This was one of my least favorite episodes so far. (It’s flamboyant and more than a little over the top, dramatically speaking. I can see that it is a tribute-type episode, but I am not sure of the genre.) We open with a cloaked figure who is gloating over a young woman who is waking up. There is a sort of mad scientist feel to the scene as the young woman is lying on some kind of glowing platform. The cloaked figure refers to the young woman as his daughter, and there is something definitely creepy about the way he’s talking about her. He states that he has an “experiment” in mind, and we get a view of a very sinister smile. Then we go to the opening credits.
We come back from credits, where Huey is trying to put books away and Dalian is upset that he’s putting away books that she is reading. There is also someone knocking on the door. The visitor is a young man named Armand who Huey served with when he was in the military. He is in a desperate situation, and begs Huey for a book that might be in his collection.
It’s revealed that Armand has fallen hard for a high-priced courtesan named Viola Duplessis who has promised to marry the man who brings her a specific Phantom book. It turns out that she has quite a number of suitors, and has sent each of them after a different Phantom Book. All of these gentlemen have been visiting Huey and Dalian in hopes of getting one of these Phantom Books. Armand is the straw the broke the bookworm’s back; Huey and Dalian decide to seek her out.
After some sniping from Dalian on the subject of men, and a great deal of silliness, we discover that Viola had left instructions at the brothel where she usually works to give the directions to her private residence to the Black Biblioprincess (this would be Dalian). So, not only does the mysterious Viola know about Phantom Books, she also knows about Dalian.
When they reach Viola’s private residence there’s some more melodrama, and then we see that she looks exactly like the young woman we’d seen on the glowing platform at the beginning of the episode. Dalian confronts Viola about the books she’s been asking for. Dalian is extremely outraged by the requests. (She is not a librarian and her collection is not for lending.) She reveals that she has a great deal of uncanny knowledge, but no memory of how she acquired it, or even of who she is.
While they are talking, a fairy-like being appears, and makes vaguely threatening comments, stating that “the count” would be coming for her soon, and that she has until the next full moon to prepare. (The moon phase shown in the scene is a crescent.) Huey drives the fairy off and Viola swoons dramatically. After some prompting from Dalian, Viola reveals that here “knowledge” told her that she needs those books to fend off the mysterious count. (Dalian indicates at this point that “knowledge” that is not actually your own should not be trusted.) After some more conversation, Dalian says that she and Huey will return at the next full moon. (They take Armand with them for some reason.)
In the next scene, it’s the full moon, and Viola has quite the collection of admirers who are willing to battle this mysterious count. Armand and the other gentlemen Viola sent to get Phantom Books are also present, each with a book that they believe to be Phantom Books. The count appears, and turns out to be a magician. The initial attacks do not go very well, since the magician can deflect bullets and turn people’s blood into mercury. The guys with Phantom Books don’t do any better, because they don’t actually have Phantom Books.
The magician sends some of his fairy-creatures after the guys, but Viola turns out to have some unexpected powers. She’s faster than a speeding bullet, and she manages to take out the fairies, revealing that she is not human. The magician explains that Viola had been an experiment, a homunculus he had created to see if she could fool people into thinking she was human. Viola is a very good actor, so good that she actually developed feelings and a mind of her own. Despite the revelation, Armand and his rival suitors are still determined to protect Viola. The magician gets ready to cast a spell on the guys, but Dalian chooses to intervene. She gives Huey permission to loan out the phantom books that Viola needs to defend herself from her “father.”
There is a brief scene where Huey as a child is talking to the princess in the archive. Huey asks her if she would like to leave, and the princess says that she wants to stay with her books. Huey tells her that she cannot learn about the world just from books, but the princess says that she is able to. The child-version of Huey asks her if she’s lonely, and the princess says that she doesn’t even remember what it means to be lonely. Huey heads off with the books, and the princess thinks as he’s leaving that she had forgotten how to be lonely until she had met him.
Then we are in the real world again, and the guys have the real actually Phantom Books that they’d been looking for. (Dalian says that these particular books had chosen them.) Working together, the guys are able to defeat the magician. They do not however get their anticipated reward. It seems that Viola had fallen in real, actual love with someone she had met after assigning them to find the Phantom Books. (And the guys don’t even get a book out of it. For whatever reason, they returned the books.)
We end with Viola heading off with her new boyfriend, and Armand and the other suitors looking very glum.