Kate and Apollyon had just finished their fourth shared breakfast this morning. There was so much interesting food on offer that the two had decided to share one order from each of the four most interesting food stalls. As this had worked so well this morning, they intended to do this again after the sword show and tomorrow morning.

  “Hey, Kate!” Two young women approached the librarian duo.

  “Monica! How are you, haven’t seen you in a while. You and Laura are holding up well I hope?”

  Monica gnced at her girlfriend Laura beside her. “We’ve been great, and you?”

  “Oh, the usual. Things are going well. Where have you been?”

  “All over the pce, actually. We had a little vacation curtesy of Lilith and Az, and in the past week we’ve been busy with Jorogumo. She wants to start construction on the house we were promised before winter, and we are still in the pnning phase.”

  “Joro seems rather busy these days. Your house, Phea and Saliria’s… Evelyn and Adelina are also thinking about their forever homes.”

  “She seems quite eager to get to all of those. Not that she is rushing with ours, she just seems so motivated.”

  “There aren’t many construction projects where we come from and being allowed to flex her skills for once is something she won’t miss for the world.”

  “And for that, we are grateful. You really changed our lives for the better, thank you.”

  Kate shook her head. “You have nothing to thank us for. This is the least you deserve as reward for what you did.”

  Apollyon nodded. “If there is ever anything more you need, do not hesitate to ask. We owe you much, arguably more than we can repay in your lifetime.”

  Monica shook her head at that. “You are too generous. I have a question though.”

  “Ask.”

  “I met the cats from where you’re from. Those big ones. And, uh, we might have attracted one. We caught it stealing socks and making a nest in the shed with them. The shed on the plot we got for our house.”

  Apollyon and Kate exchanged meaningful gnces before the young Nightmare spoke. “We better come and have a look after the festival. How about we meet at the shed on Monday?”

  “Sounds good. We can properly catch up again then. We better get going, there is much we want to see before your show.”

  “So, you will be there to watch?”

  “Wouldn’t want to miss any second of it.”

  “I will see you in the audience then and talk to you ter or on Monday.”

  “See you around.”

  Browsing through the many stalls of replica weapons, medieval clothes, books, tasty treats, forged goods, wooden knickknacks and pretty jewellery, Kate and Apollyon found a small, unassuming little thing they both found themselves fawning over. A series of hand forged metal dice. None of them fit to actually be rolled, they were too misshapen, but all of them held character and their own crude beauty. There was one application they could be used for though. The demons’ favourite card game Heroes sometimes needed a few dice to put a counter on a card or keep track of some resource or another. The lighter the dice used, the easier they were to knock over and mess up a game. Metal dice though, they were hard to knock over.

  “Polly, what do you think?”

  “You are asking me if I would enjoy the dice?”

  “I am asking that, yes.”

  Apollyon picked one of the dice up and took a very close look. “Yes, I would enjoy them and use them.”

  “So, if I were to look for a little trinket for your birthday…?”

  “They would be perfect.”

  Kate grinned. “Very good!” She turned to the man in the stall. “I would like six of the dice please.”

  The man smiled and nodded. “Sure thing. Just the pick the ones you like the most.”

  “Polly, that’s your choice.”

  Apollyon nodded silently and got to work very carefully choosing her favourite dice. Meanwhile, Kate turned back to the man and got out her wallet.

  “That will be thirty pounds.”

  “Five a piece is less than I expected, but hey, thank you.” She handed over the money.

  “It’s not like they’re difficult to make. Do you need a little bag for them?”

  “We got something to put them in, no worries.”

  “Very good. I hope you enjoy them.”

  “Thank you very much and have a lovely day.”

  “You too.”

  Once Apollyon had picked her dice, the two demons moved on, making sure to covertly send their spoils back to Hell.

  “Kate, over here!” Lizzy was waving at her friend from across the city centre pza.

  “Lizzy!” Kate and Apollyon made their way through the crowd to meet their fellow demon who apparently wasn’t here alone. She was accompanied by Kate’s parents Amelia and Micheal.

  “It’s good to see you.”

  “Good to see you too! You both as well.” Kate hugged her parents.

  Amelia giggled. “I heard the speech earlier. Head librarian Kate Crowley. I am so proud of you.”

  “That means so much, thank you.”

  “Never forget that we are always proud of you.” Her dad chimed in. “You could sit at home reading books for the next five thousand years and you would still have experienced more than most people and that is something to be very proud of.”

  “Hey, I didn’t get to be amazing all by myself. Right, Polly?”

  Apollyon put on an amused smile. “Well…”

  “Polly.”

  “We did nudge you in the right direction, but you had to walk that path yourself.”

  Kate just sighed. Her mother answered instead. “Not like you are any less awesome. Your speech was great and sounded like you have a bit of experience being on stage.”

  “I have given many speeches in my life, many of them more difficult than today’s. I didn’t think about it before but when I found myself on the stage today, I did truly miss that position. Being able to inspire and motivate. To stir people.”

  “Aren’t you still doing that? Just from between shelves instead of behind a podium.”

  “I suppose so. It just feels different.”

  “I can imagine. So, what are your pns for today, besides your show?”

  “We still want to finish taking in the sights here and at the university and after the show we will be helping the other librarians. If you wish, you can share dinner with us in the evening. We do not expect many visitors besides children on their hunt for treats.”

  “That would be lovely. It will be great to meet the others again.”

  “I am certain they are as eager as you are. What are your pns for today? I hope you will enjoy our show.”

  “Most definitely, that’s the main thing we came for. Right now, we are checking out everything here and looking for the best pce to get lunch in an hour, after that we’ll finish our shopping trip here, watch your show, head over to the university and, depending on time, try some of that sword swinging they advertised at the fencing hall. And after all that, we’ll head up to the library for the rest of the evening.”

  “A good pn. It implies that you won’t be here tomorrow?”

  “Most likely not, but if we find stuff we don’t have time for today, we have Lizzy to cheat our travel times.”

  “A quite useful ability to have, isn’t it?”

  Amelia ughed. “One of the things I am jealous of the most. I have still never asked Lizzy to use her abilities for me, I only ever accepted their use when she offered it.”

  “Your restraint is commendable, and I will leave it to Lizzy if she wants to offer you a more open use of her abilities. Before Kate became one of us, I would have likely agreed to certain requests but I would also have drawn the line at more, as you said, cheat-y things. Those are all pointless musings now anyway, your daughter can do everything I can.”

  “I think I understand where you’re coming from. I honestly don’t know what I would do in Lizzy’s or your position. Good thing I’ll never find out.”

  “I wouldn’t call it good but if you feel better knowing that you will not have to think about it, then that is enough for me.”

  “Oh to have friends like you…”

  Apollyon tilted her head. “But you do have friends like me.”

  “Sadly, I don’t. All the people I spend time with and sometimes I’m forced to spend time with aren’t like you.”

  “Do you not consider me your friend?”

  Amelia stared at the disguised devil. “I…uh… I didn’t want to assume. I mean, you’re so much more than me.”

  “Nonsense. It doesn’t matter how different our existences are or how rarely we meet, you are a friend to me, and everyone else at the library and in Kate’s circle. Hm, potentially with one exception. Mainly because you two did not meet properly yet.”

  “I am very fttered, holy shit. You’re awesome. Yea, I had always hoped you did see us that way, as friends, but… I don’t know if you can even imagine that but it was always like meeting some important politician or celebrity you looked up to. Sure, you can talk to them and maybe you even share a common friend or other contact, but to even consider that you are worth their time is unimaginable.”

  “I do know that feeling. I might tell you about such a moment in my life ter, but I can tell you now that she became my mentor and I inherited her position after she hand-picked me as her successor. Yes, I understand but I do not see myself as above you. We are different but neither of us is any lesser than the other.”

  “You said you were radiating motivation, right? I am certainly feeling that.”

  “Good. May I suggest you bring that motivation to the fencing hall this afternoon?”

  “You do that in your free time too, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but you know that it didn’t start as a hobby.”

  “I know. Maybe I’ll enjoy it, maybe it’ll be something to connect with Kate and you over.”

  “That was my hope as well.” Apollyon smiled.