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“Did it feel like magic,” she continued, to the Dandelion Wilder in her notes, “because they didn’t have another word for polarity yet? Or did it feel like magic because it was? Isn’t that the whole basis of the debate among Ordinaries about natural magic?” Her notes bled onto the next page: “When does science become magic and vice versa?”

The book remained lifeless in the seat beside her. Fortune was silent on the matter. Neither offered any insight.

This exchange was typical of Tempest’s notes on the trivia champion’s entries. Although his facts were plausible, verifiably correct and backed by plenty of footnotes, some of the stray voices in her mind kept arguing with his interpretations. They were saying things like, “Well, that’s not how it really was, Dandelion! If you read my treatise of baking practices of the seventeenth century, you’d know it was not that simple to obtain sugar affordably!”

Had she ever read a treatise about baking practices? She didn’t think so. But she may have accidentally touched something like that while sorting and shelving books and papers at the intake desk. And now that baker’s voice was part of the fractured chorus in her mind.

She turned up the music, a sure way to silence the din in her head. But she couldn’t resist glancing at the book. Dan’s photo on the back of the dust jacket didn’t really do him justice, she thought. He was much more handsome in person. She loved the way his upper lip curled in an arched wide bow. She thought he had a perfect philtrum, which in her opinion, was a highly underrated feature. Philtra and forearms were her weaknesses. That and men in vintage attire. She was certain Dandelion Wilder could pull off a morning jacket and a waistcoat. He would look devastating in one, galloping across the moors on horseback at dawn, his thick luxuriant mane flying out behind him in the wind, forearms flexing as he gathered the reins…

Fortune whistled a few bars of “Oh! What a Beautiful Morning” at Tempest and she felt her cheeks going pink. She couldn’t believe she was picturing the guy from the dust jacket, in a morning jacket, and crushing on him. It was a better daydream than looking over her shoulder and imagining she saw her stepbrothers and a police car, however.

“How am I supposed to help myself, Fortune? Look at him!” Tempest reached across to the passenger side. She held up the book. “And don’t think I didn’t notice how much you were flirting with Dan during the signing. You nearly left me to run off with him.

Fortune tilted her head and said, with some precision: “Handsome devil.”

Suddenly, Tempest heard a loud thump followed by a banging sound. She saw a flash of movement in the rearview mirror.

“Oh great, looks like the books are rearranging themselves again,” Tempest said. “I need to get to the bottom of this. I don’t know if it’s a spell someone worked on the books, or something in the bus, but it’s a distraction. Especially while I’m driving.”

Without taking her hands off the wheel, Tempest glanced over her shoulder.

Behind her, books were floating in the air, bowing and swirling around to the music on the radio like they were Regency-era dancers in a Jane Austen film. They paired up and split up again, switching partners in the air before dipping, spinning around each other and reuniting with their original partners.

Tempest spun back around to face the road and gripped the wheel with white knuckles. It was a good thing she was on a straightaway. She pumped the brakes to pull over before daring to look back again.

She’d never heard about the books in anyone else’s library throwing impromptu dance parties. This wasn’t her imagination, and it couldn’t possibly be her barely-there magic making this happen, could it? So, what in the flaming ferns was going on?

She switched off the radio as the bus came to a stop on the wide shoulder of the road. Cautiously she glanced back over her shoulder again.

The back of the bus looked normal now. All was still. The books were arranged neatly, steady on their shelves. She slid her hands down over the wheel, leaned back in her seat and blew out a big sigh. Then she looked again. A few of the books had reshelved themselves upside down. She hadn’t imagined it.

The Broom and Board was exactly what the radio had promised: warm and a little chaotic, with chrome and Formica tables and a chalkboard menu. It had the easy atmosphere of a place that mostly served regulars whose orders the waitstaff already knew. Tempest ordered a grilled Gruyere cheese and tomato sandwich on sourdough bread and found a seat at the lunch counter.

One hour later, she left with the prize pot.

It was not a large prize, and the competition was far from fierce. She was aware that Pocatello was a small town. But she’d walked in alone and answered every question and walked out with the envelope, and that was a real confidence boost. She sat in the bus afterward for a few minutes with Fortune on her shoulder and the cash envelope in her hands.

“I did it again,” she told the bird. Fortune clicked her beak approvingly back at her. “Thank you for believing in me,” Tempest added. She tipped her chin up and gazed at herself in the rearview mirror. For once her hair was behaving. It hung in perfect, frizz-free ringlets around her face. She took a deep breath and didn’t stop inhaling until her lungs were so full she felt like she might float away.

Then she started the engine and pointed the bus towards the next stop the atlas was advising: Salt Lake City, Utah.

Salt Lake City was far more intimidating. The venue was a posh, high-ceilinged brewery in the middle of the city with exposed brick and pendant lighting. They had a wide selection of craft beers on tap alongside artisanal pizza and buffalo wings. It was the kind of place that pretended to be laid-back, but secretly taking itself very seriously. At least two hundred people were gathered inside to participate in or watch the competition. Unlike The Loaded Spud, solo competitors were permitted. Tempest signed herself in at the door, scanned the leaderboard, and found her table.

The leaderboard had one name that rang a bell. She read On Your Knees, written in aggressive block capitals at the top of the list. She’d heard a few people on the circuit talking about the one-man team, the moniker for Vance Priest, the current reigning circuit champion. The volunteer who stamped her hand at the door confirmed they were one and the same. She filed the info away and tried not to think about who she’d be competing against tonight.

Tom Horner was behind the podium again, his plaid suit swapped for a turquoise bolo tie and a blazer the color of a traffic cone. Tom caught her eye across the room and gave her a small nod of recognition that pleased her more than she expected.

There were twenty teams to start with. They began dropping off quickly in the opening rounds. Tempest moved through the early heats with focused calm. This time she found she was not as surprised by all the things she happened to know.

The competition thinned out even more as contestants dropped out in the second heat. The questions sharpened. By the midpoint Tempest had settled into a rhythm. She felt confident, which was such an odd feeling for her it was unsettling. Everyone around her assumed she’d been doing this for years. Two of the teams that had dropped out in the first rounds pulled up closer to her so they could cheer her on.

“Now here’s a question that I’m sure you’ll all relish! In 1795, which European leader offered a cash prize of twelve thousand francs for a new method of food preservation, a challenge that eventually rendered a popular practice of food preservation largely obsolete for military supply chains?”

Tempest put her pen down, frustrated. She knew this. She knew she knew it, but not how. She thought she’d perhaps read it somewhere, as opposed to absorbing it through source she could no longer identify. Regardless, the answer was in there, somewhere. Just out of reach. Fragmented. She waited, pen hovering, for the pieces to assemble themselves into something she could record with any confidence.

It didn’t come together. Not even a guess. She ended up leaving the answer blank.

“And the answer,” Tom Horner said, with the mild satisfaction of a man who had clearly watched this question fell competitors more than once, “is Napoleon. The practice rendered largely obsolete for military supply chains was pickling. The prize was claimed by a Monsieur Nicolas Appert, who went on to develop what we now know as canning. Très bien, Monsieur Appert.”