Cuthbert had been sauntering along behind her, but, like Roland had before him, he stopped dead when he saw the library. After a moment, he let out a low whistle. "He wasn't joking," he said, looking up at the high shelves. "Forget creaming himself, if Vannay were here to see this, I think he'd have given himself a heart attack out of sheer excitement." Laughing, a low little sound in his throat, he tucked his thumbs into his pockets and swung his weight back onto his heels. "I mean, I saw your books back at the house. You're telling me this is normal here?"

It made a lot of sense, actually. The trash they'd just thrown away would have been valuable enough in Mid-World that he'd had to restrain himself from asking her what the hell she was doing to throw it away. This was a different place. Different customs, different resources.

But to see it so openly and so clearly different was still like a punch in the gut. He remembered the great library of Gilead, which besides this looked like a children's schoolroom, and there was a harsh pang of homesickness to ameliorate his wonder.

Shaking it off, he looked at her with a crooked little smile. "Maybe it makes sense how remarkable you are, coming from a place this remarkable itself."