The chapter recounts the origins of the Fox Library, housed in a Victorian lodge on a Scottish loch that Sir Edmund Fox bought in the early twentieth century to store his growing obsession: special, magical books. Disenchanted with modern life, Edmund spent years chasing rumors of a legendary transportive book, then founded the secret Fox Library on the belief that if one such book existed, many others must as well.

The library’s purpose is validated in the mid-1920s when an investigator tracks down a slim, dark notebook owned by a former British soldier turned jewel thief. The thief claims it is the Book of Shadows and that tearing off a piece of a page and holding it makes the holder unseeable; the book also appears to “heal” so no pages remain missing.

Back at the Fox Library, staff experiment until the book’s power manifests: a staff member disappears and reappears as a scrap of paper disintegrates. The book becomes item 001 in the Fox Library’s catalog, cementing Edmund Fox’s legacy and funding the library’s continued work after his death through his bequest and family successors.

Over the twentieth century the Fox Library amasses seventeen special books, many with shifting, enigmatic contents and abilities that are sometimes unknown until the right reader emerges. During World War II the organization deliberately retreats into obscurity, while the collection remains hidden in the Scottish house.

In the twenty-first century, Drummond Fox becomes Librarian and favors safeguarding the books rather than using them. After a sudden threat culminates in the slaughter of his friends in Washington Square Park and the theft of their books, Drummond flees back to Scotland and uses the Book of Shadows in an unprecedented way: he shifts the entire house “sideways” into the shadows, making it unreachable—unless someone can access an internal door from elsewhere with the Book of Doors.