The door opened on a helical staircase sleeved in an ironwork lattice that pierced the understoreys of the Library screw-wise. As she followed Goodwill, stepping carefully on the narrow treads, Ysbel felt a heady mix of trepidation and delight. She was trespassing without official sanction, with no recourse or excuse if she was caught by the local authorities, but she was also descending past vaults stuffed with untold treasures no human had ever seen. Crates and cabinets, tiers of shelving and row after row of stout timber-clad columns painted black and red stretching away in perfect lines of perspective in the dim light of small electric lamps screwed to stone walls. A flotilla of small boats. A traffic jam of carriages. A hut woven from reeds …

The Library of All People stretched along the ridge above Highwater Reach, amongst gardens of trees and plants collected from every part of the Union of Civilised Territories. It was the biggest building in the Union, and like an iceberg there was more below the surface than above. Four levels of storage vaults, offices, canteens and staff accommodations, a small clinic and a water reservoir, a tramway that transported goods from docks at the river’s edge. All of this had been built many years before First Contact; the electric lighting was a contemporary addition.

The vaults of the first three levels Ysbel and Goodwill passed through stored duplicates and donations that outnumbered by more than a hundred to one the objects and books on display in the public areas. The fourth and lowest level was darker than the rest. No electric lights here, only faint splashes of lamplight piped from some higher level. At the bottom of the stairs Goodwill unhooked a safety lantern and lifted its pierced brass sleeve and lit its wick with a match and handed it to Ysbel before unlocking the door.

She could barely squeeze through the opening, and when she raised the lantern her knuckles grazed the ceiling. The columns here were squarely built with roughly dressed stone blocks. The black unmoving air tasted of dust and trapped time.