“In his brief time as a student, he'd fallen in love with the Boeksplein. Jesper had never been a great reader. He loved stories, but he hated sitting still, and the books assigned to him for school seemed designed to make his mind wander. At the Boeksplein, wherever his eyes strayed, there was something to occupy them; leaded windows with stained-glass borders, iron gates worked in to figures of books and ships, the central fountain with its bearded scholar, and best of all, the gargoyles- bat-winged grotesques in mortarboard caps, and stone dragons falling asleep over books. He liked to think that whoever had built this place had known not all students were suited to quite contemplation.”