“The Exchange connects them, you see? Bookshops. Libraries great and small. Who knows where it ends? Perhaps individual bookcases in private homes also touch the Exchange. Nothing would surprise me these days. Books leak. They wander. Transported and translated by the Exchange. A gentle shuffling and reshuffling of reality. A fault in the design if you ask me … or sabotage. Jaspeth’s work, no doubt – I can’t see Irad being so careless…”
