Excerpt:

The sun caught on the tallest spire of Rethora's maze of towers as it rose, casting a doubtful light from the horizon as though it wondered whether it was worth the effort to illuminate the city, which had worked hard through the night and probably would keep going whether it rose or not. One single bird hopped off the branch of a twisting tree drowsily.
By the third hour from dawn, the day was already unusually hot, even for summer. The distant mountains still carried their permanent hats of ice, but the snow had receded there along with the ice for this summer, and the workers in their fur-lined coats began to sweat uncomfortably. The light of the sun began to slant higher over the city, adding a silverish sheen to the bleak granite buildings, polished by ice and wind and water.
By the fourth hour, it was slanting directly into Michaele's eyes, and he shifted his chair irritably to avoid it. The smog haze over Rethora was drifting by the window, trapping the heat inside the streets, and its fumes combined with the ever-present fire in the grate were making him drowsy. Lethargically, he turned the damp-spotted page of an old book and began to clean it with a little soft brush, brushing away the dust of centuries from the faded illuminations. He turned his seat around a little more, as though it would make the hard wood any more comfortable to have been sitting on since before dawn, and brushed his hair out of his eyes.
He risked a glance up to look around the room. He would give anything to be outside today.
"Michaele, I'm watching you. Work."
Michaele stifled a surprised choke, turning back around to look up at the galleries above him. The librarian, Master Sadrien, was apparently categorizing his beloved books, with his back to Michaele.
"Eyes in the back of my head, Michaele. I know you're still not working. Would you like to finish today, or spend the next eight days without sleep doing that to all the books in this library?"