"It's one of my favorite features of the house," he admits, grinning when Palamedes admits his jealousy. "My Dante year, the delegate I was learning from had to set a limit on the number of requests I was able to make per week." It's a bit of terminology he realizes his friend has no cause to know, and Darlington inclines his head slightly. "It's the titles of our offices," he explains. "New delegates are always Dante, and the senior ones are Virgil. Alex was perpetually calling them our code names."

Turning his attention back to the initial question, Darlington slips a little further into easy explanation. "The more specific you can make the query, the better," he says. "Just like any search parameter. You write it in the book, and put it back in its place on the shelf. Once it's done gathering everything--which you know because the bookcase itself stops shaking--you open the door to the library and everything in the collection pertinent to the request is there."