Eve Andric of Gisborne pushed open the heavy door to the library and peeked inside. Thank God, there was nobody there. Glancing behind her, she slipped into the room and closed the door behind her. Once in the library, Eve breathed in the scent of old books and allowed herself a thin smile. At least here, people wouldn't tell her that she needed to act more like a lady.

Eve tied her raven hair back in a ponytail as she sat down at the table in the middle of the library. Why women had to have long hair was beyond her. It was just the "proper" thing to do. "Honestly," Eve murmured, "if I hear the word proper one more time, I'm going to scream."

Heaving yet another sigh—probably her tenth that day, and it was only nine in the morning—Eve opened one of her books and started reading. It was the only place she could get some peace. As the daughter of the Sheriff of Nottingham, she was expected to act like a lady. And now that she was sixteen, those expectations were even higher. No more swordplay for her.

The library was huge. At the rather slow pace she read at, Eve would probably never read everything in the library. She suspected that her mother had, since she always knew what book Eve was referring to. She couldn't be sure, though.

Some time passed before somebody knocked on the door. Eve looked up guiltily when the door opened and her mother, Lady Rachel Andric of Gisborne, looked in. "Eve?" she said, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. "Are you hiding from your tutor again?"

"Honestly, Mama," Eve said, "if I have to hear that man tell me how I must 'live up to the family name' one more time, I'm going to run into Sherwood Forest and become an outlaw!"

Rachel came over and motioned to the empty seat beside Eve. "May I?" she asked.

Even though she suspected she was going to get a scolding, Eve nodded. Sometimes her mother was so busy, she never got to talk to her at all. Even getting scolded by Rachel was better than not speaking to her at all. Rachel sat beside Eve and looked at the open book on the table in front of her. "What are you reading now?" she asked.

Eve shrugged. "Nothing much. Just King Arthur," she said with a sigh.

"Just King Arthur?" An amused smile played across Rachel's lips. "Don't you like it? It's one of my favorites."

"Oh, it's alright, I suppose," Eve answered. "It's just, well ... it's not real. There's no such thing as magic, or a sword that can be miraculously pulled out of a stone."

"Merlin rigged it," Rachel reminded her.

"With magic," Eve said. "It's completely illogical! I prefer cold, hard facts. But all we've got to read in here are fairytales and myths and such, so I guess I'm stuck with them. After all, they're better than my tutor."

Rachel sat back in her seat, her face ponderous. People were constantly telling Eve that if her hair was blonde instead of black, she'd be the spitting image of Rachel. They had the same clear-blue eyes, the same pale skin, high cheekbones, and so on. But that just made them compare Eve to her mother even more. And in Eve's opinion, no one could be as beautiful as her mother. The only advantage Eve had over Rachel was that she was about a half a head taller than her mother. "I love all these stories," Rachel said after a moment. "They kept me company when I had nothing else. Though, I don't think I ever used them to escape the tutors my parents picked out for me ..."

Eve stared at the table. "I'm sorry, Mama. I won't hide from him again."

"I've sent him home for the day," Rachel said. She slid the book from Eve, giving her nothing to look at but her mother. "There's been something I've been meaning to speak with you about."

"Something?" Eve asked.

"Yes." Rachel hesitated, running her hand along the spine of the King Arthur book. The window on the second floor of the library sent rainbows of light shining across the room. Those were much easier to look at then the peculiar expression on Rachel's face. "Eve, what if I told you there was more to our world than just Nottingham?"

"Like England?" Eve guessed.

"No ... beyond England. Beyond this entire place. A whole other—"

The open door was pushed forward, and a guard looked in. "Lady Rachel?" he said. "My apologies for interrupting. I—I—"

"It's alright," Rachel answered, waving a dismissive hand. "What is it?"

"Ellen-a-Dale and her daughter Lana have arrived, milady," the guard said. "Shall I see them in?"

"Send them to the dining room," Rachel instructed. "Tell them we'll be in there in a moment."

"As you wish." The man bowed before hurrying away.

Eve turned back to Rachel. "A whole other what?" she asked eagerly.

But it became apparent that the interruption had cost her the explanation. "Come along," Rachel said, standing up. Her dress fell around her. "We don't want to keep Ellen and Lana waiting."

"Oh, Mama," Eve complained. Rachel motioned for her to go, and reluctantly, she trailed after her mother through the hallways of their Nottingham mansion.

It didn't take them long to reach the dining room. Ellen rose to meet them, a smile on her face. "Lady Rachel," she greeted her, clasping Rachel's hand. "Eve. It's good to see you."

"Hello, Ellen," Eve said.

"Hullo, Eve!" Lana said. Although Lana was older than Eve by four years, she had a very childlike quality to her and tended to be rather flighty. Her reddish-blonde hair hung in a straight curtain down her back. Unlike most ladies, Lana wore breeches and a tunic, unless she was performing. As a minstrel and dancer, she wore floaty skirts for that. She fixed Eve with a stare from her dark brown eyes. "Did you escape from old man Donovan again?"

Eve quickly put a finger to her lips, silencing the much-taller girl. She motioned to her mother, who was pretending not to watch them. "Mama likes Donovan," she said. Then she thought for a moment. "Let's go out to Sherwood Forest. Mama, is that alright?"

"As long as you don't try and become an outlaw," Rachel answered with a smile.

"Only if Donovan tells me to act like a lady!" Eve reminded her. "Come on, Lana!" Hiking up the skirt of her dark green dress, she hurried through the halls with Lana only a few steps behind her. The servants and guards watched the two girls run with smiles on their faces. Eve ignored them. If Donovan saw her, she'd really get it for running. Ladies should always walk at a slow pace.

But walking would have made it take far too long to get to Sherwood Forest. Running let them get there in less than five minutes. Once they left the city of Nottingham and started walking through the trees, Lana turned to Eve excitedly. "I learned a new song, Eve!" she exclaimed. "You know how Mama gave me that harp a few years ago? I finally got around to learning a song on it. Do you want to hear it?"

"Maybe some time," Eve answered, noting that Lana didn't have the harp out. She knew that when Lana started singing, it could take hours to get the bard to stop. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Something? Like what?" Lana asked, frowning.

Eve shrugged. "My mother was trying to tell me something today," she said. "It was getting rather strange and deep."

"Oh!" Lana said. "Mama was talking to me about Papa today."

Eve eyed Lana a little nervously. She had some idea that Lana's father was dead, but Lana seemed under the impression that he was still alive. If her mother had no intention of revealing the truth to Lana, then Eve didn't see fit to do so. But she always got anxious whenever Lana brought him up. "What about?"

"Oh, not much," Lana said with a sigh. "She never says much. Always just kind of parries the questions I have. Like when he's coming home. Sometimes it makes me wonder ... if he really is going to come back."

Eve pursed her lips. The conversation was veering into dangerous territory very quickly. "I'm sure Ellen has her reasons," she said. "Are you going to perform tonight?"

Lana shook her head. "No, not tonight. Tomorrow, though," she added, brightening. It was a certain way of getting Lana to smile by talking about her performances. "I've been practicing a whole lot. I can't show it to you until then!"

Eve laughed. "I'll try and wait," she said. "Hopefully the suspense doesn't—what's that?"

Lana grinned, thinking Eve was joking. But Eve shook her head rapidly. "No, look. There's something in the hedges over there," she said, pointing.

"Not something," Lana replied, her eyes widening. "Someone!" The two girls ran side-by-side to the foliage and Eve knelt down, pushing aside the leaves. Lana jumped back with a loud shriek, and Eve felt her blood run cold.

The woman was laying in the bushes, her blonde curls spread out around her. The white dress she wore was covered in blood on the front.

She was dead.

. . . . . . . . . .

News spread quickly about the body of the woman in Sherwood Forest. Lana and Eve had run back home, and Eve's father, Guy of Gisborne, had swiftly taken a large group of men to find the woman and perhaps who had killed her. Ellen and Rachel had seen that the two girls were alright before locking themselves into a room and going deep in discussion.

Sitting on Eve's bed in her room, Lana was badly shaken. Her normally-pale skin was ashen, and she was chewing her fingernails to the tips. Eve sat on the floor, drawing her dress around her. "I can't believe it," she said after a long time had passed. "Who would do such a thing? That poor woman ..."

Lana, having chewed all her fingernails off, got up and started pacing. "Barbaric, terrible!" she said, her voice trembling. "Murder is such a horrible thing. Oh, Eve, what can it mean?"

The door opened, and both girls looked up. Their mothers stood there. Rachel extended her hand to Eve. "Come with me, please," she said. "There's something I wanted to talk to you about." She looked grim.

Eve followed Rachel down the hall to the library. Ellen led Lana to another room. Rachel and Eve sat in the seats they'd sat in that morning, and Rachel fixed her daughter with a grim look. "This is what I was trying to tell you about this morning, Eve," she said.

"That a woman got killed?" Eve asked. She didn't want to close her eyes and remember the blood covering the woman's dress.

"Well ... no, not that in particular," Rachel admitted. "But more like why she was murdered. Eve, every book in this room is either a fairytale, a myth, or a legend. And every single one is real."

Eve stared at her mother. "What do you mean—real?"

In answer, Rachel retrieved a book from her lap and laid it on the table. When Eve made no move to pick it up, she waved a hand at it. "Please."

Moving with care, Eve picked up the book and looked at it. "Robin Hood and the Merry Men?" she said. "Isn't Robin here in Nottingham?"

Rachel nodded. "Yes. But he used to be an outlaw. Read that and come back to me. Also, I think I should tell you something ... your father was a villain."

"A villain?" Eve's head shot up, and she stared at Rachel. "You must be joking."

"I'm afraid not. But he's changed quite a bit."

"So what does the fact that these stories are all real have to do with the woman's death?" Eve asked.

"That's where it gets complicated," Rachel said. "I wasn't originally part of this world—it's called The Story, by the way. I was a protector of it. A Guardian. Long story short, I ended up written into The Story—"

"Written in?" Eve interrupted, her eyes widening. Why did it feel like her mother was leaving out important details?

"When a person becomes a member of The Story—a character, if you will—they're written in," she explained. "I changed The Story, which made it so the Stories took a different turn. This Story, the Robin Hood Story, it normally stops with Robin Hood's death. I changed it, made it so the Stories continue past those points."

"But Robin Hood isn't dead," Eve protested, a scowl lurking on her brow.

"Because I changed it." Rachel made a face. "I'm terrible at explaining. Just know that chances are, whoever killed that woman, Aphrodite, dislikes the changes I've made to The Story."

"The goddess of love?" Eve said.

"Yes. The goddess of love. She was a good person," Rachel said quietly. Then she shook herself. "I'm telling you this because I'm leaving soon, Eve."

Eve's head shot up. "Leaving? But, Mama, why?" she asked.

"This is a problem I have to go outside of Nottingham to solve," Rachel admitted. "And I'm going to friends of mine to figure it out. In the meantime, I'm going to suggest to my friends that they send their children here where it's safe. And if people from other Stories are going to be turning up, I thought that you needed to be told." She stood up. "And Ellen agreed. Hopefully, she did a better job of explaining to Lana than I did for you."

"Might I go with you, please?" Eve requested.

"No, Eve. You have to stay here," Rachel answered. She kissed the top of Eve's head as she moved towards the door of the library. When she opened it, Eve saw the tall, black-haired figure of her father, Guy of Gisborne. "Ready, Guy?"

"Is it really twenty years since we last had trouble?" Guy said, his deep voice rumbling around the room.

"I guess we couldn't expect to avoid it forever," Rachel said with a sigh. She turned to Eve. "You can at least see me make a Story door."

Not sure what a Story door was, Eve hurried out of her seat to her mother's side. Rachel didn't even move, but a strange-looking door appeared in the hallway. Eve gasped. "It's magic!" she cried.

"It's the ability of the Guardians. Not magic," Rachel corrected her. "Ready, Guy?"

He kissed Eve's forehead before nodding to his wife. "Let's guy," he said.

"Good-bye, Eve," Rachel said. "We'll be back soon." Before Eve could say anything, her parents had gone through the door, and it closed behind them. She watched as it disappeared from sight.

"Eve! Eve!" The excited voice caught Eve's attention, and she turned as Lana scampered up to her. Ellen came at a more relaxed pace. "Isn't it fantastic? Magic is real!"

Ellen motioned to the two girls. "Lana and I will be staying here until your parents return," she told Eve. "There will also be three more joining us. Two boys and a girl."

"People from other Stories?" Lana gushed. "I can't wait!"

"This is all ... overwhelming," Eve admitted.

Ellen laid her hand on Eve's shoulder. "You'll have plenty of time to absorb it when Guy and Rachel come back," she assured her. "You won't be rushed into anything. As far as I know, the other three were not told about The Story either."

Well, at least they'd all be as clueless as Eve was. Heaving a sigh, she shifted the Merry Men book in her hands. "I'm going to go read," she said. "If you want me, I'll be in the library." Before the other two could say anything, she walked away.