"It opens nothing. Hold it anyway." – the old keeper, at the handover
THE GATE BOOK OF SCHARTE Instruction of the old keeper, written into the Book at the Bureau's request, for the use of officers. You will be given the key at dusk by the one who held it last. Since I retired, that is me. Take it from my hand with your hand. It is never laid down, not on the table, not on the hook while two people are in the room; it goes from fingers to fingers, and if you drop it you have not held it yet and we begin again. This is not a ceremony. It is so that there is no moment in the night when nobody is the officer. The key opens nothing. The doors of the gate open at dusk and close at first light of themselves, and no lock on them has ever been found. The key is iron, old, heavy, and worn smooth at the bow by three hundred years of hands, and the whole of its use is this: whoever holds it decides. The Book is written by the one who holds the key. The strokes on the slate are made by the one who holds the key. If you give it to a petitioner for a moment to look a...
From the lore of The Last Pass.