Quinn clutched her head in her hands, trying to make sense of all the information she had at hand. Not to mention the fact that she had lists and lists of books, and thousands of books still to retrieve in order to open up the other branches, which would then have more thousands of books to retrieve. She glanced over the list and sighed.

Main Branch Tome Report

6997 are still outstanding from the initial overdue amount. 11045 books returned. 5 books being reproduced. 16 missing restricted books.

Horticulture: 503/720

Bardic Musical: 580/897

Crafting: 472/730

Alchemical/Medicinal: 289/384

Combat: 604/837

Academy: 542/785

Culinary Arts: 282/282 - Culinary Branch Open - 3654 Books of 3795 remaining. Would you like a categorical breakdown?

Yes or No?

"No...," Quinn muttered out loud, suppressing a groan.

Would you like a current listing of borrowed books?

Yes or No?

"No." Quinn let her head fall onto her arms. She knew she was about to get visitors and at least that saved her from having to go over too many numbers.

Milaro knocked on the door and poked his head into her office. "How are you doing today, Librarian?" He asked, flashing her a grin.

"I've been better," she said, barely looking up at him. She had summoned him after all. "Thank you for coming. I had one of my weird dreams last night."

"Really? Do tell." He sounded full of curiosity, which really just sounded like himself.

"It is why I asked you to come," Quinn recounted the dream in detail, shuddering as she recalled the tree yet again and the way the voice grated against her spine like it was trying to rip out her spleen. When she was finished, there was silence, and Milaro looked incredibly thoughtful.

"Well," she said, not feeling her most patient, which wasn't really patient at all anyway.

Milaro shrugged. "I don't know what to make of it. It feels more like your subconscious examining a memory than any real insidious trespassing into your mind. I do think we need to look into the Esposians. Have you seen Geneva recently?"

"No," Quinn sighed and leaned back in her chair. "She's been helping with their recovery and took a short leave of absence to do so. She should hopefully be getting back soon."

"You should summon her back, you can do that with your assistants."

Quinn shook her head. "I'm not so sure. I think she might need some time. She seemed pretty shaken up." Which wasn't to say Quinn wasn't still affected by what they'd experienced, but these were a species variant of Geneva's. It was probably all too easy for her to imagine the same happening back on her own world.

Milaro nodded, a shadow passing over his gaze. "I think we need to look deeper into the Esposian islands. This didn't just happen over a short period of time, Quinn. That sacrifice is not something that you slap together on a Friday night and have done by Sunday with a group of friends while drinking a few ales."

Quinn chuckled despite the gravity of the subject matter. "I didn't think it was. Okay, so we're now adding the Esposians to our list. Is that correct?"

"It wasn't like they tripped and fell on the book and accidentally sacrificed most of their population. I mean, that's a pretty hefty book for them to have, right?" Milaro frowned.

"Definitely," Eric said, sweeping into the room, bowing with a flourish in the air toward Quinn, winking cheekily at her when he hovered upright again.

"You have like a sixth sense when it comes to stuff that is relegated to those five books, don't you, Eric?" Quinn asked.

"Well, to be fair, I actually have seven senses." He quipped, "but let's not get into that right now."

Quinn blinked at him, suddenly not sure she wanted to know what the other senses were. "I'm going to quiz you about that later."

He shrugged. "You could just find a book on it."

"Speaking of books," Quinn said, glancing at the list that was still in front of her. "The returns appear to have slowed down, but we have at least begun to receive some culinary books from the actual branch back. Not many yet, but they've only got like two weeks left to give them back without a fine."

Eric's eyes glowed, and he rubbed his hands together. "I'll take care of all those fines for you, don't you worry, Librarian."

"All right then," Milaro said, trying to pull them back on track. "Malakai will be here shortly. I think we need to go over what order of importance we need to do things in."

"Have we found the location of the other restricted tomes yet?" Quinn asked, suddenly feeling weary.

"No, but Siliqua seems to think we're fairly close to establishing where a couple of them are. We have general planetary areas but nothing definitive enough whre it would be marginally probable to locate the book in an acceptable time frame."

"I'd like to contact Jasper, she's gonna help me research a couple of potential rituals, see what we can figure out. Is that acceptable?"

"Jasper, Jasper... Yes," Milaro said, as if he only just remembered who that was. "I approve of Jasper, even though she is somewhat eccentric."

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "She's eccentric?"

"Hush now." Milaro grinned.

Lynx suddenly popped into view. "I also know we could technically restart another filtration pillar, but I looked at our energy levels and I think we need to get them up a little higher before we do so."

Quinn blinked at him. "Have you been practicing the sudden entrances?"

"Yes," he said smugly. "I actually have." Then he grimaced. "Come on, I've got to find some form of entertainment considering some of my memories seem to have taken time off."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Focus," Milaro said.

Quinn rubbed her temples."Okay, so we're on the same page, we need to approach the Esposians. Well, first of all, we need to talk to Geneva and see how their recovery is even going. Shouldn't we have sent people out to check the Esposians on the other islands?"

Milaro blinked at her. "Of course, we sent scouts out to the other islands. As surreptitiously as I could, just to pop their heads in and check. There didn't seem to be any evil blood-sucking speaking trees that were using ritual sacrifice books, but we could always look again."

Quinn groaned. "I guess that's a good thing."

"Of course it's a good thing. Okay, so number one, can we get in contact with the Esposian king?"

"He's more like a lord. Probably wouldn't like it if you called him a king. It's very, what do you call us? Elfish?" Milaro grinned smugly.

"Yes, that's right," Quinn said, trying not to let Milaro's current playfulness get on her nerves. She was just stressing a little bit. "Okay, so we need to see the Esposians. We need to get those three books back as soon as we have locations. We need to check in on the darigháhnish, right?"

"Ah, that is a familial matter and Malakai will be..."

"What am I gonna be doing, grandfather?" Malakai said, leaning against the door frame, arms crossed.

"Ah, yes, speak and he appears. It's like I summoned you."

"Well, you technically did like half an hour ago, but I was busy. I only just got here. What did I miss?"

"I'm going to send you to your mother's."

Malakai's face took on a hue that made it look as if a dark thundercloud had taken up residence in his face. Quinn shuddered at the look, and vowed to avoid her friend's bad side. She spoke up cautiously. "He doesn't have to."

"Yes, he does. He has a standing invitation. It would make the questioning go much, much easier," For once Milaro's expression was hard and unwavering. Nothing like the kind dad joker she was used to. This was the King, "and he hasn't seen his mother since his father died ten years ago."

"Oh," Quinn said. "Well, that's not awkward."

"Yes, it is," Malakai said. "It's extremely awkward. How could you think it's not?"

Quinn shrugged and looked away, unsure how to respond.

Malakai, still scowling, turned to his father and grandfather. "Do you really think it's a good idea for me to take her with me to see Mom?"

Milaro looked like he was about to speak and then stopped short, casting a glance between Quinn and his grandson. He sighed. "Yeah, I didn't really think that through. But she could have some insight into your great aunt. And right now, that's something we sincerely need. Probably more than we need to keep a lid on Quinn's origin."

"I guess I could ask her to keep it between us for now. You know she's going to sense everything, right?" Malakai sounded sullen.

Milaro hesitated and then sighed. "She usually does." He turned to Quinn with an apologetic smile. "There are multiple reasons why Malakai's mother is not currently in the picture."

"Why don't you just tell her? I mean, it's not like she was ever much of a mother anyway." Malakai spat out.

"She did love you in her own way." Milaro said, trying to smooth the waters over. Quinn cringed at that because in somebody's own way, didn't necessarily mean anything good.

"Yeah, well, maybe when I was like five, if I'd have understood what loving me in her own way meant, then maybe it would have been okay."

Quinn impulsively reached out and gave his arm a quick squeeze. "It's okay, we'll get this sorted."

Malakai at least gave her a half smile for her effort.

Lynx, as if he was tone deaf and completely oblivious to everything, which he probably was, butted into the conversation. "I don't know, I always thought Arnekai was a pretty good mother. She seemed to let Malakai come in here and cause havoc with books on a regular basis."

Malakai scowled. Milaro rolled his eyes and Quinn decided that she and Lynx were going to have a very detailed conversation convention about societal norms. Not that she was a universal expert on it, but he was so close to humanoid sometimes that Quinn often forgot he was a magical entity. She took a breath and spoke. "Okay, then, now that we've got that awkwardness out of the way..."

"Trust me," Malakai said, "it's not out of the way yet. However, what gives, Quinn?"

"Well, first of all, I'd like to go visit your mum. I think that would be pretty cool."

"Speaking of which, why don't we go visit your mum?" Malakai asked.

Quinn raised an eyebrow, trying not to let her memories tab her with pain. "Because the people who served as my parents on earth were killed when I was 12 and I grew up in foster care. Not completely unloved, but, you know, not with parents who were really parents. They were just adults who made sure that we had what we needed and stayed safe."

"Oh," Malakai said, "well, I guess now it's really awkward, isn't it?"

Quinn laughed. "No, it's all good. I have come to terms with my life. It's actually a lot better than a lot of people out there ever got. And I don't really have any complaints."

"Don't you want to go back to earth?" He asked.

Quinn really thought that over for a few seconds. Did she want to go back to earth? She'd already missed her deadline by two months for picking her major. She had had a handful of sort of friends because she spent most of her time studying and the rest of it reading. And she didn't really have extra spending money because everything went to tuition and her scholarship paid for the rest. She occasionally called her foster parents to let her foster mom know, at least, that she was doing pretty well. But that was like maybe once every month or two. She didn't think her foster mom would care much if she didn't call at all. And a foster dad definitely wouldn't. There were a couple of foster siblings who checked in with her every few weeks.

"Maybe," she said, wondering why she honestly hadn't thought of this before, "maybe I should go back soon just to let people know that I won't be around anymore so they don't worry."

"You've been gone for like two months. Don't you think they'll already have worried?" Malakai asked.

Quinn blinked at him and said, "I don't know. What usually happens when the Library sucks somebody into this dimension? Does like have a truck hit me or a building collapse on me?"

Lynx piped up. "No, we pretty much just kind of reached through and grabbed you. Except it was really hard to because there's no ambient magic on your world. It took a lot more malachite crystals to get you through to here than it would from anywhere else. Because it has to feed on the actual magic contained within them. And Earth has no ambient magic to help fuel the process, whereas most worlds do."

"Oh, is that why Earth has no magic users?"

"Pretty much, that's why you were kind of safe there." Milaro spoke softly.

"Yeah, I don't think, I don't think my guardians would have agreed with you," Quinn said, a flash of sadness at their passing constricted her chest. She took a moment to recover before speaking again. "Yeah, maybe I should go back and just let people know that I'm okay. I mean, I've still got my phone. I could easily just find somewhere to charge it and text people and say, 'Don't look for me. I've started a new life. I'm absolutely fine.'" With any luck the auto debit had continued to take money out of her account. She didn't have a lot, but she did have some emergency savings.

"I'd love to see some of these devices you've talked about," Malakai said, suddenly perking up. "I mean, I think that would be fun."

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "You mean nobody else has technology like that in the universe?" She found that very difficult to believe.

"Of course they do. Not quite as you seem to have described it, though because most placed use magic as a means to fuel things. So I want to see a world that functions fully without magic. That's just bizarre to me." His eyes lit up and it was like he'd forgotten they were going to see his mother. That subject change had been all sorts of obviously deliberate.

"Well, how about we go see your mother. And then we go question the Esposians. And if we haven't found any of the books' locations by then, I'll make a quick trip home and you can come with me. As long as we disguise your skin tone and ears. Maybe put your hair in a ponytail." Quinn looked at him critically. If all else failed he could probably pass as a cosplayer with a few tweaks.

"In a ponytail?" Malakai asked incredulously.

"Yeah, in a ponytail."

"Seriously, I guess you're going to ask me to wear jeans next."

"Well," she looked at his loose baggy fighting pants and kind of grimaced. "You can't turn up in those pants."

"Really?" He said. "There's nothing wrong with these. These are like the height of fashion..."

Quinn cut in, "for a sword-wielding, bow-wielding darigháhnish, maybe?"

"Ah," he said, "I see your point. You promise we'll go visit your world and make sure people realize that you're okay and not dead?"

"Yeah," Quinn said. "I promise."

Lynx grumbled under his breath. "I miss out on all the fun."

"But that's okay, Lynx. We'll get you sorted and maybe make another trip. We just won't have to send anybody messages."

"Well," Milaro said, "this all sounds like a plan. Let's get you ready to go and visit Arnekai."

"Okay, so let's redo it. Visit Malakai's mom." He scowled. "Talk to the Esposians. Make sure the people on my end don't think I'm dead. Find the books. Figure out who's trying to kill us all. Live happily ever after."

"Quinn, my dear, you always know how to simplify such complex situations," Millaro said.

Quinn rolled her eyes.