It was a quiet Monday morning at the library when Phea silently snuck up on Kate. It had not been the Shadow’s intention to be sneaky, but to her kind it simply was natural to be silent.

  “Kate!”

  “Ho fuck! Phea, hi. I didn’t see you or… sense you.”

  “Yea, sorry. Just Shadow things. I mask the presence of people near me.”

  “Neat. Sounds useful.”

  “It is. Anyway, may I introduce someone I have missed so damn much: my sister Falia.” Phea gestured to the disguised demon beside her.

  Falia was a cheerful looking demon. She didn’t really resemble her sister, but they shared a blue-ish tint their hair. For Phea that manifested in a wonderful midnight colour, for Falia it looked more like a clear sky reflected in perfect ice.

  “Justiciar Falia, good to meet you.” Falia nodded.

  “Kate the librarian, good to meet you too. I’m honestly gd you live as bad as that sounds.”

  Phea jumped in. “I was so incredibly happy. We just spent a week together catching up. And moving into the new house. Saliria and me that is, Falia helped.”

  “New house?”

  “An empty one in the middle of Dis, just around the corner from Falia’s home.”

  “Awesome!”

  “Oh yes. Enough about me, I just wanted you both to know about each other as you both have done quite a lot for me in different ways.”

  “I don’t know what I did, but you’re welcome.”

  “You got me in contact again with Kyrea, found the person who freed Saliria and me, and gave Azazel the list of people who we’d love to meet again. And for Falia, oh what haven’t you done?”

  Falia chuckled. “I haven’t done enough, it’s been twelve thousand years after all.”

  “We have eternity now.”

  “That we do. Interesting that in all those millennia I never came here.”

  Kate smiled. “There is just too much interesting stuff in Hell and if you aren’t into books that much there isn’t much point in going to a library.”

  “All Atntean children were taught to read and write but we didn’t use those skills often. I suppose seeking out something to read for fun or out of pure interest in something was never an activity that felt normal. You grew up with books, right?”

  “Yes! They were pretty much everything to me when I was a child. My mother used to read stuff to me and when I got older, I read things with my babysitter and still very close friend, Lizzy. She has become a demon too.”

  “It is wonderful to be able to share immortality with those we love. We spent a few hours crying in each other’s arms when I saw Phea again. It was wonderful.”

  “Lizzy and I weren’t that sentimental but turning her cured an ailment that hindered her joy of life. She’s been busy experiencing all the stuff she didn’t get to do.”

  “That is wonderful too. I spent a while travelling after being turned, mainly to grieve and to find what I wanted from life. When I heard about Sariel’s Justiciars I was quick to join. I always wanted to protect people and that was the best way to do that.”

  “I travelled around Hell a bit too, but not for anything so deep. Polly showed me around in the search for a spot to build my home.”

  “Polly?”

  “Apollyon.”

  “You get to call her Polly?”

  Kate nodded. “Yes, we are very close.”

  “Incredible. I have heard so many stories about her and met her once in passing. Such an imposing demon, in the best way.”

  “Oh yes… she inspires such confidence in me. I don’t think that I would have accepted being head librarian without her support.”

  “You’re head librarian?”

  “Yes, I am, for about a year now.”

  “I heard something about the new librarian being a recent convert but that you became head librarian too is amazing.”

  “This pce is my home in a way, books are my thing. It was an obvious choice to at least ask me if I wanted the position. I was hesitant at first though.”

  “Understandable, but from what I’ve seen you are doing a great job.”

  “Well, thank you. I haven’t seen you work yet but from what I have seen of the Justiciars in general, you are doing great stuff.”

  “I mainly focus on wildlife diversion. Trying to keep migrating striders away from towns and stuff like that.”

  “Very important work then. Do you two have pns or do you want to stick around a little for lunch in a few hours?”

  “Lunch? Sure.”

  “Awesome. Our chef will be here today and she always makes amazing stuff.”

  “Your chef…?”

  Kate smiled. “We have a little staff cafeteria here, we call it ‘the restaurant’. Several years ago, before I joined, the librarians did something special for a woman, don’t know the details, and to repay us she started cooking for us. The other librarians agreed to employ her and now she cooks lunch and dinner four days of the week here.”

  “Then we’ll absolutely stay for lunch.”

  “Great! Did you just teleport here or did you use the door?”

  “The door, we actually took a look around the other side. I really need to get into reading, there is so much to learn here.”

  “Oh yes, there is. Anything specific you want to start with?”

  “I want to get into fiction. In Atntis, fictional stories were purely an oral tradition. You actually could go to story tellers who would, well, tell stories to a crowd of people. The only time those stories were written down was when they were taught to other story tellers for the first time. Normal people like us would never get to see those tablets.”

  “You can now. We have every piece of human writing in the vault, including everything from back then.”

  Falia’s face lit up. “I will definitely get back to you about those. There are so many I remember fondly.”

  “Maybe you remember some that weren’t written down and you can complete our archives.”

  “Maybe. That would honestly be a lovely way to leave a little mark on this pce.”

  “Precisely. I have friends, humans mostly… still, who are working on literature of their own. One writes scientific papers about local wildlife, the other is working on her first novel. Each will leave their mark on this pce in their own way. As have I with my bachelor’s and master’s theses. Those are current human academic titles, by the way.”

  “A mistress of the word then.”

  Kate shook her head. “Not quite yet, there is one more title to get for that equivalent. I am in talks with a professor for that though. And who knows, maybe in a few decades I will actually go for the proper mistress of the word.”

  “Sounds like you have good pns for the future.”

  “Some, yea. And you?”

  “For now, I will just keep doing my work. I have started sketching some of the animals I observe, maybe I will do that a bit more.”

  “I would love to see those one day.”

  “Maybe after lunch?”

  “Sure.”

  Suddenly, Phea spoke up. “Not to interrupt you two, but…” She gestured to the front door.

  Something had entered the library. That something was a suit of silver armour without arms or legs, more like an oversized hand-puppet made of armour. The helmet featured only a V-shaped slit gently glowing in a light blue.

  Kate looked at it for a moment before it became clear what the entity was. “Phea, get Azazel and the other librarians. Now. Falia, I need you to send a message to Sariel but stay here and make sure no human comes in or comes downstairs, there is one person reading on the third floor.”

  Phea sounded deeply worried. “What is that… being?”

  The entity spoke. “We are fae.”