Jasper's arrival brought joy to Quinn's day. Even after all the ritual problems, she was glad to see her new found friend. "What do you mean you're here to take me up on my offer?" she asked.

"Exactly that!" Jasper replied. "You said I could be a Library assistant, and so I have decided that that is precisely that I’ll come here to do just that."

"What was that I hear?" Malakai asked, suddenly standing next to them.

Quinn glanced around. "How did you get here?" she asked.

"I've been standing here the whole time." Malakai said, avoiding her gaze.

Quinn narrowed her eyes, peering at him. "Are you pulling ninja tricks on me again?"

"Pretty much. You should probably pay more attention to your senses in regards to people's proximity through the Library because that's going to come in really handy one day." He said with a smirk.

"What?" Quinn said, "When we're playing hide-and-seek?"

Jasper laughed. "You two have the best interactions. I could record them and conjure them for people and they would pay money to see them."

Quinn scowled.

"Anyway," Malakai said, leveling a glare at Jasper, "What's this I hear about you becoming a Library assistant?"

"Exactly that!" Jasper said. "I might be a little bit overqualified, but I think I'd do a pretty good job."

"So do I," Quinn said. "In fact, I think you and Dottie would get on amazingly well."

As if summoned, Quinn could hear the tiny footfalls that told her Dottie was near.

"Did I hear you mention my name?" Dottie said, bright and cheery and perhaps slightly suspicious.

"Yes." Quinn grinned. "We were talking about you, not to you."

"Quinn," Dottie said, "That is just horrid of you and I thought we'd become friends since you sat on me accidentally so many weeks ago."

Quinn chuckled, unable to stop herself at Dottie's dramatic statement. "You know I love you, Dottie."

The chair preened. "Yes, I suppose I do."

"Hey, rewind," Malakai said. "Why does she get to be an assistant? She tried to attack you and kill you in a swamp."

"But she didn't mean it," Quinn said, dismissing his concern. "It was all a misunderstanding. And we got that whole fiasco sorted out. It wasn't even really Jasper's fault."

"What, it wasn't really Jasper's fault that they lied to Savinth and told her that they’d give her stuff that they never meant to?"

Jasper sighed. "I admit that was very wrong of me, of us. It's just, you know, we're very possessive about our recipes. Most of them are specifically species oriented. They've taken millennia to refine and condense into their most potent formats. In the wrong hands they could cause a lot of trouble for, well, for a whole slew of people."

"Wait..." Quinn interrupted her. "Are these recipies in the Library?"

Jasper shrugged. "Many of them probably are. But there'll be quite a few that aren't given how long it was closed and how many we've worked on in more recent years." She paused as if thinking for a moment, and then shook her head before continuing. "Probably shouldn't have offered them to Savinth in the first place. But we really wanted to get our hands on that book."

"Why?" Quinn said. "Why did you want that specific book?"

"You know," Jasper said, suddenly looking extremely confused, "I'm actually not sure. My grandmother told me we needed it and I haven't seen her for a couple of centuries now. Anyway, all's well that ends well. And now I'm here because Quinn told me I should be an assistant."

"Do you really think it'll be that easy for you to become a Librarian's assistant?" Malakai practically growled out.

"Why won't it be?" Quinn asked. "I mean, you're a Librarian's assistant and you didn't even want to be one. Milaro's the one who dobbed you in and made you an assistant regardless of what you wanted."

Malakai scowled. "It doesn't matter. I'm supposed to be training you in combat. Are you ready today or are you going to blow me off today like you did yesterday?"

Quinn paused. She'd only been having fun, but he seemed quite out of sorts with what she'd said. "I'm sorry, Mal. I was just playing."

He glared at her. "Anyway," he said, turning his attention to Jasper, "Just what makes you think that you'd make a great Librarian assistant?"

"The fact that I love books, and that I can already use my own sort of magic that doesn't even require books. At least not most of the time. And the fact that Quinn told me I'd be a good assistant." Jasper paused and looked thoughtful for a second. "Hey, I haven't seen the Aracnio twins since the first time I visited. They’ve never been the bookiest bunch, and I wanted to talk to them."

Quinn felt her mood sour. "Yeah, um, probably won't be seeing them ever again."

"What do you mean?" Jasper asked.

"Let's just say," Quinn made the decision to trust Jasper with the news. "We discovered we had potential discord in our midst only to have them conveniently disappear."

"Oh, that's a pretty nasty coincidence, isn't it?" Jasper said. "Never mind, we'll get to the bottom of it."

"I think you seem a bit suspicious," Malakai said. "After all, I mean, you didn't like the Library either. How do we know you're not secretly planning something?"

"That's when I thought that Korradine spoke for the Library. Now I've realized that something was seriously haywire with that whole situation. I feel pretty bad. Maybe if we'd realized sooner..." Jasper shrugged. "Well, whatever, the past is the past. I was thinking, Quinn, what about an assistant for you?"

Quinn looked at Jasper, quite puzzled. "What do you mean, what about an assistant for me?"

"Well, exactly that, a personal assistant, not a Librarian's assistant, like a personal Librarian assistant." Jasper scrunched her face a bit, like she was trying to wrap her mind around what she'd just said.

"Oh, like to help me with stuff that I specifically do around the Library?" Quinn gave that some thought. Is that something I can do? She asked the Library.

Technically, you can do almost anything you want in the Library, Quinn, except for destroy it. I'd be extremely put out if you destroy my Library after all the work I've put in.

Quinn chuckled. "I mean, that's a possibility, but I'm not exactly sure what you would do as my assistant."

"Oh, I could teach you ritual magic?" Jasper's huge eyes lit up with her smile.

"Well, you were going to do that anyway," Quinn said.

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"I know, but now it would be in an official capacity."

Quinn laughed. "Okay, you can teach me ritual magic. I'll also definitely need a bit of help with some stuff. I'm not the best remembering to talk to people and you really have a way with them. You could maybe see what people feel about the current situation with the Aracnio twins, etc."

"Sure, but they don't know me at all yet."

"I'll do it," Dotty said. "Everybody loves me."

"On that, they do," Quinn said. "Souncdslike a good solution if you don't mind?"

Dottie practically preened. "Excellent. I'll be off then."

Aradie plucked out one of Quinn's hairs. "Ouch!" Quinn said. "That hurt."

Aradie leveled a glare at her.

"Oh," Quinn thought, "I'm so sorry, you're so much more than an assistant, Aradie."

The owl cooed ever so slightly, only barely mollified by the reassurance.

"Fine then, I guess." Quinn laughed. "You can be the Librarian's assistant assistant."

Jasper laughed. "That is perfect."

"No, actually wait until you hear what I need you to do for me." Quinn warned. "One of the things I most need help with is for someone to take over the roster and room allocations for the assistants."

"But that sounds boring, Quinn," Jasper pouted.

"Do you want to be my assistant, or did you just come here to try and have fun, discover new magic, and see what trouble you could get up to?" Quinn asked, crossing her arms.

Jasper's cheeks coloring slightly.

Malakai laughed. "See, I told you she's not going to be a good assistant."

"I'll be a fantastic assistant, Malakai, much better than you as a trainer or whatever you are," Jasper retorted.

"Thanks to me, she's not dead yet," Malakai shot back.

Jasper ignored him and looked at Quinn, slamming her fists down on the table in Quinn's office. "I guarantee you, I'll be the best Librarian assistant ever. We really need to come up with a better name for that."

"How about Personal Librarian Assistant?" Quinn suggested. "No, wait, that sounds really sort of creepy."

Jasper actually laughed. "Okay, fine. I'll need you to meet with Mal and Dottie, Eric, Geneva, and Danio has been promoted since the twins left. They only ever did their shifts together anyway. The one I really need you to help me keep an eye on is Finn."

"Finn, the Ilgonomur?" Jasper asked.

"Yes, our aim is to keep Finn safe. No allowing any strange visitors access to them on the grounds that they might know them." Quinn made sure her tone held the right level of serious in it. She wasn’t sure they’d need an extra set of eyes, not with the amount they were beefing Library security, but it couldn’t hurt.

"I can do that. Consider it done," Jasper said, her tone serious. Quinn wasn't entirely sure how to take that.

"Okay, we’ll probably also have to meet with Carafax soon," Quinn said.

"Who's Carafax?" Jasper asked.

"Oh, Carafax is the most lovely slothilus I've ever met," Quinn replied.

Malakai cleared his throat.

"Fine," Quinn said. "The only slothilus I've ever met, but still the best. And they're helping us piece together some of the missing bits and pieces we need for the Library puzzle."

Jasper's eyes narrowed. "There's something you're not telling me, right?"

"Maybe a little bit," Quinn said. "You're brand new, and even though I'm glad to have a friend..."

"You don't trust me yet, do you?" Jasper said, a little bit of a pout in her voice.

"To be honest, not quite. I want to, and it'll come as long as you don’t try to burn the Library down in the next little while." Quinn tried to cushion the reveal with a smile. "Aradie thinks you might be trying to muscle in on her territory, but you're not lying about things, and you're very honest."

Jasper preened a bit. "I am, you know, very honest, blunt even. Not everybody likes that," she added.

Quinn nodded. "I totally understand. Anyway, if you could take care of those things, I'd super appreciate that. Mal, could you show her where she'll be staying?"

He leveled such a blistering glare at Quinn that she almost reconsidered asking him to help out.

"Fine, but you owe me," he said.

Quinn suppressed a sigh. "Don't I know it." She waited until they'd left.

Dottie trotted back in and around behind her desk. "Are you okay, Quinn? You seem a little bit down today."

"You know, just so much to do, so little time," Quinn replied.

"Oh, it's not all that bad. You can do it, I know. How about I stay and keep you some company? I've got a few reports to read through on my HUD, and I would love to spend time with you," Dottie offered.

Quinn, not for the first time, wished that Dottie could take a different form, because she had this complete and utter certainty that Dottie would be one of the best huggers in the universe, and while Quinn wasn't often a hugger, right then, she could really have used one. "Thanks, Dottie."

"No problem," Dottie replied.

Quinn pulled up her HUD and looked at her own statistics.

Name: Quinn

Age: Irrelevant

Heritage: Earth, Sector 12942, Cosmisicodracus

Species: Librarian*

Energy Capacity: 2493/2493

Mana Levels: 1985/1985

Alignment: 101%

Affinities: 1722**

Tome Knowledge: 135

Affinity Level: 13

Determination: Rising

*awaiting determination

**As far as the Library can determine

She had exceeded her energy even more now. She frowned at it. How was her energy still climbing at the original rate?

"What seems to be troubling you?" Lynx asked, peering at her HUD from behind her.

"Can you really see that?" Quinn asked, barely phased by the fact that he had appeared so suddenly. She was really getting used to the way people popped up everywhere. What with Malakai, Lynx, and occasionally Milaro… it was practically common practice.

"Not everybody can see details unless you will them to," he said, "but I can, because I'm the Library."

"Nice. I thought you said most people slow down when they reach two thousand energy."

"Ah, but Quinn, haven't we established you're not most people?" Lynx replied.

"Yeah," she said. "We really have, haven't we?” She paused for a second, taking a deep breath to center herself. “Okay, so for me this is normal."

"You'll have ridiculous amounts of energy by the time you're done."

"Great. So here we are." She leaned back in her chair's cushioning, it was sort of like a hug.

"Here we are." Lynx studied her for a few moments. "What's wrong, Quinn?"

"I don't know. I feel like things are a little too quiet. Everything's a bit too smooth."

"And you just had to go and say that again, didn't you?" Lynx teased. "You warned me the first time and now you do it all the time.

Quinn couldn’t shake the feeling she was maybe forgetting something important. “I think we need to check on Finn."

"Finn was fine the last time I checked on them," Lynx said. "I've been doing it periodically. They're just holed up with books and they've come down to do a few shifts. Whenever they get around books, they seem so much more at ease."

"I know how they feel," Quinn said. She stretched and leaned forward again, studying all the information. "Okay, great. Let me go through filtration status. We need to reboot another pillar."

"Probably a good idea." Lynx said.

"Let's put that on the list too." Quinn muttered as she searched for the lists. "Yeah, pillar filtration status..." Her eyes lit up and she let out a little gasp. "Oh wait! Are we close to the next power level now?"

"We are." Lynx had that damn cheshire grin on his face again. "Very close to the next level." A rush of relief that ran through Lynx's face and he smiled. “Maybe a week or two…”

"Well, that is some of the most excellent news I've heard all day." Quinn smiled.

"Don't you agree?" Lynx asked.

Quinn nodded. Suddenly, she felt like everything they'd been doing had a purpose. She glanced down at the long list of items that she still had to nail down, glad to see a few of them had made progress.

Priority listing - Librarian: Quinn.

Prioritize:

Strength - progress halted - immediate attention required

Fine definition - in progress 65%

Pillar Activation - in progress 4/10

Task Delegation - in progress 43%

Library Returns - in progress

Energy Amplification - missing components

She smiled and closed the list. There was still work to do, but everything was moving along. "You know maybe this isn't as overwhelming as I originally thought."

"Good," Lynx said. "Because I need you not overwhelmed."

Quinn didn't like the sound of that. "Oh, no. Now what?"

"It's not because of what you said before. I came in with this information. Geneva will ready for you to visit the morning and she'll be waiting for you with her aunt Nishpa."

"Nishpa? I don't know a Nishpa."

Lynx paused for a moment before responding. "No, you don't, but Nishpa knows you."