If she ever finds out who took her house she'll be incandescent, but better that than having her here.

We could just break in. There might be a security system, it won't be a demonic one.

And no demons will be wandering around inside?

Very unlikely. Summoning them is dangerous and terrible for karma, dealing with them is the same, and she's survived as a diabolist for a long time. She'd have to be actively doing something with them right this minute. Even then they'd be wherever she is.

Okay. Then let's go in.

The lock breaks as easily as a sturdy but mundane lock should. Inside, the house is a house. Everything is neatly in its place. It's empty but not covered in dust like it's been abandoned. Amber flicks a light switch and nothing happens.

The Elves have never seen light switches before. Where are the books?

Light switches aren't the weirdest thing here. The mansion has a kitchen.

There are books everywhere. A shelf here, a nightstand there. Nothing that looks like the books.

There might be a hidden room somewhere. It wouldn't make sense to have the dangerous stuff out in the open where she might invite people.

We can search, if that's not likely to get anyone hurt?

It shouldn't. Alert the owner, maybe, but that comes with a huge 'usually' attached and there isn't much she could do if it did.

So they search the house for anything that could be concealing a secret room.

When they're looking carefully it's not hard to notice a hallway on the third floor that's sixteen feet longer along one side than the other.

Is there a way in? They could cut down the wall, but that might damage some books.

There is no visible way in, or for that matter a visible in for there to be a way to. But the walls are themselves bookshelves, and when the (all irrelevant) books are piled up elsewhere it reveals a keyhole.

We don't have the key, but it does mean this is the door. At least we know where to cut.

And they do that.

It opens to a library.

The room is circular, with books ringing the walls. The center of the room is an iron railing with wheeled ladders sloping down to a lower layer. Similar ladders reach up to the high ceiling of the upper room, allowing access to yet more books. Shelves cover most of the walls, with exceptions for the window and purple curtains and the door with a bust of a helmeted goddess above it. There's an ornate writing desk in the lower room, along with cabinets, a couch, and a velvet-lined violet armchair. Also more books.

If the fact that it was hidden wasn't enough, a glance at the titles confirms it. We found it.

It's the most books he's ever seen. It's astonishing.

Some of these are going to be dangerous. To read, possibly even to handle. Most will be safe, but probably don't handle them until I mark them as not having to do with demons. Just in case

Diabolism texts I knew about, but she's got so much more. Shamanism, Others, divination... her collection does trend toward the unsavory, but I'm glad it's not just that.

All in English?

Mostly English. I'll have to teach some people to read it. Some are in languages I don't speak.

Nod. How long are you expecting to spend checking for safety?

Just running past the titles. I'll err on the side of being over-cautious but it shouldn't take long.

So they wait.

The writing desk produces some perfectly ordinary sticky notes. (Flat, and never put with the wrong end in front.) Those get stuck on the spines of books, color-coded for Almost Definitely Safe and occasionally Maybe Not Safe. A book about faerie tricks is also the kind of thing that might be risky to read wrong; whether this library would include it if it is, who knows. The diabolism books themselves are usually suitably glossy black and evil-looking and tend to be separated from the rest. Several of the spines have the initials, meaningless to most people, R.D.T.

They wait patiently for her to finish.

When she does she has a selection of introductory-sounding titles in several fields.

Making any use of these might be slow. In the long run it's got to mean teaching people English.