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Ultimately, it doesn't matter. If he kept them, they are with him - and as you have no idea where he is, then thinking about them is going to be fruitless. If he didn't keep them, then they presumably have been disposed of somewhere - and even if you knew where, they almost certainly wouldn't be in a state that you could get anything out of them. Alright, alright. Just .. focus. No more distractions. The barred shelf has to remain barred. You just don't have the time. Not when you need to winnow an entire room of books down to just the twelve that you are going to take. It occurs to you that you might make things easier on yourself if you were to get the hand-cart over here - as you would be able to take maybe two or three times as many books ... but it would still take time to work the hundreds and hundreds of books in this room down to three-dozen, and whatever time you saved by not having to work down to just a dozen, you would surely lose it and more besides if you were to have to haul the cart over here and break in to the house a second time. If you could, you'd take everything. Actually, if you truly had your druthers, you'd just move into the house. With father. And mother, too.
With that wistful thought, you set yourself about the hard work of winnowing. Right off of the top of your head, you know the first two of the twelve that you are going to take. The first one is <span class="mu-i">The Endowed Farm; a Practical Hand-Guide for the Newly-Made Farmer</span> - this has to be a manual written for honorably discharged and Endowed Legionnaires - well, actually, if they have been discharged, then they can't be called Legionaries any more, but - ah, the point is, this has to be about how to make an Endowment into a productive goodman's farm. And as you might very well have to carve a homestead out of raw land in the Frontier Provinces - or if the worst comes to pass, in the Great Gloom - then it seems that a text like this would be indispensable. The other one you simply must have is some translated text from the East, which from the sub-script is apparently called the <span class="mu-i">Canon of Medicine</span>. You have heard that out in the East, they are a lot more ... accommodating of their Witches. Perhaps not to the extent that the Cimaroons are, but you would imagine that there is some discussion of Mysterious medical interventions in this text. It appears to be old - you are not sure if it is old enough to be Pre-Estrangement - but it is old, definitely. And if it was Pre-Estrangement, why, then it might just prove to be worth its - no, <span class="mu-s">magnitudes</span> of its weight in gold.
