A girl lies beneath one of the chairs, head buried against her legs, hugging every bit of herself as close as close can be. She cries quietly, swallowing shuddering breaths, doing her best to not be. 

Time passes. Slowly, her tears run out. She lifts her head carefully, and blinks through watery eyes. 

She wipes at her eyes, shakes her head. 

She uncurls a little, and sniffles. She looks around.

She slips out from under the chair, and leans back against the soft leather. She shifts to sit cross-legged. She looks around.

She traces a finger across the cover of the top book of the smallest nearby stack. 

She looks around again, and smiles. She nods once, a gentle acknowledgement.

She takes a deep breath. She wipes the remnants of the tears from her face. 

Then she stands up. 

She tiptoes around stacks of books, patting each one carefully to let it know that she's here. 

She catalogues what remains of the old filing systems.

And then she begins to place books where they belong.

The silence seems less oppressive, somehow. Gentler. Perhaps it is imagined, the natural result of a space being used, of a mind directed. Perhaps it is not. It's still cold, and it doesn't get any warmer. This doesn't seem a place for warmth. But the cold doesn't bite, anymore. Perhaps that too is imagined, or perhaps not.

It's clear that there had once been a filing system, for a more limited selection of books. It is tidy, orderly, like the sort of thing that someone figures out after years of living in the same bookstore. Everything in its place. Then someone came along and added more varied books to the shelves, and gamely attempted to update the organization of the shelves for the new material. For whatever reason, they stopped midway. This did not stop the books from coming, and those came from very many places. There is an entire bookcase that looks like it was taken wholesale from somewhere else, books all written in a similar swirling script that doesn't show up anywhere else. Mostly, though, the books came without any place to put them. They came in neat stacks or carefully lined on shelves that had been empty, but whatever brought them didn't know anything about organization. Some books that look like they came from the same sort of place are stacked together, but it's more like they came together than that they were put together.

Both of the previous organization schemes no longer fit. The shelf that came by itself can perhaps be left alone, but everything else needs her attention. There are more types of books than the second organizer accounted for, more alien languages upon the spines, more foreign textures of leather wrapped around the bound pages. She'll have to make her own, to account for them all.

Oh, that won't do. One can hardly file a book one can't read. 

For now the ones in unfamiliar languages are allowed respectful seats on chairs and tables, organized hopefully by "these seem to share some symbols." She caresses the spine of each one gently, apologizing wordlessly. One shouldn't have share a shelf with a treatise on herbology if you are a history of the world, much less the other way around. 

She runs out of table and chair space: she files other unknowns regretfully, carefully far from the organized books so as not to provoke jealousy. 

She runs out of shelves. There are really rather a lot of books. She frowns. 

She decides to try the clever door.

The clever door leads to a back room with shelves that are not lined with books. The shelves look like they were meant for books, but right now they hold all sorts of non-book oddities. A set of complicated glass phials, jars filled with neatly labelled powders, stacks of carefully treated wood that look like they're meant to be made into wands, a small burner meant to heat up flasks. At a guess, it looks like this was the backroom for the bookshop, and then someone came after and repurposed it for a wizard or alchemist. Perhaps it was even the person that brought the second organization scheme.

There's a little desk and chair set in the corner. To her left, a set of stairs leads up.

Not quite in place, but not quite out of place either. Best leave it alone until she can find better accommodations. 

She carefully tiptoes up the stairs.

There's a slight creak to them, but if she pays attention to which parts of each stair don't like being stepped on, she can ascend in almost total silence.

The stairs lead to a very modest room that look like living quarters. It makes efficient use of the space it's given. To her right is a little kitchenette, a set of cupboards for dishware and food storage, and a basin for washing. On the left is a comfortable looking chair with a soft pale blue rug underneath, with a bookshelf that's significantly less stocked than the ones downstairs. Ahead of her is a set of dark curtains that probably cover a window and a small little bed carefully tucked to one side of it, and a dainty little armoire to the other. Shelves and end tables and small knickknacks take up the spaces between the major objects; there's a tiny plant on one table, looking quite healthy despite its apparent abandonment, if very purple.

She steps delicately, so as to give the stairs no cause for complaint. One of them does anyway, but some stairs are just testy like that. More of a sleepy grumble than that she gave offense. At least she hopes so. 

She takes inventory of the cupboards and the armoire: she checks beneath the rug and under the bed. The knicknacks in particular will require her careful attention.

She leaves the curtains drawn for now. 

One of the cupboards has dishware that looks like it once was charmingly mismatched, and then at some point decided that it would like to begin making the attempt to look like a set. They do not quite look like they were made together, but they sort of look like they belong together, now. This cup has kept the leafy designs it was lovingly painted in, but the leaves are in a shade of silver that matches the subtle geometric designs on some of the plates. The dark black of this bowl has just a hint of a rich brown to it, a color that it looks like it once had been, but the black that it mostly is now is much more in line with its fellows. Together the set is a little quirky, but in the way that a set of lifelong friends grow to be, not like a bunch of lost things dumped together in the same cupboard. There are places set out for all of them; cups on this shelf, bowls on this one, plates of this size over here, plates of this other size in this tidy stack nearby. The cupboard probably doesn't need her attention like the books do, but she will probably help just by using them; they don't look like they've been touched in a very long time.

In a nearby drawer is a lovely set of silverware. These were either made together, or decided to match and then succeeded so thoroughly it's hard to tell if they ever didn't. They match to the dishware in a grudging sort of way, instead of the friendly comfort the dishes together exude. Yes, all right, the silver of the silverware matches the silver designs on the cups and plates, it's sort of an association with the other group. But the silverware could just as well be used with anything else, so no one should get the wrong idea.

Several other cupboards have uneaten food, unspoiled and neatly arranged. There are several loaves of a blue-grey bread arranged neatly in a basket, wrapped in a shimmery cloth whose texture belies that it was once cotton, and then stopped. In a nook next to it are a set of spices whose labels are neatly penned in perfectly legible Common, but whose names don't look like they're necessarily accurate anymore. She might have to try them and update the labels accordingly, to reflect whatever thing they've turned into. Below that are preserves, similarly mislabeled, but whose labels were written by many different hands. The spices were kept by one person, the preserves came from many places. On another shelf, in another basket, is a set of deep purple fruit that look like they could be freshly picked. Beside it is a bundle of berries that looks like they were once strawberries, and then stopped. There are many things that were once other things and then stopped. None of them look worse for wear for the change, they have just become a different sort of thing. They are all probably still edible, because none of them have stopped looking like food. This seems like the sort of place where things that have stopped being food will, at the very least, advertise to the effect.

The armoire has clothes that are far too large to fit her, but also a small sewing kit if she would like to try to change that. The style of the clothes looks a bit ancient, or at least extremely foreign, but the clothes themselves are in perfect condition. They look like the sort of thing a wizard might wear; practical sorts of robes that minimize the impracticality of being robes as much as possible. For the most part, their cloth is smooth and silky, in darker shades of blue, purple, grey, and black, but there are a few exceptions to both the color scheme and the texture. There are several robes that are a paler and more silvery sort of grey, and even a robe that's a brave looking shade of burgundy. The sewing kit has tidy spools of thread of assorted colors, neatly arranged. She could likely match whatever she was sewing, at least if the cloth came from this shadowed place. It doesn't look like it would match some of the brighter thread colors of the material world.

Beneath the rug is a slightly uneven bit of flooring that explains the rug's presence. It's soft and matches the decor, and it helps prevents tripping. Still, it's good to know the state of the floor beneath the rug. It wouldn't do for there to be a hidden place that she didn't know about, here.

The space beneath the bed is a bit more interesting; this seems to be where the shoes are kept, neatly arranged. They are all in perfectly good condition, thought some of them look like they've seen a lot of wear and tear. Unfortunately, they don't look likely to ever fit her, either in size or style. They are too big, and too masculine besides. She'd probably be better off finding shoes somewhere else.

The twisting purple vines of the plant look like the sort of thing that would flower, if given proper attention, but the blossoms are small and shriveled and don't look like they'll open anytime soon. It could use water; it clearly will not die from thirst, but it looks a little wilted. The dirt in the pot is more like dusty chalk than dirt, which doesn't seem like the sort of thing a plant needs at all. Upon inspection, it would probably just be better off in an entirely new pot; it looks like it's outgrown this one.

Many of the knickknacks are quite interesting, but some are more ordinary. Next to the sitting area, there's a spinning wheel that looks like it might be magic. If at some point she needs more thread, or needs a specific material made into thread, she can probably just feed it the material and leave it to its work. On the washing basin is a mirror that looks fairly ordinary, though with glass that's a bit too dark to give a really accurate reflection. Nearby the basin is a jug that sloshes, and upon inspection contains water. There is an empty bag next to the armoire with runes carefully written onto the interior of its hem. Like the spinning wheel, it's probably magic, though it's not yet clear how it's magic. Scattered around are a few wizard staves, but it looks like the passage of time was not kind to these; whatever spells were in them have either been used, stolen, or have seeped away from the sheer passage of time. They are quite magically inert. There's a modest bag of unfamiliar coins, empty of words or faces of leaders, but shining a shade of lavender that feels correct for this place. A clock sits on an end table, but its hands are frozen.

She smiles slightly at the now-matching tableware. She doesn't pat it: that would be impolite. Instead she takes down one of the most lonely cups and sets it over by the washbasin. 

She turns over the mirror.

She opens a drawer of cutlery, nods politely, and closes it again. 

She recognizes a few of the spices, if not by sight then by smell. Since they seem to like having names, she organizes them alphabetically - then frowns at the fact that the probably-once-cinnamon is not in the bottle labelled for it. She supposes she'll just have to find a use for a whole bottle of ...turmeric?

She hums to herself when she finds the food. 

She pats the bread comfortingly, then takes down a friendly saucer and sets one of the not-strawberries atop it. 

She pours herself a glass of water from the jug, and tastes it.

The water tastes perfectly ordinary, but the jug is not any lighter after she's poured the water from it.

She gives the rest of the water in the glass to the plant. It needs it more than her.