**BEEP BEEP BEEP**
Troy shot awake as his alarm went off. As the tendrils of sleep cleared from his brain he noticed Rusty’s conspicuous absence in the bed next to him.
“Rusty, you out there?” Troy called down the hallway. Today the day he was supposed to fight the owner of the Book of Transmutation and Rusty was hopefully on the lookout, as planned.
“Nothing so far!” Came Rusty’s reply.
Thank God, thought Troy. He didn’t know if RK had been telling the truth, but he honestly wasn’t sure what was worse. On the one hand he didn’t want to fight against another book owner, much less one that could turn him in a taxidermy. On the other, if RK was lying about this fight then he could have been lying about everything else – including that he was the owner of the Book of Divinity.
Troy had no doubt that RK was a book owner, but the question was which one? And why not just attack him outright? Why take the chance that Troy would turn him into a chicken or a worm? Troy didn’t know. He didn’t even know what the possibilities were. What could the Book of Body do? What about the Book of Myth? Troy’s book could easily disable someone, but maybe the other books didn’t have such straightforward offensive power?
Troy pondered those questions while he moved to the entrance of the living room, taking up a position where he could see Rusty, but couldn’t be seen through the outside window. With the lights in the house out, Troy didn’t think that anyone standing outside would be able to see in. Still, with the stark difference in camoflagability between Rusty’s dark brown fur and Troy’s bright orange coat there was no reason to chance it. Plus, if Rusty’s insides suddenly turned to stuffing then at least Troy would be able to fight back and, if he won, to fix it. If Troy got hit before Rusty then they were both screwed.
But as the hours wore on and no one out of the ordinary appeared outside, Troy’s doubts about RK began to grow more manifest.
“You think RK was lying to me?” asked Troy as his tail idly flicked back and forth.
“It would make sense, you haven’t done much with the Book of Beasts, how would another book owner how to find you?” replied Rusty.
“How did RK know how to find me?”
“He said the Book of Divinity told him right?”
“You’re assuming he was telling the truth about that, its entirely possible that book doesn’t exist and he actually has another one.”
Rusty just shrugged. Troy couldn’t blame him, there were just too many unknowns, of which RK was perhaps the biggest.
The hours went by. Noon turned to evening. Evening turned to night. By the time the clock hit midnight, neither Troy nor Rusty seriously expected an attack anymore. It was clear that RK had tried to trick them and Troy was proud that he didn’t fall for it.
“You think we should stay up a bit longer?” asked Troy.
“Probably. If RK was trying to trick us, he might assume we would drop our guard at midnight and take that opportunity to attack. Right now might be the most dangerous time for us, stay alert,” came Rusty’s reply.
A few days ago they might have been heterosexual friends, but the look of determination that Troy saw in Rusty’s face made him glad that the book had brought them together in the way that had.