“Sounds like you had a really bad day,” said the third visitor, unable to come up with anything more original to say in response to her friend’s account of the day’s trials.

“That’s an understatement,” the desk librarian said, rubbing her temple with one hand and searching her coat pocket for the keys to the rather impressive front doors of the Library of the Forbidden and Unknowable. Nothing more had happened since the second visitor’s abrupt departure, and the librarian had spent the remaining few hours before sunset sort of half-dozing at the desk. Now the sun was well on its way below the horizon, it was getting dark, and the Library of the Forbidden and Unknowable was closing.

The last of her duties as desk librarian were to ensure that the warding runes around the library were working properly, check the smaller storerooms, and finally lock all the doors. She’d been glad to have some company and a chat.

“It’s been a while,” she said as they walked towards the Sun Quarter, “what have you been up to?”