Synopsis: Arrivals

In the middle of the vast, wild forest of Brownlee, an ancient underground library is home to endless corridors of hoarded books and artefacts—and countless secrets. Under the watchful eye of the Librarian, a Dragoness named Sophie, scholars from all over the world and in many forms, human and animalian alike, mine its depths, seeking lost knowledge and new insights into the magic-tinged universe.

Following a series of storms brought on by a cataclysm far across the sea, a young girl is found wandering in the woods. Though apparently uninjured, intelligent and bright-spirited, she cannot speak a word, and her unkempt hair is as unnaturally gray as the overcast sky. She thinks in freeform poetry and moves as quietly as a windblown dandelion seed.

She remembers nothing of her life before waking up one day deep in the forest—and no one in the wood knows who she is or where she comes from. Sophie the Librarian is initially wary of the girl, but Magpie and Jeremy, the two young orphan mice who first discovered and befriended her, name her “Wysteria” after the vines they found tangled around her. The name sticks, and Wysteria gradually becomes comfortable in the scholars' community while they seek word of her family, and try to understand the reasons for her unusual condition.

Wysteria's arrival coincides with that of an aging soldier-magician named Garvis, whose sole aim is to spend his retirement in relative peace and quiet, far from the political intrigues and violence he has had to deal with for much of his life. But of late, peace and quiet are harder and harder to come by at the Library of Brownlee. And they all soon find themselves in great danger as forces from near and far converge on the Library with malevolent aims...