Lori spent the rest of the trip back to her demesne stoically enduring Taeclas' constant chattering. The woman had apparently been building up a stock of questions during her trip from Covehold Demesne regarding the Coldhold, the wisplights that Lori had made, and the steam jet driver that propelled the boat they were on. On the issue of the Coldhold, Lori had tried to distract her by informing her building the ship the way it was had been Rian's idea and that the Deadspeaker should consult with him, but it turned out they had already spoken during the trip. The wisplights… well, they were simple enough that Lori had found herself explaining about how she had simply wired a simple binding to a bead receptacle, omitting mentioning the white Iridescence core the wisps were anchored to.

"…multiple bindings, so that the steam jet driver could go faster than the prototype water jet driver and initial steam jet driver," Lori said. "It required that the Coldhold be raised from the river and the ice removed from the hull so that I could rework the tubing properly."

"That's amazing! All of that must have taken so much work!"

"Yes."

Off to the side, Rian coughed.

"Rian, if you're sick, cough far away from me," Lori said.

"Oh, don't worry your Bindership, it was just some spit that went down the wrong way." Rian said cheerfully. "But on a completely unrelated note, we're here."

Lori turned her head towards where he nodded, and saw that they were, in fact, arriving at their destination. Well, she'd already known they were back inside her demesne—she wasn't feeling hot anymore, and the shore she'd been facing had no longer glittered with Iridescence—but she hadn't been able to keep track of their progress because Taeclas had been distracting her. Her dungeon and the environs around it were in sight ahead of them, though they were still too far for her to make out anyone.

"Perhaps you should be the first to step down so that you don't get trapped here by the crowd of people who will be greeting everyone, your Bindership?" Rian suggested, following her gaze. "Remember what always happens?"

Lori blinked at the reminder, but the memories that it brought back made her frown in distaste. "Ah yes. You're right, Rian. Thank you for the reminder." How rare. A time when she didn't hate the fact he had a point.

He turned to the Deadspeaker across from her. "Do you want to go with her Bindership too, Tae? If you don't take this chance to get out while you can, you'll be stuck on the ship while everyone's families welcome them home."

"In that case, I'll stay here to get the pots loosened and start putting the planks back to normal," Taeclas said. "That way we can put your ship back the way we found it."

"Oh! That would be wonderful, thank you."

"It's the least I can do for the best, most comfortable ship in the continent." The woman sighed happily. "I didn't think it was possible to be comfortable on a ship before now. No one got sick once!"

"Well, now that you and Lidz are here to help us with the hull, we should be able to make an even better version," Rian said cheerfully.

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The rest of the day wasn't productive.

There was the usual tumult as families greeted the men who had arrived with Rian, abandoning whatever it was they'd been doing. Well, at least the heat meant they hadn't lingered outside for long. Lori saw Umu and Mikon there, discernable only because Rian's hair stood out in the crowd and they were near him.

Once they were all done wasting time, Rian finally set about organizing things so that the ship would be unloaded. Lori found herself with a collection of bound tools and wisplights, which she stored in her room for the moment. She'd examine them later. The other things—the bolts of cloth, the sheets of shoe leather, the paper and all the rest… those were temporarily stored in the treasure room that contained the metal ingots, bar stocks, and the still-untouched dragon scales. They'd need to plan the use of those. Putting paper on all the windows would need to be organized. The same for the cloudbloom fabric, since they'd need to make every square chiyustri of it count…

Well, she'd need to have Rian organize those things later.

Lori also found herself the owner of eight new books. Well, new was a possessive term, as they were hardly fresh from the printing press and bookbinder's. The corners of the books were darkened, and the leather of the covers had creases from being read, but the spines of the books was solid and none of the pages were torn. Four of them were early primers, intended for students just starting to learn. The early primer on Whispering wasn't what she had possessed back when she had begun her education, but a cursory examination of the contents showed it contained the same subjects as her old texts: breathing exercises, how to properly perform cyclical breathing, how to align magic to the correct wisps, how to claim wisps, how to read flow diagrams, how to write flow diagrams…

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The late primer contained what she had expected: several simple exercises that familiarized one with directionality, intensity, and the individual properties of the seven kinds of wisps, then steadily more advanced exercises that dealt with the interactions of two different kinds of wisps, and then three different kinds of wisps.

If the other primers were written with any sort of sanity, they should also follow that format, something reinforced by the fact they all seemed to be from the same publisher. Hopefully that meant they were all of the same quality.

Lori itched to start reading, to finally start properly teaching herself how to do the other three kinds of magic, but she knew if she did she wouldn't stop. There were still things she needed to attend to. Rian had said they needed to have a long discussion about the results of the trading trip, she needed to set objective standards for… whatsisname's probation, she would need to know how Taeclas intended to go about putting meanings on their crops, she'd need to find time to study the bound tools Rian had brought, the research on white Iridescence alloys needed to be continued now that Rian was back to take notes…

And Rian was probably going to ask for a holiday sometime soon. He was about due for that.

So with shaking hands, she placed the eight books carefully on a clean, dry part of her table next to her almanac. First, she'd finish everything that Rian's arrival meant she had to do, and then she'd start reading.

…

Maybe she should just open one of the books and peruse the listing of contents, make sure that the book had been written sanely and contained the proper materials fo—

Lori jerked her hands away from the cover of the books her hands were touching. No, no, she couldn't get distracted, she had things she needed to get done and oversee!

…

She forced herself to step back, reminding herself of all the things she still needed to do. Eventually, Lori managed to tear her gaze away from the books and left her room, sealing the door behind her.

Reading them could wait until she was finished with the work that needed to be done. She kept telling herself that as she climbed down the stairs at the end of the passage to her room. She just needed to finish her work, and then she could stop and read…

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Rian found her as she finished checking on the bindings maintaining the dungeon farm. The lightwisps were producing the correct mix of light, seen and unseen, the humidity was controlled, and the temperature was as it should be despite the heat outside, so all was well. The drainage cistern was more than half-full of water and the smell from it was… well, intense.

"Rian," she said as she temporarily sealed the dungeon farm's water spigot, "we need to schedule the cistern for cleaning. Tell people to use the water from it for irrigation until it's nearly empty, and when it is we will recover what's in it as more fertilizer."

"Yeah… it definitely didn't smell that bad when I'd left," Rian commented, looking down at the murky water. "I'll have to talk to people and make sure no one has been dumping waste from the latrine or fertilizer in there."

Lori made a face at the thought. Yes, that actually would explain the smell, wouldn't it? "Yes, that would actually explain the smell." She sighed. "Is it time for dinner already?"

"Well, it's time for people to start coming in for dinner," he said as they both started climbing the stairs up to the second level. "And on that subject, I wanted to know if you were going to have Taeclas and Rybelle eat with us regularly as a regular fixture at your table, or… well, if you don't. Personally, I feel that given the work you'll be having Taeclas do, it's best if you have her nearby to keep you updated on her activities and so that you don't have to seek her out of have her come to for orders and inquiries."

"That's a reason to have Taeclas there, but why would I want that other person?"

"Well, Taeclas and her wife would probably want to eat together. You know how married people are."

"Yllian doesn't bring his wife when he eats with me," she pointed out.

For some reason, Rian broke out into a smile. However, when he next spoke, he sounded like he was restraining himself. "Well, you don't eat with him regularly, so they probably see it as an irregular circumstance. But anyway, what do I tell them?"

It was a question Lori didn't want to consider. It meant she'd have to deal with more people, and unlike the people already in the demesne, she hadn't taught them to stop bothering her yet, to not speak to her unless directly addressed, to bring matters up with Rian so he could deal with people and all she needed to deal with were problems, which unlike people she could use Whispering on directly. Even worse, the person in question was a wizard, so they were a threat to her… or, well, highly likely to be a threat. Perhaps Rian had managed to find deviants twisted enough to not want to be Dungeon Binders. Even if they didn't want to kill her to claim her core for themselves, there must be something extremely twisted in their thinking. They might be delusional or inclined towards murderous actions. Who knew what was going on in the minds of such strange people?

Unfortunately, that was a compelling reason to have the woman—and her wife, who was her most likely co-conspirator in anything she did—seated at Lori's table, beyond all the ones Rian had said. It put the woman in front of Lori where she could be seen, instead of letting her sit somewhere out of Lori's sight and able to sneak up from behind. Lori would rather not have to divert her attention during her meals to watching her back through her awareness of wisps. Eyes were simpler to use. And what applied to the Deadspeaker applied to her wife as well, for the same reason.

"Fine," Lori agreed. "But this time make sure she knows how she's supposed to act!"

"Of course," Rian said. "I'll go tell them as soon as I'm done talking to you."

She nodded irritably, but he didn't leave. Instead, he continued to walk beside her with a smile on his face. Finally, Lori sighed. "What?"

"Um, can we… put off talking about business until tomorrow? I still need to talk to Riz, Kolinh and Shana—"

"Shanalorre."

"—Shanalorre to find out all that's happened and what I need to know, though I can take care of briefing Taeclas as to the condition of our crops and what we hope she can do. And it will keep her from focusing on you and trying to talk to you."

Another nod, this one less irritable. "All right. By dinner tomorrow I expect you to be caught up with the demesne's affairs. The day after, you will give me the longer explanation about the trading trip that you promised, and after that we will begin planning how to kill the typhon beast."

"Got—wait, what was that last? You said something really ominous just now!"