter how much peril they’re in. It’s why no one has ever seen a Fae outside of the British isles. If they saw the beach, then they would probably spend an eternity counting every last grain of sand. Well, with the exception of the Nuckelavee,” Scott explained.

“Does that mean that you're going to kill them by first having them count salt or sugar?” Elysif asked with a belittling look as if she thought the idea was stupid. It was most definitely a stupid idea, though.

“Absolutely,” he replied with a smug grin, ignoring Elysif’s look.

“Well then, you can count me out,” Elysif proclaimed, marching away, but was stopped when Scott grabbed the back of her shirt's collar.

“Nope, you’re coming with us. Remember, you wanted to come with us, and your train ticket wasn’t free. Plus, if you aren’t there, then who’s gonna heal us when we get hurt?” Scott said with what I could swear was a threatening aura.

“But I don’t want to die!” she said, scared and desperate. Shaking her head, she backed away a bit for emphasis.

“Then, don’t die,” Scott said, before letting her go and opening the door across the hall from Mary’s. I felt a little left out of the conversation, but I agreed with Elysif. I didn’t want to die either, and it was a terrible plan. I just hoped that it would, well… work.