A thousand different thoughts flew through Quinn's head as she contemplated the gravity of the situation. "Does that mean we can't trust them, then?"

Aradie hooted and shrugged her shoulders in an oddly human sort of way. Her words and images conveyed through Quinn's mind. I didn't find anything out of place when I scanned them. They weren't lying, and they definitely didn't have bad intentions toward the Library. Could it be that they're... But that's where the owl left it.

Quinn, however, voiced those words. "Could it be that they're unaware of their faction's choice, and being inadvertently used to perhaps monitor the interior goings-on of the Library?"

"Wow," Lynx said. "You’re putting a lot of thought into this."

"What, and shouldn't I?" Quinn asked.

"No, that's not what I meant," Lynx said. "I just... This is news. These are factions that we have been allied with for tens of thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of years. This is unexpected and, frankly, unwelcome. We were only gone for 500 years when you've been allies for 230,000 plus years. There's no way that just being gone for 500 should make any difference."

He paused, and Quinn could see the recognition pass over his face in such a way that he paled back into an almost translucent figure that she could partially see through.

She felt a pang of sorrow for him. "Yeah, that's about it, Lynx. Just because they've been allies on paper for that long doesn't mean they were happy with everything. Heck, I mean, the universe is ancient, right? Like, I mean, eons old. Older than ancient history. Older than the Cretaceous period. Older than everything. Surely, inside of so much time, 250,000 years is nothing, right?"

Lynx nodded his head. "Yeah, it's just a drop in the bucket. I guess... I guess we've been extremely naive."

Don't I know it, the Library echoed, the voice sounding through the room.

Jasper stood up, straight up, looking all around them, trying to find where the voice came from. Quinn shook her head and held up a hand for Jasper. "That's just the Library voicing individual concern."

I don't really voice individual concern, the Library muttered in Quinn's head.

"Yes, but you rarely do so out loud, where everybody and their dog can listen to you."

Fine, the Library said. I'll just keep my thoughts to myself.

"This is the first time I've ever heard you sound petulant, and it doesn't suit you." Quinn would have crossed her arms and glared at the Library, but... it was hard to do that when it was everywhere.

The Library sighed and the sound echoed through Quinn's mind, bouncing off each side until it stilled. You have a point, I'm in a very bad mood.

"We should probably sit down and chat about why you're in a bad mood," Quinn said.

We should probably sit down and chat anyway, the Library responded. It's getting late, you should return to the main level and I will... I'll see you tomorrow. I have things to take care of.

Jasper was still staring at Quinn and she grinned at the witch. "You should probably close your mouth, I'm not sure if there are insects down here that might fly into it."

Jasper laughed. "So that was the Library actually speaking."

Lynx laughed. "You'd be surprised at how much my benefactor speaks."

The Library's presence dulled in the back of Quinn's mind, and she knew that she would have to sincerely yell at the Library to get its attention in its current state of focus. She also knew that the Library wasn't just sitting there idly pouting, but instead was trying to figure out exactly how to deal with all of these new factors that kept springing up.

"Is... let me check." Quinn reached out with her senses, trying desperately to figure out if she could sense where the Aracnio twins were. Because of the roster, she knew they were supposed to both be on the front desk today, but the last time they'd been supposed to be there, they hadn't been. Only one of them at a time was. It made her cautious and oddly suspicious. They'd been so kind and nice to her at first. She wondered now how much of everything was purely an act. "Aren't they supposed to be rostered on today?"

"Yes, yes, they are," Lynx replied, shaking his head.

"I'm guessing them not being here is not a good sign."

"It could be a lot of things, Quinn. Let's not jump to conclusions yet." But with every syllable, Lynx sounded more defeated.

"Well, the big map with the blips on it makes me think we should be jumping to a lot of conclusions." Then she sighed, realizing how juvenile that sounded, and took a deep breath. "OK, what we need to do is figure out exactly where these are located. Are you able to do that, Lynx? Like hone in on the actual location, especially of the Parsneauvian book?"

"Well, I can do it with some more narrowing down," He frowned, zooming in again, "and I can research the potential allies and precise species who live in the exact area of the Parsneauvian book. I'm unsure how else to approach this."

"We just need more information. Don't we always just need more knowledge and need more magic and need more power? Isn't that how this works," Quinn asked? Up until now, just having more abilities, having more power at her disposal, and knowing more had helped her through every hoop she'd had to jump.

"Pretty much. You just also need more time."

"That's fine. I'll figure that out," Quinn said. She was determined to make it so. "So if you can concentrate on narrowing down the potential suspects, I think that would help us greatly."

“I’ll do that.”

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“Just remember,” Quinn added, “Just because the book is near a specific homeplanet, doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a place to start. After all, it could also have been planted there to make them look guilty.

Lynx nodded and then frowned. "You said you noticed that the Aracnio brothers were acting differently.”

"Yeah," Quinn answered. "Just not always together and not as responsive to me as they were in the beginning. Not necessarily suspicious, but more standoffish than they had been, which at first I didn't think anything of. I thought maybe I'd done something to piss them off because I'm fairly adept at doing that. But since the realization that these books went missing and everyone knowing about it ... perhaps that led to some of their reaction to me? Although Finn hasn't acted any differently. So I'm not sure how to perceive all of this."

"We knew there were probably spies in the Library, so this just narrows it down. Do you have all the information you need from the map," Jasper asked, and Quinn could see the sweat beading her brow again.

"Does it feed off your energy to maintain that map?" She asked.

"Well, it doesn't have to, but the Library's had enough problems with power, so I was letting it." Jasper shrugged.

Quinn shook her head. "You should have told me. Could have leeched off me. Mine regenerates oddly fast, and I have a ridiculous amount of it."

Jasper raised an eyebrow. "Your abilities and statistics are something I would love to discuss at a later date."

"Sure," Quinn said. "Want to help me flush all the traitors out of my midst first?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Jasper said.

Quinn turned to Lynx. No matter what she looked at, or how she looked at it, she couldn't figure out if the Aracnio twins were, in fact, traitors or if Finn was. She hadn't really seen enough of Finn, but every time she had called upon them, they'd performed an admirable job, especially when it came to Tenejo and imprisoning him.

"So, I think we should monitor them closely," she said to Lynx.

"Obviously," Lynx said, raising an eyebrow.

"Aradie, will the owls help monitor them? Make sure they're not pilfering things or adjusting stuff with weird devices or something like that?" Quinn asked her owl.

Aradie twisted her neck around, looked at Quinn, and Quinn could have sworn that she raised an eyebrow.

"Look, it doesn't matter if you think it's plausible or not, or probable or not, the fact is that everything is possible, if people find a way. And given enough desperation and wildly fanatical theories, most people are completely capable of anything." She could hear herself sounding more and more cynical with each word.

"You're sounding extremely jaded there, Librarian," Jasper said with a wink.

"Well maybe, maybe I've got a reason to be jaded right now. A magical Library that lets everybody come in for free, basically, and absorb all the knowledge they can literally read, all the time, no matter from where in the universe, has been sabotaged by people that it trusted. Like what? You can't give people free food and knowledge and a safe space to be? Because it's wrong or something? Without somebody taking issue with it? That makes me so angry on so many levels. I don't... Anyway, it doesn't matter. That's a me thing." Quinn paused, counted to five under her breath and then continued. "What we need to do is preserve the Library, keep it where it needs to be, and make sure that we fight off any of these naysayers. Anyway, I've got to get upstairs.

"I'm coming with you." Now Jasper's voice sounded raspy.

Quinn glanced at Jasper again. Despite the energy balls the witch had eaten, Jasper looked particularly haggard. The often translucent sheen that her skin held had dulled, so that she just didn't look as revitalized as she usually did.

"Lynx," Quinn asked, "are you done with the map?"

"Of course," he said. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Jasper. I'm done. You should release it."

"Thanks," she said. And it winked out of existence, the runes suddenly silent and dull once more.

"No, I guess if we need to locate some more books that we're technically not supposed to have anymore, or whatever, we'll just come back here. Is that okay?"

Jasper grinned widely as she spoke. "That would be fantastic, and it won't take nearly as much energy if the books aren't as powerful as the ones that you just had me locate. Those were some pretty hefty chunkers. I'm excited to see what they're about."

"Well," Quinn said cautiously, "they're books that contain a great deal of powerful information that is lethal in the wrong hands. A reason that apparently didn't help keep them in there. Anyway, you look like crap. Let's get you into the elevator, get you fed by Cook. They'll be no doubt delighted to feed you anything you want, and then I really think it would behoove you to stay here the night, eat in the morning, and go if you have to then. I don't really trust you to traverse through a dimensional gateway in the state you're currently in. I don't think that's gonna mesh well with the magic in your system."

Jasper turned to Quinn as they got into the elevator and looked at her. Very long and hard. "That's very insightful of you. How did you know what sort of magic I was managing?"

Quinn shrugged. "I can sense every single affinity. It doesn't always mean I know what I'm sensing, but I'm pretty sure you access some type of chaos magic in order to make that whole ritual work."

"In a very controlled manner," Jasper said, "and you did have some lying around down here. I kind of helped filter it."

"I like that," Quinn said. "You should be an assistant too. I think a chaos affinity should be a must for a Librarian. It's far too involved in the universe for it not to be."

Jasper eyed her. "Well, I might take you up on that. After getting the Starweed back to my commune, I feel like something is missing. We should talk about this later."

Quinn grinned. "I’d like that, Jasper."

Lynx rolled his eyes and disappeared out of the elevator. Quinn chuckled as they stepped out themselves not a few seconds later. The Library bustle drifted to her. Discourse and discussions on tomes, on magical theory, on the use of different types of affinities and how some were so much superior to others. The arguments were light and filled with various branches of knowledge. Quinn loved the atmosphere created in the Library and was glad the Aracnio brothers hadn't infected if they were in fact spies. She glanced around, unable to see them, and motioned to Eric.

He flew over, a scowl on his face and his arms crossed. "Oh great, it's you? What do you want?"

Quinn raised an eyebrow at his greeting and decided to ignore it. "You don't happen to have noticed where the Aracnio twins are?"

Eric watched her for a moment. "What do you mean? Where are the Aracnio twins? They're sick. They took the day off."

"Oh," Quinn said, not liking the way her gut roiled. "What about Finn? Is Finn here?"

"Yeah, Finn's filling in. Look." And he motioned over to the check-in desk and Quinn sighed with relief.

"Okay then, that might not be as bad as I thought." She tried to process the information. Maybe three? If all of them had been guilty, she didn't know what she was going to do. If maybe one of them was actually honest and a part of the Library, she could deal with that.

Aradie nudged her with a wing. "What?" She asked the owl. "Oh, Finn is fine? As far as you can tell, Finn is fine."

Aradie hooted and nodded her head slightly.

Quinn felt marginally mollified. She wandered with Jasper into the kitchen, into the culinary wing, through the dining hall, Jasper's eyes darting everywhere.

"Hey, Cook," Quinn said.

Cook glanced up and turned around, a grin crossing their face. "Ah, it is my favorite Librarian."

Quinn chuckled. Cook always made her feel lighthearted, even if only for a moment. "Of course, aren't I the only Librarian?"

"That is a moot point. I have memories of previous Librarians embedded in my matrix and thus, I would like you to know that you are officially my favorite Librarian."

"Oh," Quinn said, getting a little warm and fuzzy. "Thanks. Could you see that Jasper and I have some food?"

"What have you been doing, Librarian?" The cook asked, even as they began to prepare meals.

"We had some books to locate." She mumbled, eyeing the food hungrily.

"Ah, excellent. From your visage, I assume that you have had success."

"Yes," Quinn said. "I'd like to think so, anyway."

Quinn took her food and sat down with Jasper. They didn't talk much, probably because Jasper was absolutely exhausted. But from Quinn's point of view, she was already focused on what she and the Library Core would be speaking about the next day.

They’d delayed this conversation for far too long.