On either side of the main gate, the fence terminated in a small stone 
tower with narrow diamond-paned windows set deeply into its walls. The 
Constable entered one of these from his side of the fence and then opened a 
heavy wooden door with huge wrought-iron hinges, letting Nell and Harv in from 
their side. The tiny octagonal room was cluttered with
fine furniture made of dark wood, a shelf of old books, and a small cast-iron 
stove with a red enamel kettle on top, pocked like an asteroid from ancient 
impacts, piping out a tenuous column of steam. The Constable directed them into 
a pair of wooden chairs. Trying to scoot them back from the table, they 
discovered that each was ten times the weight of any other chair they'd seen, 
being made of actual wood, and thick pieces of it too. They were not especially 
comfortable, but Nell liked sitting in hers nevertheless, as something about 
its size and weight gave her a feeling of security. The windows on the Dovetail 
side of the gatehouse were larger, and she could see the two corgi dogs 
outside, peering in through the lead latticework, flabbergasted that they had, 
through some enormous lacuna in procedure, been left on the outside, wagging 
their tails somewhat uncertainly, as if, in a world that allowed such mistakes, 
nothing could be counted on.