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Later, having peeled Ms. Goodfellow off the leg of the desk, pried my Curiosity out of her possession, and ushered her legion of new friends out of the door again (social butterfly, my pup), we were presented with one, meagre book by our new librarian friend. It was a thin thing, with anaemic white covers and a disappointing lack of heft.
‘It’s really not a popular topic,’ said the librarian, no doubt meaning to be kind as she demolished our mission in a mere six words.
I leafed through it. It contained annotated diagrams of an ortherex parasite and its eggs and larva, plus some notes as to its preferred habitats (rocky spaces in adulthood, especially underground, and a warm, magickal body for the eggs). Young and old alike fed greedily off magickal energies, the fresher the better, w
