Xaviers!

The next morning Erica wasn't there and neither were the books, but Youseff was still in his bed, looking better now that he'd had time to rest.

"Good morning..." Nailah says quietly after knocking on the door.

Youseff looks up from his infirmary breakfast, "Good morning. Did you manage to retrieve the books?"

"Yeah. We left them on the nightstand..." she says with a bit of a questioning tone in her voice when she sees that they're not there anymore.

"They were not there when I woke up. I assumed the infirmary staff had kept you out and you'd held onto the books. Perhaps the staff moved them?"

"Maybe your sister put them away?" she says, walking over to check the drawer in the nightstand.

He looks confused, "Sister? I don't have a sister."

"But... she was in here. I thought if they let her in... She seemed to know you..." Nailah stammers. This made no sense, her power had steered her this way. How could that have been wrong?

"Things are strangely... absent for last night for a while. This is certainly strange. The loss of the books is troubling."

"She said her name was Erica. You were asleep and I didn't want to wake you up. I'm so sorry..."

"It's alright, you didn't know. We'll get them back. We just have to find out what actually happened. Going off without a plan could only lead to more trouble."

"Why would somebody want those books? What's in them?"

"Magic... and knowledge," he says, "They're reference works of a sort from my order."

"Dang, that sounds real important." Nailah sighs. "Okay, I hope she didn't lie about being from Chelmsford. She did show up real fast, so she must have been nearby."

"I'll have to rely on you for the legwork. The doctor here wants to keep me close for a while longer."

"Don't worry. I'll fix this. I'm the one who screwed it up, after all..." she sighs.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. She obviously managed to incapacitate me as well, so she is a serious threat and there is no way you could have known."

"Yeah..." she frowns. She should have though, shouldn't she? Maybe her power knew something she didn't and this was really the correct course of action. But to what end or why she couldn't really picture right now.

He smiles at her, "The darkness cannot win. The light will always be there and it will always overcome the dark. Have faith."

"Hey, how is our guest..." Haley's beamed cheerfully a she bounced into the room before her voice trailed off as she felt the frustration and disappointment radiating off her. "Son of a bitch. I knew I shouldn't have trusted anyone whose mind I really couldn't read."

"Yeah, I... screwed up?" she says as if that's something she's not really used to.

"No. This is my fault, cutie." she frowned. "We're going to get those books back and put a major hurting on that bitch."

"Just be careful. Going in without knowing what you are dealing with could be even more dangerous."