" Okay,” said Cole, “then why did Andre just call the library a fictional library of fictional volumes?”

“For the same reason the rest of our collection in the Poe Annex is fictional,” said Dr. Rust. “The library comes from a work of fiction. In this case, ‘The Spectral Librarian’—another Laetitia Flint story . . .”

“Actually,” Elizabeth interrupted, “if you want to get really technical, you could call it a fictional fictional library of fictional fiction and fictional nonfiction. Because in the Flint story, the narrator finds a manuscript in an old library. The manuscript is called The Spectral Librarian, and it’s a novel about a ghost librarian who tends the Spectral Library of Fictional Volumes. It’s a story within a story. So in the Flint fiction, the library is fictional, which makes it doubly fictional here. "

― Polly Shulman , The Poe Estate (The Grimm Legacy, #3)