"There a curator's annex..."

"What's a curator's annex?"

"It's sort of a library."

"That sounds OK. Where is it?"

"I can show you," volunteer several stalker demons at once.

"OK," she says, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. If they all show her at once then probably they can't all steal her at once. She cautiously follows the stalker demons.

The whole pack of them shows her down quite a lot of streets; it's a long walk. "Would you rather I carry you and fly?" one suggests after a few blocks.

"No, then you could steal me and I still need to get back to Mommy. Thank you for offering, though." It's important to thank people for offering things.

"Darling, there's no way to get back to the mortal world except by getting summoned, and your mommy isn't going to know to do that," a different stalker demon says.

"Auntie Kalia is a summoner," says Zana. "I will find them but I need to not be stolen again."

"Your auntie isn't going to know you're a demon, she's going to think you've just died."

"But I didn't die."

"...You did, darling, this is just what happens to some humans when they die."

She solemnly considers this. "I guess that's what's supposed to happen when you get stabbed by bad people."

"Yes. Do you maybe need a hug?"

"No I'm good. But we need to get to the library."

"Okay. Are you sure you want to walk all that way?"

"I'm good at walking now. I'm three."

"Okay, any of us would be happy to carry you if you want, or we could make you a stroller, but you can walk if you prefer."

"Oh!" says Zana, because now she remembers that these are demons and that demons can make things. (She isn't a demon, she's a girl. The demons are confused about that. They are confused about lots of things, like whether they need a government to stop bad people and whether she is going to find her mommy.) "You should make a wagon. It should be big and purple and shaped like a spaceship."

There are three different redundant purple spaceship wagons varying in detail a moment later. The demons who made them look at her hopefully.

"THAT'S SO COOL."

She hops into the coolest-looking purple spaceship wagon and politely asks its maker to take her to the library. Maybe she could be stolen in a purple spaceship but her mommy would understand if she were here because purple spaceships are VERY COOL.

That demon is delighted and wheels her to the library (curator's annex).

Zana is still not sure how libraries and curator's annexes are different, but hopefully they are the same in ways that matter. The way that matters is that the people in libraries are good at reading and know lots and lots of things, not everything but almost everything, even more than auntie Kalia, and the things they don't know they can find out by asking the people at the other libraries.

Maybe they will know where her mommy is.

Eventually she and her pack of stalking demons reach the curator's annex. It's roomy, but not enough to comfortably fit them all; some of them wind up perched on the stairs to supervise the proceedings. The curator in there is doing something with screens and is surprised to be so abundantly visited. "Can I help you?"

"She's new and wanted to go to a library," says the winner of the purple spaceship wagon contest.