"Thanks."

"I admit to some curiosity about your other research projects," she adds. "I might be inclined to help out, depending."

"Of late I have been tempted to look into the problems furnished by nature," says Sherlock.

She snorts. "The one that's getting under my skin most recently is definitely more in the societal vein, but you might have overheard that already."

"The Professor over here has apparently memorized one of my favourite stories out of my namesake's canon," says Sherlock.

"Tempted as I am, if I pick a nickname it's not going to be that," she says. "The Professor, if you're curious, was Mr. Holmes's nemesis."

"Are mortals frequently named after literary characters?"

"Not usually, no."

"I'm not a very usual person."

"That much is clear," she says. "I would like you to leave for now while I explain things to my Watcher, but if you come back in a couple of hours I'll have that sunlight ward ready, and if you want continued access to the books, we can discuss that then."

Nod.

"See you later," she says, and she turns back around the corner and starts talking to her mortal artifact again. "Change of plans, can you come up with a way to reliably ward a vampire against sunlight in the next two hours? It's a long story."

"I don't know quite what to make of her," Promise says softly when the mortal with the violent job description is out of earshot.

"I think she's charming," says Tea. "I know you're not very impressed by her decision not to attack me on the spot, but I really can't overstate how solidly reliable a policy 'just kill any vampire you meet' actually is if you value the preservation of human life. I am a very unusual vampire and the fact that she's willing to be convinced of that makes her a very unusual Slayer."

"Speaking of which I do not consider myself to have ownership of you but it was the likeliest way to get at the important parts of the actual concept, which mortals do not begin with an instinctive understanding of."

"I'm mildly amused that she picked up on the phrasing and hasn't put it down again, but I'm not offended, if you were worried about that."

"A little."

"Actually it afforded me an interesting insight into how she seems to think. I begin to suspect she might be useful to your long-term project," he says. "I don't yet have enough evidence to tell whether she is any good at it but she definitely seems to view the world in what I might call administrative terms. Her taste in fictional characters also lightly implies that she's the sort of person you might expect to find at the center of a well-organized network of people with useful skills."

"I wonder what mortal fiction is like. Maybe I'll investigate when there are fewer practical challenges about. I'll keep an eye out for useful administrative properties."

"Also, if she can come up with a functional sunlight ward on short notice, she definitely commands useful magical resources that we could benefit from if we allied with her."

"You're better calibrated on that than I am. What would that suggest she might also be able to produce?"

"If I could unproblematically guarantee the helpful cooperation of whoever she's getting the sunlight ward from, I'd ask them to spy on your old court for you if you're still interested in that, and I'd probably ask them what they can contribute to the effort to conquer it. I don't know what else they might be able to contribute specifically, but I'm inclined to suspect them of usefulness regardless."

"I'm not sure how much a mortal would derive from a reasonable amount of time spent spying. There's some context they wouldn't have."

"Oh - no, I was imagining them forwarding you the results by whatever means, just casting the actual spell themselves. It's likely to be better fare, and they're likely to be more skilled at casting it, than you or I would be with whatever we found in those books."