A/N: Sorry. Short chappie, I know. But I could not resist the ending... Please r/r!

Disclaimer: All the great, terrifc, wonderful... you know the score. It's not mine.

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How big can a library be? Nick wondered as Lirael led him down passage after passage, sometimes deferring to older Clayr who looked down their noses at Nick and smiled graciously at Lirael (who produced some sort of lukewarm half-grin).

At first Nick had thought that this must be a library to top all libraries, considering that it employed -according to Lirael- at least an eighth of the Clayr, took up a quarter of the Clayr's stone halls, and was as old as the Clayr its collective self. But now, seeing the actual number of Clayr, which was not, after all, so very large, Nick was rapidly downsizing his imaginary library.

"It's enormous," Lirael said happily, breaking the silence that Nick had grown half-accustomed to. "It's my place."

They have come to a pair of huge wooden doors. Lirael pushed one open and stepped inside. "This's the Reading Room," she tells Nick, but before she could say anymore a small avalanche of blue-waistcoated librarian attacked her.

"LIRAEL!"

"Imshi?" Lirael gasped.

"Who else? You've been away so long! Whatever were you doing- no, wait, I know that."

Lirael blinked and gave Imshi a questioning look.

"Gossip travels faster than a Paperwing, Lirael," Imshi explained, interpreting the look.

Lirael's eyebrows shot up briefly and then down, and she shrugged.

"Who's your friend?" Imshi asked, looking at Nick. He was waiting a respectable distance back from any reunions. He bowed. "Nicholas Sayre. Nick."

Lirael nodded confirmation of the introduction. "Nick, this is First Assistant Librarian Imshi."

"Pleased to meet you," Imshi said briskly. "Lirael- are you coming back- forever?"

Lirael hitched her shoulders and looked at the other woman.

Nick held his breath.

"I don't know," Lirael whispered, conscious of Nick's listening ears, wondering what she can say other than what she has to say, and settles on a reasonable alternative. "I don't know if I can."

"That's right," Imshi said. "Abhorsen-In-Waiting and Second Assistant Librarian Lirael."

"Yes," Lirael affirmed, and a finger on the hand jammed into a waistcoat pocket (a little frayed, rather battered) fidgeted with a ring of red silk.

She snags it, and pulls it out of her pocket absently. Imshi notices, and it draws her attention to the parlous state of Lirael's waistcoat. "That waistcoat's been through the wars, Lirael."

Lirael nods, and Nick grins. "Literally. You could even say they'd been through a hedge backwards."

(Lirael is not impressed.)

"You need a new one, I think," Imshi remarks, examining the fraying edge of the pockets, and the loosening buttons. Lirael nods mutely, and follows Imshi towards the storeroom Lirael remembers from when she was fourteen years old.. They are being stared at- Lirael wishes she had just left her hair down, as she used to. On the other hand, even more of them are staring at Nick- which, for reasons Lirael refused to even consider quietly in a thrice-locked Charter-spelled chest inside an unused froom in the back of her mind, annoyed her- possibly because none of them had ever seen an Ancelstierran before. Or even for other reasons, Lirael thought (and then hastily stamped on that notion- not even a notion- an idea- an idle thought- oh, just forget I ever entertained it anyway, Lirael thought irritably.)