Osman's Library is a place to which men come in search of knowledge — of late, of the Hippodrome and the fixing of its races. In that matter its shelves prove wanting, and Jean-Zera Mongé found little of use upon a visit, the more so as its master was from home.
The library is home to Ashraf, a rude tortoise, who nonetheless furnishes some practical wisdom on the rigging of the spectral races, holding that a scheme worked but once is more easily brought off than one sustained. Jean-Zera Mongé sought as well for word of a protected diary, and there too the search yielded scant reward; the tortoise let fall that layered intermediaries might lessen a man's exposure in such contrivances. The library serves, in short, as a house of inquiry for those who would learn to thread the tangles of the Undercity and its politics.
More lately the library, known also as Osman Hamdi Bey’s Library, has been marked for its scholarly worth, holding a collection of books and journals. It too has been looted with a choosing hand, certain items gone and no others — Osman's Journal among them, and books upon ciphers, charm-magic, and the archaeological digs. Ashraf frets over the disturbances his visitors bring, and Osman Hamdi Bey has not returned home, which raises its own questions as to where he may be.
Upon a visit the company found the missing items out, and had speech with Ashraf, who mentioned that Osman had of late sought the help of "The Shahmeran." Jean-Zera Mongé searched Osman's desk and came upon a secret compartment holding a folded, sealed letter that bore Osman's seal; they found besides the journal, hidden in plain sight. The sealed letter, addressed to "my dear friends," declares that Osman is in all likelihood dead, and bequeaths his manor and its secrets to the company. Within it is word of a powerful diviner and a key to her whereabouts, and a figure of chess from Osman's own hand.