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Quinn had been so focused on simply getting back to the Library she hadn't really noticed that she'd opened up the doorway to her office. Granted, it was the door she most frequently went through during the day. And to be honest, her mental state was feeling marginally fragile - all things considered - she hadn't wanted to spill into the main part of the Library. Those memories left her feeling drained and conflicted.

"Quinn, did you mean to come here?" Malakai spoke softly.

She nodded but felt like she was gulping in air after the transport or teleport, or however it was classified. It was amazing how the energy rushed back into her, replenishing the well she’d just drained. She'd been starved of magical energy on Earth, as if it didn’t exist. Opening the door had bottomed her out in a huge rush. Usually energy didn't leave her body at such speed. Her head was spinning.

"Do you think—" She tried to speak but it wasn't working. Quinn shook her head, still trying to gain her equilibrium again. She couldn't figure out why the energy was rushing back into her so hard. Or was it magic perhaps? Was this because she'd been so used to the magical environment that being allowed back into it set her balance off?

"Don't ask. You need to just readjust first." Again, there were layers of concern to Malakai's voice. "Let's get Lynx and my grandfather. Frankly, I think you need to talk to the Library herself."

I am listening, the Library said and the voice echoed through the room.

"Good," Malakai snapped. "Maybe you could finally clear up some crap for her instead of keeping her in the dark so much for 'her own good'."

The Library, perhaps wisely, didn't respond to that.

Not long after, Quinn sat with Aradie on her shoulder, scritching the back of her neck while the owl cooed in her ear. Malakai stood at the far end, leaning against the wall, a scowl on his face. His form reverted to that of his darigháhnish heritage.

Lynx had arrived and paced back and forth alongside the conference table. "Can't you just tell me what the problem is?" he practically growled at Malakai

"No, I'm not repeating myself. I'm waiting until Milaro is here." Malakai kept his tone cool and even, but Quinn could tell that was only because of tight control.

"Speak of the devil," Milaro said, stepping through the door. He didn't seem as joyous as usual, as if a portion of his smile was ever so slightly forced. His hair was slightly tattered, as if he hadn't had time to take care of it properly.

Quinn was immediately suspicious. "What have you been up to?"

He sighed and pushed some stray strands of hair back behind his ear. "I've been working with Harish and Siliqua on helping Cadre refine the sequences we need to retrieve the memories we've lost and the rest of that stuff. Not to mention taking care of the affairs of the entire civilization I'm trusted with safeguarding." He sounded so tired.

Quinn felt that blanket of guilt creeping back over her. Milaro was a King. He had people and an entire society to protect, and yet she called him to help all the time. "It's okay," she said. "We don't have to do this right now."

"Yes, we do," Malakai said, that same ironclad tone brooking no argument. "It wrecked you back there. For like ten minutes, I thought you weren't going to wake back up. You were shaking, and sweating. Your breathing was barely present. Your entire body went rigid multiple times. It was pretty scary, Quinn. So, we're getting to the bottom of it and figuring this shit out regardless how any of you feel about taking the time to do so."

"I didn't realize," she said. Probably because she'd been unconscious. Still though... Those images began to try to assault her again from behind the barriers she put up. "It might just be easier if I show you, Milaro, Library, Lynx."

"Oh," Milaro said. "I'm sorry. Show us what?"

She blinked and then laughed softly. It was more of a stress relief than holding any actual brevity. "Sorry. It was slightly traumatic for me, so I think I just assume you know what happened. I'll diminish my shielding toward the Library and you momentarily so you can see what we're talking about."

"Are you sure?" Milaro asked gently as he walked up to the desk.

Quinn shrugged. "Can't really deal with it alone, can I? Might be memories from the past, but I think they're important. You might be able to find more contained within them than I realize. Even now as I examine them, they hurt like they did when I was twelve. Even with knowing as much as I know, it's difficult to separate my consciousness and memory and approach this logically." She gave him a sad smile.

Milaro returned the expression. "Then show us, show me? Maybe we can help."

"That's the idea." Quinn said and gave him her hands, for easier access to her memories. For Lynx and the Library, she allowed them to hear the tumultuous memories that were swirling in her mind, stirring up more and more as they swept along like a tornado.

Milaro held her hands and dove in. They both closed their eyes and there was a swirling vortex of images and death playing on loop. But with Milaro by her side, they didn't seem nearly as scary as they had the first time they'd played on repeat. Not even the tenth.

Now?

Now it felt manageable.

After several minutes that felt like a moment to Quinn, he squeezed her hands and she opened her eyes to look at him.

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"I'm so sorry, Quinn. I didn't know." He moved around the table and reached to give her a very gentle hug.

She leaned into it, surprised by the pain that caught in her chest. "Yeah, I know. Neither did I. They died because of me, didn't they?"

"You can't blame yourself for that, Quinn. I think a lot of people have died because of this. It's not you, it's bigger than you." Milaro started, but she cut in.

"But I couldn't save them. Whatever these stupid scales are, save me and nobody else." She balled her hands into fists and looked up at Milaro beseechingly. "Doesn't that make me inherently selfish? Subconsciously even?"

"There's nothing you could have done, Quinn. That's a species survival mechanism." Milaro crouched down so he was eye to eye with her as she practically burrowed her body into that chair. "Your body, your latent nature, protected itself in the only way it knew how. There was nothing you could have done to protect the others, but this... I'm pretty sure your dormant genes saved you."

Quinn tried to process what Milaro was saying. It wasn't that it was difficult to understand, but rather that she was grappling with the memory of her parents' death while she was in the car. Even though she'd known that was a fact, it had never really sunk in.

"So, do you think that was a targeted incident or was it just an unlucky human, like, happenstance?" Quinn asked.

Milaro hesitated. "No, I don't think it was just unlucky. I don't know exactly how they found you and I'll need to talk to the Library."

I'm uncertain how they located her. We barely found her signature.

"Could she have had more magic present in her system at that earlier point in time?" Lynx asked suddenly.

Milaro shrugged. "I mean, of course she would have..." He looked thoughtful.

"We were locked away," Lynx said. "There was no way for us to even be aware of what you'd done. We didn't know until she'd been here for weeks."

Milaro stood up and patted Quinn on the shoulder, then joined Lynx for some pacing alongside the conference table. "Okay, so we know that we sent you to a magicless world for a reason. We assumed that no one would try to locate you there. When we figured out how to get back in touch with the Library, we were going to fetch you. However, after some years passed we could no longer locate your magical signature. Frankly, we thought we'd failed. That's why I didn't mention anything for so long. Not even I was completely certain to begin with."

Milaro sighed. "So, whoever it was..."

"Well, we know the serpensiril were involved," Malakai snapped. "Obviously. Probably the Esposians or whoever it is who's taken over them. But what we need to make sure Quinn understands," he said, glaring at her a bit, "is that it wasn't her fault. She had no way of knowing that would happen."

"It doesn't make me feel any less guilty, though I appreciate your effort," Quinn said. Malakai simply shrugged and went back to scowling at the entire room. "So, what does this mean?"

"Well, it means, Quinn, that you had a built-in genetic defense mechanism that's familiar to all cosmicisodracus and you managed to save yourself at the expense of every drop of magic your body had in it at that point in your life. Frankly, with the damage around you, you probably overspent."

"Would that explain my coma and why I was so weak for so long?" Quinn asked softly.

"Yeah, pretty much. Your body regenerates energy and mana naturally.” Milaro answered. “That is just how it works. However, if you're on a world that isn't magically inclined or has no magic presence in it, then it's going to take your body a significant amount of time to regenerate even one or two energy. What your body did, protecting itself in that completely and utterly subconscious and, well, primordial way, drained your entire being of energy and magic. There would have been not a drop of mana left, not a drop of energy, until you managed to, I guess, regenerate some measure of it on your own."

"You think that's why I woke up?" She asked, a tight pain in her chest.

"Likely. Probably took you six weeks to get back one or two energy and the more you filled up the longer it would have taken to regenerate more. There's no way we would have been able to sense you with like, say, under a hundred energy. Too little and it's just a blip on the radar. A glitch even. So it wouldn't have even pulled the Library in if they had scanned that quadrant earlier." Milaro was focused on her with a soft intensity and underlying sadness.

"Oh," Quinn said, trying to calculate that on her own. "So there's like every possibility that I could have gone my entire life without knowing about the Library or you."

"Pretty much," Lynx inserted. "I mean, if we hadn't sent out that last-ditch pulse and actually found your admittedly very weak signature, we wouldn't have pulled you to us. The Library would probably be gone in the next month or two and we wouldn't have had the energy to find you. Not with that little amount of power that you exhibited at the time. Like I said, it was a crapshoot. We were lucky."

"Okay, wait, wait." Quinn felt entirely too confused. "So you wouldn't have been able to find my affinities before then?"

Well, not much before then, the Library said. Maybe a year? If we'd have scanned a year earlier, we could have found you. But as it stands, you were still extremely low on energy levels when we pulled you in.

"That's true. You pulled on our power reserves as soon as we made contact with your immediate vicinity. Like you were thirsty for the energy." Lynx said, watching her thoughtfully now, having paused his pacing.

"Wait, but don't you scan for affinities?" Quinn asked.

"Yes, but affinities don't mean anything if you don't have magic to fuel them," Lynx said, as if it was the most natural thing to be aware of in the world.

"Oh," Quinn said. "So basically, because I'm mostly Library, my defensive mechanisms triggered when I was in danger and saved my life, depleting all of my magical stores, which left me alone for seven years until you guys could actually detect my magic levels."

"Ah, nice summary, Quinn. Why did you summarize it?" Milaro asked, his eyes smiling.

"Because I need to make sure I understand this. Couldn't my guardians have triggered their own defense mechanisms?"

"Not every species has a defense mechanism that is going to coat your entire body in an armor that will repel an impact like that collision, Quinn. They were going at full speed from your memories. They didn't even try to brake." Lynx sounded somber.

Quinn frowned. "That, that seems highly dangerous and sort of suspect."

"Yeah, it really does," Milaro mused, "I wouldn't be surprised if they found you guys by scanning when you were younger and surrounded by three other people with a magical signature. Maybe we shouldn't have sent you there. Maybe it made you all sitting ducks."

"Or maybe," Lynx piped up, "maybe it gave her the one chance she had to survive. They obviously thought she was dead. There was no magic left in her signature after that accident. There couldn't have been. That shield had to use so much power. It's frankly amazing she woke up from it at all."

"So you're saying they thought I was dead?" Quinn asked, so many of the puzzle pieces clicking into place in her mind.

Milaro spoke up, obviously none too pleased about Quinn's accident or what it could mean. "I'm saying they thought they'd eradicated the last glimpse of a signature that could synchronize with the Library."