The night had gone well. It was now early Sunday morning, Kate and the other librarians had rexed in the back of the library after Sarah returned home to finally get some sleep. The head librarian and her closest devil had eventually returned to the reception desk.

  “Polly?”

  “Yes, Kate?”

  “Do you think I did the right thing?”

  “With Sarah?”

  “Yea.”

  “You did. I took a simir risk with you, but everything turned out well. There is also the fact you correctly figured out that Azazel doesn’t make mistakes. Sarah was meant to work with us, at least in Azazel’s pns.”

  “Still feels strange to make that decision without consulting you.”

  “I am always happy to provide advice, but you are capable of choosing your own path.”

  “I still feel super na?ve and inexperienced compared to you or the others…”

  Apollyon put a hand on Kate’s shoulder. “No matter your experience, we are equals. You don’t need to defer to me and I am gd I can defer to you when it comes to the library. This is your realm more than mine. If my approval helps you, then I will gdly tell you that I have yet to see you choose the wrong path.”

  “That is reassuring.”

  “Good. Now, shall-“ Apollyon suddenly perked up and turned to the front door of the library.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No, look.”

  Kate peered past her friend to see Dorian, who had just closed the doors behind himself. “Now that’s a surprise.”

  “Uhm…. Hi.” Dorian wasn’t quite sure how to approach the two disguised demons.

  While everyone had been showing some horns and tails st night, today was a time to be a bit more outwardly human again. Kate almost wished that Dorian had arrived a few hours earlier to see her true form as the first thing after entering the library.

  “Hey. Sorry, I didn’t expect you to ever come back.”

  “I didn’t either.”

  Dorian had left after finishing his bachelor's degree a few years ago. After his and Kate’s friendship had fallen apart, he had stuck around observing her interactions with the librarians, watching her become one of them properly. They never talked and he had no idea how much she had changed. Eventually, he just stopped showing up and moved out of the city.

  Kate got up and walked around the reception desk. “How are things going?”

  “I’m fine. Things are fine. I don’t know if they will be after the idiocy I am doing right now, but currently everything is good.”

  “Idiocy? I suppose you didn’t come here at six thirty in the morning on a Sunday randomly, but I hope I still know you better than to expect something that you didn’t think about before you acted.”

  “I guess that’s the thing. I thought about it a bit too much. Do you still have those conference rooms in the back? I don’t think I’m comfortable with the idea of anyone except you two hearing what I want to say.”

  “Of course. You want Polly there too?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Kate nodded to Apollyon, who returned the gesture. “Let’s get comfortable then.”

  There was silence in the library office. Kate had taken her rightful pce behind the desk with Apollyon sitting nearby on a small couch.

  It took a while for Dorian to build up the courage to speak. “I hope you understand why I left, Kate.”

  “I always did. I don’t bme you, there is no bad blood between us.”

  “I’m gd. Can you tell me how far you went? Are you still…?”

  “Human? No. Me? More than ever before. I am fully demon now and I am sitting in this very chair because it is mine. The little sign over there that says head librarian refers to me. I went all the way.”

  “Before I ask to see how you look now, I need to know if Apollyon did what she promised me.”

  “She did protect me until it was no longer possible for anyone to harm me. Yes, she kept her promise.”

  “Good. I was such an idiot for leaving. You gave me exactly what I wanted and I rejected it. I’m sorry about that. If you’ll have me back, I would like to share a lunch or something with you every so often. Don’t how often that will be, but I will try to make time to come here.”

  Kate smiled. “You know I can come to you, wherever you want to meet.”

  “Good point.”

  “My phone number is still the same, just shoot me a text and I will be there.”

  “I… didn’t expect you to agree to this. I had this entire big apology pnned out and don’t really know what to say now.”

  Apollyon spoke up. “How about we give you a little gesture of good faith. I was harsh to you in the past and I understand what you did. I know you read several of the ancient documents in our public shelves, would you like a few crifications?”

  “Oh, yes, please!” He almost sounded excited.

  Apollyon and Dorian seemed to get along quite nicely talking about truly ancient history and what demons meant to humanity in its early stages. Kate just let them talk for a while until something caught her attention.

  “Wait, Polly, can you repeat that?”

  “We run societal experiments in the Eden temples, trying out human group dynamics and testing the new tempte adaptations.”

  “No, no. The part right before that.”

  “The Eden temples were connected to both the city of Celestis and the boratories in Hell with doors like the one here?”

  “Yes, that part. It feels different when someone uses that door compared to them teleporting here.”

  Apollyon raised an eyebrow. “You are going somewhere with this.”

  “I am. I was asking myself how anyone could have missed the fae teleporting into Hell. We always feel when some magical thing is changing realms, but often miss it when it just moves within a realm. An angel teleporting wouldn’t alert anyone during that time, but a fae would have caught attention. Except if it used the door.”

  “That is correct, but you speak of all this like it would help solve our current mysteries. I do not see the relevance.”

  “A lot of this hinges on how things were transported, right? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the tempte was designed in the Hell b and then applied to the humans in Eden. The humans weren't allowed to enter the heavens nor Hell.”

  “Correct.”

  “But if we mostly ignored angelic travel and the fae used the door, the fae had get into Eden unseen. The door was guarded, right?”

  “Both were, yes.”

  “Then the fae slipped past the guards.”

  “Or the guard let the fae pass. Yushamin might not be the only one knowing about that strange visitor.”

  “Exactly. And whoever that is can give us a description of that fae which we can have Yushamin confirm, and we can then ask our new fae friend if they know who that other one was. We might get to talk to the fae who fought the angel in the b and get some better information.”

  “But how do we contact the fae?”

  “By knocking on their door. That’s why they left the needles with us. The book gave us instructions on how to use them, if we can replicate them in a smaller version we can get their attention.”

  “A fascinating pn.”

  “A pn I will have to end here.” That was Jolene who had appeared out of thin air.

  Kate got up. “Now I really want an expnation for this.”

  “I will provide it momentarily, but first I want to alleviate the Observer’s confusion.”

  “The Ob- oh, Dorian, right.”

  Dorian spoke up. “Yea, I’m on board with all you’re talking about but I am monumentally confused.”

  Jolene smiled. “I know and I am here to stop your friends from making a mistake and to offer you truth. Truth that adds to what your friends could tell you.”

  “Are you another demon?”

  “No. I am a timeless, formless being from beyond the ends of this world. The closest to what many would define as a god. I am nearly omniscient, nearly omnipotent. Reality is mine to shape. Yet, I merely watch. Like your demon friends, I value your ability to choose your own paths but I would prefer it to be a good one. So, I guide.”

  “If you are so vast and powerful as you cim, why bother with me?”

  “Because I care about every living thing and I am not limited to being in one moment and one pce. Your friend the librarian has piqued my curiosity a little more than most others. Her path intersects with many of great importance to the three worlds.”

  “I think I understand.” Dorian nodded.

  “Good. There will be more answers when we take a walk momentarily. Now, librarian, listen to me closely. Do not knock on this door, you do not know what will answer. You have already garnered attention from things you do not wish to face by removing the pins that stretch reality. With all those eyes on you, you do not want to pluck at the strings of this world.”

  “Because it would put us on a bad path…” Kate frowned

  “Yes.”

  “What are we supposed to do then?”

  “Your eagerness is admirable, but you need to be patient. The hour of falling will bring the answer you seek.”

  “Hm… you said we would speak again before that. That would be now, right?”

  “No. This conversation was not part of all paths you could have taken.”

  “Okay, I see. So we won’t alert the fae, and thus we also don’t need to find that guard.”

  “I only said to not pluck on the strings of this world, to not knock on this door.”

  “This door… it’s just the fae’s metaphorical door. You didn’t tell us not to alert the fae by other means.”

  “That would be your choice of path again.”

  “Polly, we need to get ahold of whoever that guard was.”

  Apollyon nodded.

  Jolene spoke again. “Observer, I would take a walk with you.”

  “Who, me?” Dorian sounded a bit confused.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, sure. Can’t just say no to the most powerful being I know that even the demons listen to. Uhm, Kate? Can I send you a text ter about maybe meeting up next Saturday?”

  Kate nodded. “Of course. Whenever and wherever you want.”

  “Awesome. Maybe I’ll stop by again ter, see you soon anyway. Let’s go then.” He got up and followed Jolene out the door.

  Apollyon made a disgruntled noise. “I don’t like how much she meddles and I don’t like that we got this close to a bad path either.”

  Kate leaned back in her chair. “I agree. Who provided the guards back then anyway?”

  “The armed forces did. The guard was under my command.”

  “That limits our potential suspects, and the paperwork of the armed forces was quite thorough.”

  “Yes, finding her should be the easy part. What worries me is what we do afterwards.”

  “How to contact the fae… too bad their book didn’t give us any instructions how to do that without the needles. They have been very reclusive that way. I am not confident we can contact them.”

  “But what if someone else can? What if that someone just walked out this door?”

  “Jolene?”

  “Precisely.” Apollyon grinned.