These thoughts of hearts bring around an idea.
Check our own pulse. If we are a lich (or any other undead), we should not have one.
Edit: or maybe not. Is Piecewise's heart beating physicaly, or merely in our mind?
You check your own pulse. You can't find one, but then again you might just be doing it wrong. You ask Esme, proffering your arm. She checks your wrist, then your throat, then presses her ear against your sternum, each with increasing energy and disbelief. Finally, after several long seconds, she lifts her head from your chest.
"Well...that's pretty definitive." she says with a nervous swallow, "I guess you really are undead."
You think quickly back to Piecewise and his heart...you don't remember it beating either.
Ask her how safe it is for us to go to the library. We wouldn't want to get her into trouble.
Nor would we want to trap ourselves in a corner, though there's no need to tell her that.
"Safer than here, and I can't very well leave you on your own like this. Something is going on and judging by that note I'm already caught up in it somehow. At this point its part self preservation."
She seems legit. We should pal around with her. Maybe do some library research?
She seems thoughtful for a second before checking out the broken window.
"We should go. There is a lot to talk about, a lot of things to explain." She moves for the door and you follow, taking the bag with you. As you step out onto the street something screams by overhead with a roar of propellers and blinding flash of searchlights. The thing is too dark to make out, just a glimmer of metal glimpsed for an instant before it vanishes behind nearby buildings. You listen to the wudwudwudwud of its engines growing distant and look to Esme. She's visibly paler and clearly startled but doesn't say anything; instead she ducks her head as though against the cold and starts walking quickly back towards the library. You follow along behind her, keeping a bit of distance. You're not sure about the situation but you get the feeling that if you get caught by...whatever that was...it would be best to give Esme the ability to convincingly say she never met you before. You only catch up to her when you both enter the library. Esme doesn't knock to be let in and her response to Nicholas' questions about the trip are clipped. He looks between her and you with a piercing glare but does nothing.
As soon as you're both back inside the library proper she starts walking towards the back, towards the stairs by the look of it. You follow after and she suddenly stops in the middle of a row, turning back to you with surprising force and concentration.
"You know nothing about this right? Nothing at all? You're not hiding
anything? Complete blank slate?"