Eryx was going to be spoiled for Mellon''s House library, she reflected to herself, or any other library back home.


    She''d only had a little while to browse, and the Castle''s library was a treasure-trove. The sorts of legal- and House-related tracts that a House kept in its private library were represented here in great quantity. The amount of economic theory in them was absolutely priceless, and Eryx was having a hard time telling herself to keep to the servant rulebooks. She wasn''t a House scion, learning how to manage a future license of her own, but here she could learn like one. No one was here to strike books from a borrow list.


    The reading was giving her a new perspective. Not just on House policies, but on the Servant''s Guild''s ideas, and on what she could propose to the Prytane.


    There was just so much to work with. Budgeting to run the servant end of the household, and the financial interactions between houses, proved fascinating. Then, Tyrenian houses hadn''t always monopolized trade; of course there had been other dynamics, other forces affecting servant benefits. Of course there had been a point in time where they were paid in actual coin, not House-issued tokens. Of course it mattered that the crèche system and rulebooks had changed a lot in the past few decades.


    Eryx could see it. The things she was thinking of were House-level decisions; even Assembly-level. She understood the Servant''s Guild better now, and why they were so reviled in some quarters. A servant wasn''t supposed to challenge their House, much less deal in business matters without a license.


    But Eryx had been allowed to come here. Prytane Mellon respected her discretion and judgement; Harmonia had left her to her own devices. The books were just books; how could Eryx be doing wrong by making use of them? Ismene had been so paranoid about being seen working with the wrong things.


    Ismene just didn''t have the courage to do anything, Eryx thought. Ismene sat back and did her job, and didn''t try to use the Castle for better. Whatever reason the Castle had for being so reclusive—and Eryx was willing to believe it had good ones, given its reputation and unlikely success at isolation—it didn''t have the right to keep all this information to itself.


    She sat and started taking notes.


    * * *


    Ismene had, as always, been given an eclectic set of items to find for her employer. There was no guarantee that she might find them. If anything, Ismene had to navigate finding books that filled requests which hadn''t been properly defined at all. Harmonia often simply suggested a topic. Alternatively, Ismene might need a work that was quoted elsewhere and might be marketable soley because it no longer survived in Tyrene—on the open market, anyway. The Castle, despite the cost of the permit, was cheaper than hunting down things that might be squirreled away in someone else''s private library, or no longer existed at all.


    Sometimes a book was requested by name, and in that case, Ismene might find it easily. Sometimes she had to search out the source of a specific quote, or work from a general knowledge of the contents. She''d gotten good at that, and when she was at her wits'' end, the Hands usually helped her out.


    What she never told Harmonia was how long it would take. That was an old trick. Always let someone think the task takes twice as long; then you''re the one who is working miracles when the task has to be hurried. It had saved her more times than she could count. At the Library, it meant that she could look not just for Harmonia''s books, but books of her own. Harmonia thought Ismene was just going about her legitimate work.


    It was startlingly easy to hide books in the shipment they took home. Harmonia never rummaged much through the actual cases herself; that was servants'' work. The border guards never did more than glance at a volume or two; it was after all the luggage of a Prytane''s family member. They looked in the actual clothes satchels for hidden books, but that was about it.


    Ismene was careful. She didn''t keep questionable books long off the shelves, and she always made sure to clear the volumes before putting them aside. She kept her selections few, and her packing arrangements just-so, and—she''d never gotten caught.


    It wasn''t ambitious, her smuggling. Only a few books every trip. Ismene didn''t think there was really that much wrong with it. Harmonia herself got books that weren''t legal in Tyrene, after all; those went into Mellon''s private library, and Ismene never saw them again. Why not do that herself? The rules clearly didn''t mean that much.


    So while she worked, Ismene considered some books as potential smuggling candidates. There was one book that she thought she''d suggest to Harmonia for general publication, but if not, she would take it anyway. It was a mostly illustrated story from around fifty years ago, depicting a farm over the course of a year.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    It might not get approved. Times had changed. The farm servants didn''t have to get anyone''s signoff when they used the land. They kept some of their products for home use without any mention of a forfeit to their House, and they even sold the extra produce themselves. No House member acted as transactor or handled the coin.


    It definitely didn''t take place in Tyrene at all, though. They could get away with something with fantastical elements if it wasn''t set in Tyrene. And it looked simple; soft. She could pitch it as a story about hard work over the cycle of seasons. Ismene thought Harmonia might actually take a shine to it without needing to sneak it by.


    The rest of her smuggling candidates were far less palatable.


    Some of them were specific requests from the guildspeople Ismene handed her books off to, and the reasons were obvious. One title was from the north; the northern countries had a history of labor-oriented councils and former monarchies. The legal questions there weren''t so much about business ownership, as Ismene saw it, but who had cash or organizational skill—and anyone there could get paid in universal cash instead of House tokens, so anyone could pay anyone else for things—or work. The entire foundation of the essay was seditious, and attractive.


    Another was Tyrenian, from a time before the House-worker responsibility laws were enshrined. Those could never get stamped for publication. Another was an illustrated medical book. Usually Ismene didn''t deal with those; the workers who took them for her usually sent things off to be copied manually, so a detailed set of images wasn''t as useful. It was large, too, and would be a little more dangerous to smuggle. But she''d been asked for it, and in it would go. A particular novel went in as well; she knew Evo had been asking after it.


    The rest were tedious sets of business records. Usually Ismene''s requests were instructional, academic; things that might be used in a temple school or to help improve dorm life. Lately, however, she''d been asked for a range of specific documents. They were long, outdated accounts of river traffic and commerce, of coin outlays for dorm expenses, of servant contract benefits and disciplinary measures. They were also the sorts of things that a House might trade for Library access, under the understandable assumption that the Assembly regulated who could visit. Ismene certainly wasn''t supposed to be taking them back for unauthorized purposes.


    Maybe, Ismene thought, it had something to do with what Eryx was doing. The way houses kept their servants was becoming a contentious issue. The barge workers had threatened to strike repeatedly in the past few years, and they''d been put down by the military more than once. Someone out there wanted to know what servant life had been like historically, and what houses really did to keep their servants working. If that someone wasn''t backed by an employing House, and consequently couldn''t get a scholar''s permit to come get the information themselves, Ismene thought it couldn''t hurt to help them out.


    She supposed that she, herself, wished that things could be different; but if that meant ''better for the other servants too'', that was probably okay.


    Ismene had also been given a request for a specific, decades-old chemical recipe book. She wondered who had asked for it, but Ismene didn''t ask any questions. Sure, someone could disrupt a lot of work or cause a lot of mayhem with that sort of an education. But, Ismene thought, that was nothing an employer couldn''t buy for their House''s own library.


    She was just levelling the playing field. And books like that also helped people understand the threats of the substances they worked with. There were probably people who would be safer because of it.


    When Ismene had her selections, she submitted the smuggle list to the front desk. "I''ll take a copy each of these," Ismene said to the Hand at the front. "Please release the list of their titles and the physical copies themselves to myself only." Ismene had no interest in, say, Harmonia accidentally learning about her doings.


    She''d stumbled upon the necessity for careful wording years ago. Two sponsored scholars had stayed at the Castle once, when she was there. One had picked up the copies for his companion, and beaten them to the completion of their work. Their employer had given him the credit, allowing him to apply for employer status and keeping the other on worker''s contract. She had inquired later, and discovered that the Castle, given no other instructions and knowing they''d traveled together, had simply given the books up. After that, she was more careful.


    "It is late," the Hand at the desk said. "Will you sleep?"


    Ismene blinked. She did plan on forging ahead with looking up more proper withdrawals before she went up. But it was getting on in hours, and her legs were sore.


    Harmonia wouldn''t know if she hadn''t finished the deliveries that night. Ismene could get away with doing that tomorrow.


    "You''re right, it is. Thank you for reminding me," she said to the Hand. They only nodded, but Ismene was warmed by the consideration.


    On her way out, Ismene decided to yield to the call of the stacks. She might be cautious about what Harmonia saw her doing, but she could get away with some light reading. It was a perk that surprised no one; Ismene loved books, and she didn''t rate a private library subscription in her job ranking.


    She didn''t spend long browsing; the stacks were long, but Ismene knew where to look for the sort of things she wanted. She selected an old adventure novel that caught her eye, and headed back to the front desk. "May I have this for tonight?"


    The librarian Hand nodded, and tapped the spine briefly with their index finger. "It is yours for your stay," the Hand replied. "Have a pleasant evening." Both wishes were recited in the same formulaic tonelessness.


    "Thank you! Have a good night," Ismene said, and went on her way. By now, it was full dark; the Castle''s tower star shone down through the grand hall''s skylights.