“Do you have inside you a desire to become a kaftan-wearing hippy vegetarian who thinks of others more highly than yourself?” she asked. “Do you wish to live the life of a philosophy-obsessed tramp, never again to taste live oysters or enjoy the delights of flesh cooked in cream? Or warm, fresh blood baked into a pudding, or even raw . . .”

Terrence didn’t know what she was going on about. “No” seemed the obvious answer to her questions, though. But did this mean he had to eat raw blood or not? “I don’t think so,” he said. “What’s exactly is a kaftan?”

“You silly man,” said Lady Tchainsaw. “You always miss the point of everything. In any case, the Flow is not going to exist for very much longer, if we have our way. It undoes what the norms call ‘evil.’ It cleanses the person who goes inside it of what they call impurities, but what I call intellect. It wipes out critical thinking and makes you love everything. Imagine how exhausting it would be to love everything! It is to be avoided at all costs.”

“What’s a norm?”

She sighed. “A normal person, you insipid berk. Of course, we advanced thinkers in the Diberi have a more sophisticated idea of morality, and what is good and bad and what is simply neutral. Is it evil to want to create a better universe for the few people who actually deserve it, while kicking the dross out of this world? Is it evil to want to take back control of our half of the Great Library and be masters of our own reality? Did you know that everything that exists here in the Realworld is controlled by a group of pathetic librarians in a remote corner of the Otherworld? Doesn’t that make you angry?”

Terrence did know this. Sort of. But it didn’t make him particularly angry, because he had no idea what it meant. Skylurian had said something like this to him once, as well, but he hadn’t been listening properly because he had been hoping she might kiss him.

In fact, even though he missed Skylurian desperately, and even though he had vowed never to let another woman into his heart—particularly not one who kept calling him “silly” and a “berk”—Terrence was rather hoping now that Lady Tchainsaw might kiss him. Was he really that fickle? But perhaps the heart must move on. And Lady Tchainsaw was resplendent tonight in a black velvet gown and vintage velvet sock-boots with heels that looked alarmingly like the skulls of yet more dead creatures, but dipped in silver and placed on top of one another. She reminded Terrence in some way of dear dead Skylurian. Which was nice, really.

Would she kiss him? It was the only question in Terrence’s mind.

She moved toward him. Was now the time. . . . ?

“Ouch!” said Terrence again, as she slapped him. “What was that for?”