Quinn scanned through a list of books that she had been using over the last couple of weeks to enhance and expand her knowledge base. The only thing she really gained new knowledge on was Chaos, and yet she didn't understand everything that she'd learned. There weren't many opportunities to practice mastering control over chaotic elements.

And understandably so.

All the other books she'd absorbed were of skills already been in her repertoire as beginner texts or, she supposed, beginner abilities, which she'd now managed to expand on. Cross-referencing the best books to enhance the current skills that she had, there were woefully few that met her precise specifications. Maybe she'd end up writing her own books and combinations just like Milaro had.

Her connection with the Library was constantly deepening. She could feel all the people streaming in through different doors. If she concentrated just right, she could even tell where her assistants and the golems were, not to mention her most favorite people in the Library like Milaro, Malakai, Dottie, and Misha. And Aradie was, as usual, sitting on the perch in her office. This time she actually looked like she might be asleep. Quinn realized the bird was probably very bored lately with all of Quinn's lack of adventure and time spent in the Library.

Quinn didn't mind being in the Library at all. In fact, this was something she could get used to. Checking in the books, making sure they were healthy, going and dinging anybody who deserved a fine, chatting to some patrons, working on her skills, training montage for a few days every now and again, eating Cook's food. It all seemed dreamlike and yet also like a distant future dream. She sighed.

What's the matter? The Library asked.

"Oh, you're paying attention."

I've been busy.

"You're always busy," Quinn said, feeling petulant for but a second.

Are you going to tell me what's troubling you, or do I have to try and guess?

"As long as guessing doesn't mean you try to pry into my head, then maybe we could make it fun."

The Library chuckled ever so slightly in Quinn's head.

She relented. "Okay, fine. I'm just wondering about my future and where I came from and entirely if there's anything I should know about what we are that I might have to watch out for."

That's very clever, Quinn, the Library said. If I wasn't paying attention, I might even have answered that question.

"You're still not going to tell me outright? I still have to just make my guess?

I'm sure I recall you telling Lynx that you already had a guess.

Quinn shrugged. "I do. I'm just double-checking some thing. In the meantime, is there anything I should be aware of?"

The Library seemed to pause for a moment and mull that over. Just make sure that you don't let anger get the better of you.

"Anger?" Quinn asked.

Yes, tempers are an especially volatile thing.

"Well, I know that, but last time I tried to seal off my emotions, I almost turned into a sociopath, so I've got to watch that too."

The Library chuckled. I meant that tempers are an especially volatile thing for us in particular. Also, we would have stopped you before anything bad happened.

"Well, you almost didn't..." Quinn said absently, her thoughts darting to the very minor clue.

But you did stop, the Library said. Look, Quinn, just do what you're doing. We're all working on trying to figure out everything so the Library can go to those days that are just happy, magic-sharing, occasional fine-handing out days.

"It's like you read my mind," Quinn said, narrowing her eyes at nothing in particular.

It's almost like I'm a part of you, the Library said. Just don't stress too much, and when you've got a chance, we should probably have another chat.

"Another synchronization?" Quinn asked, slightly apprehensively, considering everything she'd learned and the mild amounts of pain she'd experienced in the last one.

No, just a recalibration of sorts. We haven't spoken in a few weeks, in close quarters.

"You're right." Quinn acknowledged. Then she turned her head toward the door, cocking it to one side. "Oh, I think, yep, they're coming."

I will leave you to it. Thank you, Quinn.

This left Quinn wondering exactly what the Library was thanking her for, and what it was that Quinn had somehow agreed to, and not entirely realized that she was doing so. She looked up as Cadre, Milaro, Harish, Siliqua, and Lynx entered her office. She silently thanked the Library again for having made her office much larger after they implemented the old jail that they had had.

"Nice to see you all," Quinn said, pretty sure this wasn't going to be nice in the slightest. Every single one of them had a grim expression on their face, even Cadre, who constantly, usually, looked like he was smiling non-stop with a gecko-like grin.

"It's not all bad, Quinn," Milaro said, grinning at her, allowing some of the tension to leak out of the room. "Really, it's not."

"Fine," she said, not believing him at all. Milaro had a way of giving the truth without actually giving all of it, so he never actually lied, but more omitted the whole truth and didn't feel guilty in the slightest.

Cadre cleared his throat. "We are still looking into the sequencing. It's coming along. There are several other tests that I will need to run that will take some time. I can say, however, that right now I am approximately 97% sure the suggestion you made will work."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Quinn sat up straighter at that announcement. "Are you serious? It'll work?"

"Well, not a hundred percent yet, but all signs are indicating that any damaged memory segments can be replaced. However, that is only to do with the functioning of the system - to get it back to operating at an optimum level." He glanced sideways to the others. "I'll let Siliqua explain further."

"Okay, give it to me," Quinn said, leaning back in her chair as if to brace herself for the crash landing she knew was about to come.

Siliqua gave her a sad smile. "See, we can replace any malfunctioning part of the overall system with the same undamaged sequence. However, in doing so we'll remove any corrupted information or memories or files that we currently cannot see. That sequence will then replace those permanently. Since we don't want to delete those memories permanently yet, we are endeavoring to pull the remnants of them, the files behind them, I guess you could say, the memories that were deleted. We are aiming to retrieve them before we attempt to repair the functioning portions of the sequence."

Quinn blinked. "So it's gonna take a while."

"Yes," Cadre said, "it's going to take a long while."

Quinn blinked at Cadre, then thought over his words and realized that figuring out what memories had been wiped might be easier now they could potentially repair them too. Unless she'd misunderstood. "Does that mean we'll probably be able to repair the missing pieces as well. I mean, to restore them so we can ascertain what information they didn't want us to know?"

Cadre's eyes lit up. "Precisely. At least, theoretically. Again, the success chances are very high right now, but I cannot deal in absolutes when I have yet to test the process out."

Quinn nodded slowly as she took it all in. "And when you say it's going to take a long time, what do you mean? Years?"

"I wouldn't estimate that it will take years. However, I would caution that it may take several months for us to retrieve the memories we seek." It was obvious that Cadre was trying desperately not to offend Quinn.

"You know, Cadre, I think you're pretty cool. I come from somewhere that had no access to magic. Somewhere, well, you're all fantastical creatures to me, so it's kind of less about me getting upset with you and more about me going, 'Oh wow, magic can pretty much do anything.'" She smiled as non-threateningly as she could.

Cadre actually laughed and seemed to lose some of the tension that was spread across his shoulders. "Oh, well, that does make a lot of sense, Librarian. I will endeavor to retrieve those memories. Harish and I have been working on this as well as the sequencing."

"Fantastic," Quinn said.

"Speaking of which," Harish said, "there has been an interesting turn of events."

"How interesting?" Quinn asked.

"We've been breaking down Lynx's missing memories and have been sorting the gaps into a timeline of sorts. It's not perfect yet and we still have a lot of work to do, but it does appear these gaps started approximately 600-years before Cora retired. At least, that appearswhere Lynx is effectively missing chunks on a frequent basis. Once we've figured out exactly how to catalogue and determine that we've found all of them, we should be able to apply the same principle to the Library."

Quinn looked at Lynx. "Are you okay?"

He shrugged, seeming completely and utterly defeated. "I'm still here," he said. "I think I'm still me, but right now it's my priority to try and recall some of those instances. I'll push through."

"What sort of information are we talking about?" Quinn asked as a thousand questions popped into her head at once. "Does this correspond to times when there are gaps in the Library's recollection as well? Or you won't know until you've applied the same methods to the Library too?"

Harish nodded and handed her several pieces of diagrammed paper. Quinn looked up at him and said, "Couldn't you just send that to me?"

"No, no, this is something I mapped out by hand. With all of the corruption and missing information we've been encountering, I'm not about to risk having there potentially being a way someone else could witness what we're doing. Right now I'm trying to account for all possibilities." He gestured to the pages. "This is the surest way I know to keep it only in our hands."

"So you mean there's someone potentially monitoring the entire Library system through outside means. Like a backdoor into a system?" Quinn asked.

The alarm on Siliqua and Cadre's face told Quinn that they hadn't even contemplated that possibility and that they were horrified by it. But Harish simply nodded.

"Great." Quinn took a deep breath. "I guess we really can't trust that inputting information into the system right now will mean it A) remains for our eyes only, and B) remains at all."

"Exactly," Harish said. "There is a pattern time-wise. I'm sure once we can allocate these memories to their specific subjects or to the specific things that were viewed, recorded, or occurred, we will be able to piece together a timeline of incidents that led up to the shutdown of the Library and Siliqua interjected. This will also enable us to hopefully pinpoint perhaps some of the Serpensiril's allies or collaborators, conspirators, whichever they are."

Quinn could feel a massive headache coming on. This was all so much information for her to take in, even welcome as it was.

"Anyway," Lynx said, clearing his throat, and Quinn thought perhaps doing his best not to sound forlorn. "About 600 years before Kora sought to retire, there was a shift in these memories and they began semi-frequently."

"Not before then?" Quinn asked.

Lynx shrugged. "I don't know, but we have a minor starting point."

"Was there any signs that something had changed?" Quinn asked. "For her, I mean."

"None that we noticed at the time." Milaro finally spoke up. "I've always been a frequent visitor of the Library, at least once a week, sometimes more."

"And now you hang around like a bad smell," Quinn quipped with a grin.

"Well, it's not my fault you don't give me time for a shower, is it now?" The King said and smoothly continued the discussion. "Anyway, looking back now at the mapped missing sections, it seems obvious that something happened. Lynx, do you remember her behavior changing or anything like that?"

Lynx shook his head. "No, nothing like that. It's just... there were..." His face scrunched up as if he was trying his hardest to remember details.

Aradie hooted long and low, coming in to land on Quinn's shoulder again. She nudged Quinn.

"Oh, what? You remember something?" Quinn scritched under her neck.

Aradie nodded and then did something she very rarely did. She spoke to the whole group, not just in imaged into Quinn's mind. Korradine had a visitor around that time, perhaps a few years before it.

"What, didn't she usually get visitors?" Quinn asked.

Not in general, Aradie said.

"Your owl is correct," Lynx piped in. "Kora loved the books, and was obsessed with magic and all forms of its knowledge. She may as well have been married to the Library. She loved her job so much. But I... I don't remember this visitor," he said, looking at Aradie.

The bird fluffed her wings and gave Lynx an almost human stare down.

"Oh," he said, "maybe it did start a few years before we think, then.

It is odd that Lynx does not remember, Aradie said, because he was there. He was there when her visitor came in. I didn't think anything of it at the time. It wasn't a species that we generally have problems with. In fact, it was a darigháhnish.

"Wait, what?" Quinn said. "A darigháhnish?"

Exactly.

Milaro's expression darkened. "Pray tell, Aradie, can you show us an image of this specific darigháhnish?"

Yes, but you can't react right now until we have all of the information, There was hesitation in Aradie's words.

"But maybe that's where it started, Aradie," Quinn said. "Do you think they did something to her?"

Not this person in particular, but it was definitely an odd encounter, And Aradie showed everybody the image of a gorgeous, purplish-bluish skinned darigháhnish with black hair, so dark it looked like an ink bottle had spilled on it. Their eyes were bright red and shone like a thousand rubies.

Milaro gasped, and his face suddenly resembled a thundercloud.

"I take it you recognize her?" Quinn asked dryly.

"Yes," he said, his eyes still fixated on the image. "That's Malachi's maternal great Aunt."