"What books?"
Toffee looked puzzled for a moment. "Big books," she said. "In stacks. I was told there were veritable walls of books in here."
"And there are," the woman said defensively. "Which books are you interested in?"
"How should I know?" Toffee asked helplessly. "I haven't read them yet."
The woman sighed. Then her eyes fell to Agatha and Chadwick lying on the counter and they lighted with the fanatical gleam of frustrated motherhood. She reached out and pulled back the velvet folds.
"My, what beaut...!" The lie died in her throat. To suggest that Agatha and Chadwick were anything but downright ugly was too great a falsehood for even this child-starved soul. "You must be ... uh ... proud," she said tonelessly. However, she was game; once she'd started she wasn't going to give up. She reached out a hand and waggled a finger over Agatha's protruding tummy.
"Kitchy-kitchy," she said unhappily.
Anger flashed in the infant's eyes. "Get your horny talons off me, you withered old wraith," she snapped. And having given warning, she parted her bubbling lips and bit the woman's finger.
The woman didn't cry out in surprise; she didn't make any sound at all. She simply stared hard at Toffee for a long moment, then silently pointed to a distant corridor.