I recently authored a guest blog for Mythical Books as part of my virtual Second Chronicles of Illumination book tour, and it allowed me to reveal some information about the Library of Illumination and its curators that might never make it into the final version of the book. That’s not to say these factoids won’t appear in a future episode. Just that they were either not stressed, or made abundantly clear in existing books, or were left on the cutting room floor. But anyone familiar with writers knows every word we’ve ever written is precious to us, and we can’t bear to cast precious pieces of prose or interesting ideas into oblivion. And so I’m going to share those bits and bobs with you right now, to give you insight into what I know—that everyone else may not be privy to.

Here are six little known factoids about the characters in my books.

• Jackson looks older than he is. Johanna looks younger. So they appear to be the same age. However, Johanna is seventeen months older than Jackson, which is why she’s reluctant to amp up their relationship.
• All the books in Libraries of Illumination appear in the language of the reader.
• Some overseers’ symbols in the ebook are different from the ones in the print version, because of font limitations.
• Jackson and Johanna are protected from the effects of the space-time continuum by a combination of their longevicus charm, and a special charm Myrddin placed on his workshop on Skokholm Island. It worked on them, but not on Cathasach or Beck, because Johanna and Jackson are curators. And so was Myrddin.
• There are seven doors hidden in the basement of the Library of Illumination that protect vastly different chambers. Door 7 is, of course, the vault. Door 5 leads to a crypt containing former curators. There’s a nuclear room from which the blue orb powers the library behind Door 2. And a Time-Map Room, which displays a requested place during different layers of time behind Door 6. Door 4 leads to a Duplication Room where many, but not all, items can be replicated. Door 3 is the entrance to the Alchemy Room where materials can be transformed into something they are not. And Door 1 is so secret; even I haven’t yet discovered what it protects.
• Jackson had a triquetra tattoo on his neck, but it disappeared during a time fluctuation.

There is so much more I could add, but those items would be spoilers for upcoming storylines. So for now, I’ll have to keep them to myself. Suffice it to say, Jackson and Johanna will have a fun time discovering what’s behind all the locked doors in the basement.

(Most of this post was originally published as a guest blog for Mythical Books on July 14, 2015)