Straddling Two Worlds: The Woman in Violet

Two of my series—Arkham Files and Tales from the Library—feature librarians and portals to other worlds. So you probably aren't surprised to hear that I've often daydreamed about the characters having joint adventures. I'd already tested the waters by having the Arkham Files crew visit their counterparts in Caffrey Conversation. There they learned about the dangers of crossworld contamination. The resulting chaos that can ensue is a concept that Irene is very familiar with. The possibilities for collaboration finally became so enticing that I couldn't resist giving it a whirl.

Warning for minor spoilers to previous stories

The fusion began when the two senior librarians revealed their shared past. Lavinia is an alien ally who works undercover in Arkham as the head librarian at Miskatonic University. She comes from Merope, a planet that was overrun by hostile forces in league with the Ymar. The Ymar in this galaxy are the equivalent of Lovecraft's Outer Gods. They include the infamous entities Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Yidhra, and Yog-Sothoth. The Meropian survivors set up a base camp on another world and joined forces with the inhabitants of the planet Celaeno to combat the Ymar.

Lavinia met Coppelia during one of her off-world missions. Coppelia and the interdimensional library she works for are in a different galaxy. Wormholes between the two galaxies are possible through the graviton tunneling technology invented by the Library. During that early mission with Lavinia, Coppelia lost one of her arms and now wears a wooden prosthetic. She and Lavinia are well-aware of the problems crossworld contamination can bring but agree that sometimes it's worth the risk. In the Arkham Files story Chaos Conundrum, Coppelia recruits the Arkham crew to help combat the spread of chaos. Crossworld contamination has become an increasing problem now what Alberich has allied himself with the Ymar. Irene and Kai have yet to hear about Arkham, but that's about to change.

With the Tales from the Library story, The Iron Brotherhood, I started a new cycle of adventures for Irene and Kai. A few hints about the future are in this opening story. Where did those advanced automatons come from? What is the significance of New Gwandala? The answers are in the next story, The Woman in Violet.

• The Women in Violet on Archive of Our Own
• The Women in Violet on FanFiction
• The Women in Violet on Wattpad