***

Not much time had passed since they started looking through the books that belonged to William Minerva. It was pretty silent, except for the occasional talking about what the marks could possibly be. They knew that there had to be something else to these marks. They could just be saying who the books used to belong to, but they doubted it. The four of them were now just looking at each of the owl symbols on the inside of the books that were laying before them.

"William Minerva, huh..," Norman picked up one of the books, "Wait... So this logo..."

Emma pointed at him with a smile, "It's called an ex librus!"

"Um..," Alex trailed off. She turned her head to look at the orange-haired girl with an expression of puzzlement, "Emma. I don't think that's it."

"Ex libris," Ray hit Emma's hand with his hand, "You mean. The attached piece of paper that shows who owns a book," He pointed behind him at all the other books in the large library, "This library is actually filled with his books. The ones Emma brought here are only a small portion of his collection that we have access to."

"I can't believe I didn't notice something up with them before," Alex stated. She had been reading William Minerva's books for a while now and never even thought anything about it. It was crazy how she could miss something that was so obvious. It was literally right in front of her face every time she opened one of his books.

"So... What about this 'secret message' you mentioned before?" Norman inquired.

Emma opened up one of the books, "Look closely at all of these marks."

Norman looked over at the book she was holding. He analyzed the mark for a moment until the realization seemed to hit him, "Wait a minute, these circles..," Emma replied with a 'Yup!' which made Alex curious about what they were talking about. Alex came over to see what they were talking about. Was the circle... "They're diagrams in morse code!" Norman confirmed her thoughts.

"Correct," Ray responded while Emma nodded.

"This William Minerva guy must be really smart," Alex commented. Who else would have thought about making an ex libris into a message in morse could? William Minerva must've also had a lot of faith that they would be able to figure out the message.

Ray started to translate the morse code, "R.U.N. D.O.U.B.T. D.A.N.G.E.R. T.R.U.T.H."

"But with just these words, we can't really-" Norman started.

Ray cut her off, "You tryna say that we can't just assume these secret messages were necessarily meant for us?" That was a valid concern. It might've also just been a mistake in the logo. Maybe it wasn't actually a message.

"How about these then?" Emma asked. She lifted up some books with more morse code that they hadn't looked over yet.

Norman was the one to read them out, "H.A.R.V.E.S.T. M.O.N.S.T.E.R. And lastly... F.A.R.M.!!!"

"This has to be for us!" Alex exclaimed. The last three words had completely destroyed her concerns.

"I highly doubt this is a trap created by Mama or the demons," Ray gestured to the books with the morse code, "I mean, the rules do say to immediately proceed with the shipping... Once the cat's out of the bag."

"They don't want us to find out the truth either so why would they tell us?" Alex suggested. They clearly didn't want them to go near the gate so they could find out the truth. It was obvious that they didn't want them to know about what this whole place actually was. Why would they leave messages for them to find out the truth when they didn't want them to know about it?

Ray held up a book and pointed to the mark, "At the very least, this is in fact a hidden message... Specifically directed at us."

"At the very least?" Norman asked.

"Unlike this kid over here," Ray hit Emma's head once again, "I'm a lot more skeptical by nature. Maybe this Minerva guy is really our ally. However, we have no way of knowing even whether or not he's alive. I doubt it's a great idea for us to plan on relying on someone like that."

"Ray, you and your pessimism!" Emma shouted.

"These books did come out a long time ago," Alex was agreeing with Ray. "I wouldn't hope too much that this guy is still alive."

"But..," Norman smiled, "The fact still remains that we had an ally in the outside world! Heck, we may still even have allies! This man is someone... Who is from the 'outside world', and yet knew of our existence... And even tried to save us in a roundabout way!"

Emma punched her fist in the air, "Exactly!"

Allies were something that they needed more than ever. It gave them hope that they would have help whenever they got to the outside world. Maybe their allies that are still alive could give them some kind of shelter or supplies. A sudden thought arose in Alex's mind, "I'm surprised that the demons haven't found out about these. They probably don't look through the books before they send them."

"Only his books contain a message like this," Emma opened another point and pointed to the mark inside, "And we don't quite know when exactly these stickers were pasted on these books, but... See, there's even a sticker on this book from before too!"

Norman closed the book, "This is the book that was published in 2015 that Ray showed us!" He quickly turned to Emma, "Anything... Anything else?! Like... Are there any notable comparisons that can be made between the content of his books?"

"Not really," Ray replied, "The genres, publishing companies, and dates of release all vary."

"Oh, but there's that!" Emma started looking through all of the books that they had stacked up. She moved them around and seemed to be searching for something specific, "Err, where did they go?"

"Under those," Ray told her.

"What are you look for, Emma?" Alex shot the girl a curious expression.

"Aha!!" Emma yelled. She brought out two books, showing them to Alex and Norman. "These two books are the only ones with circles on the logo that don't make any sense!"

Norman looked at each of them and said, "Let's see, so one of them just doesn't have any meaning in morse code at all... And the other says... P.R.O... M.I.S.E.?"

"If I remember correctly, one is a stereotypical adventure novel... And the other was about some weird mythological story." Ray stated. Why these stories specifically? Was there something in them that could help them? Norman flipped through some of the pages. Alex could see that some pages had been ripped out.

Emma pointed at the books, "I think there must be some deeper meanings behind these books. The fact that only one book lacks a message in morse code... The ripped pages... The message that reads 'promise'... It's all too different to be a coincidence."

Alex nodded, "You're definitely right. It's too specific to be just by chance."

"So you're saying that these two books in particular are special?" Norman asked.

"Yep! I'm not sure how to put it, but..," Emma trailed off. "I feel like these books will somehow come to play a really important role in our journey." Alex was getting the same exact feeling from them. They had to be important in some way, right?

"Your basis?" Ray questioned her.

"My gut says so!" Emma replied. An exasperated expression appeared on Ray's face making Emma shout. "What's with that look?!"

"He was probably expecting some kind of explanation besides that." Alex laughed. You would think that Ray would get used to Emma and her shenanigans, but he just couldn't. He was always expecting the girl to put a little more reasoning behind her actions or theories. He wasn't going to get that any time soon, that was for sure.

"Well, I do think it wouldn't hurt to look into the mystery... Of Mr. Minerva and his books." Norman said.

"I'm all for it too," Alex also said, "It seems like a good idea. We're bound to find something out if we look through them."

Ray showed Emma his pocket watch causing the girl to cry out. It was already close to the time for dinner. They had been so wrapped up in the books and what they could mean that they didn't even check the time.  "I didn't even notice that much time passed!" Alex exclaimed. They all worked together to pack up the books.

"Let's get going," Norman told them, "We should probably start helping with setting up for dinner too!"