Sure, that makes sense. [They can't copy every book, but they can write little codes on every spine? Zelos squints at all the tomes he can reach as they walk, hoping to find a blank spine so he can prove Yuan wrong, but he doesn't come across a single one.] How can you tell what the code says?

[Spending the time cataloguing was not what Zelos had in mind when he ducked into the library to hide, but the time goes by much faster than he expects. It's barely an hour later when the ever-increasing ruckus out in the corridor finally convinces Zelos that if he doesn't show up soon, everyone will assume he's dead. So he tells Yuan goodbye, fully expecting to come back -- and, by some miracle, manages to avoid going outside for the rest of the day. He isn't quite so lucky the next morning.

It's impossible to hide in the library all the time without someone noticing. But Zelos, ever determined, comes as near to that as he can manage. Occasionally he gets asked where he disappears to so often, and he has a different answer each time. All in all, it takes about a month for everyone to dismiss Zelos's wanderings as someone else's problem.

Politics, Zelos discovers, can sometimes be very useful.

It's another snowy afternoon when Zelos enters the library, shuts the door behind him, and announces:]

I'm safer here than anywhere else in Meltokio.

[He sinks into a chair, glowering.]

And I hate the snow.