"Is their being dead too metaphorical to keep them down?"

"They're consistently dead, at least. But that's the kind of thing that could potentially change."

"You said one of them fell in love. Does that mean they're conscious beings who make decisions and understand things?"

"Very much so. Some would say excessively."

"Oh. The Dread Powers don't do that. Are any of them benevolent? Like, on net?"

"It depends very much on who you ask."

"Well, at the moment, I'm asking you."

"They do important work. Sometimes they do terrible things. They are... selfish, sometimes cruel. So are we. I do not think any are committed to the ideals of good, but they bless those who they like best, and in so doing they sometimes make the world better."

“Yeah, that’s more or less not true of the Fears. You can do more good than harm with their empowerments, but it’s hard and most people don’t bother, they either go all-in on being evil or they run the hell away. …You called the focus on fear monomaniacal, and I don’t think that’s true; it would be like saying that trees are monomaniacal about cellulose.”

"...the urge to pedantically dissect whether I think trees are in fact monomaniacal about cellulose is neither productive nor dignified."

"Well. The sense in which trees are monomaniacal about cellulose and the Dread Powers are monomaniacal about fear is at least different from the sense in which a passionate entomologist is monomaniacal about bugs. ...The postulated entomologist is human, or perhaps some other vertebrate, and definitely not themself at all arthropodal."

"Entomologists can sometimes be found who fit that description."

The lights of a village wink through the mist. "Oh, good, we're getting closer."

"Good. Is there a particular outcome you and/or Rowena are hoping for, by committing Library crimes?"

"I make no claims for Rowena. My goals... there is a law that I wish to break. I bear –"

Then she sinks her teeth into her tongue and leaves them there until it stops twitching.

"Mm. Safer not to discuss it while compelled to speak."

"Oh, sorry. Is it safe for me to guess? I'm not compelled."

"That would be counter to the point, which is that I do not at this time wish you to know."

"Oh, okay, sorry, Rowena summoned me somewhere specifically anti-eavesdropping, so I wasn't at the top of my list of people you might not want to have know."

"It matters less that you do not ask and more that you do not pry. Thank you."

The village solidifies, houses resolving themselves from fog to wood and stone. Brancrug (as the road markers call it) consists of a cluster of cottages a few dozen strong, a tavern with a crossed-bones device on its sign, and a post office with a prehistoric-looking motor vehicle out front.

“Hey!” Kareen calls. “Is anyone around? We need help!”

A stout woman exits her home, after enough time to make one wonder if anyone would. She looks down at Artemis, then up at Kareen, and squints.

"Suppose ee better come in," she says sourly. "Which is the Librarian?"

“I am. I found her—she’s very badly hurt.”

"Not blind, am I?"

She takes hold of Artemis's ankles and helps haul her indoors, to a sitting room currently dominated by a fresh-worked yew wood coffin, and lays her down atop its lid.

"Sea tried to take her. Got his fingers in too." The woman shakes her head. "Girly, Librarian. Boil up some water. Long day ahead."

Kareen goes to boil some water.