Quinn woke languidly the next morning, earlier than usual, without anyone needing to wake her up, and blinked slowly up at her moving ceiling.

She felt fully rested for the first time in ages. Stretching, she realized how soft her bed was and how comfortable and easy it might be to simply stay in it. But her read-through of DeKarlyle’s Thesis of Spatial Distortion had opened her eyes to several things, the least of which was that she needed to start setting her own pace, choosing her own reading topics, and guiding her own path, just a little more forcefully.

It wasn’t that Milaro, the Library, Lynx, Malakai, and every other single person she encountered weren’t well-intentioned, but they were, in fact, not her.

Her owl was still asleep, her head tucked under her wings. She looked peaceful in the faint morning glow that suffused Quinn’s bedchamber.

After reading DeKarlyle’s Thesis, she found a new resolve in herself. It was a sort of scary reading. She’d grown so used to simply absorbing all the knowledge and having it gradually make sense, even if the power was immediately available. But just reading the book gave her more understanding, and a more gradual ability to reach for the power. Less of an impetus to do so. A gradual realization of what it could do was probably more terrifying than simply absorbing it might have been.

But it was also far safer for both her and others.

She had knowledge now and could see how, in combination with things that involved the power gained from ritual sacrifice, it might indeed be able to end the Library and a plethora of other dimensional portals. The slow processing of the information felt like she was constantly unraveling and understanding truths instead of having them thrust upon her and itch to be used. She liked it that way, especially for a book that held, arguably, a lot of power.

Especially since she also needed to get over the danger these books posed herself.

The more she read the previous evening, the more she understood why they needed to get the three remaining sister books back as soon as possible. There was a very real prospect of the Library coming undone, being undone by saboteurs. It gave her such a heady clarity, such a different perspective.

And even more drive than she’d had previously, to protect her new home.

She crawled out of bed and got herself ready for the day, only waking Aradie as she got ready to leave the room. The owl cooed in her direction, more of a question as to why she was already awake.

Quinn ruffled Aradie’s feathers. “It’s one of those days that needs to begin earlier, and I think from now on, I need to sleep like I did last night.”

Aradie shook out her feathers and alighted to sit on Quinn’s shoulder as she headed downstairs. The Librarian directed the Library to summon Milaro, wherever he was, and tell him that she’d love to see him and go over all the information about the healing and head that he wanted to know.

After much contemplation, Quinn wasn’t entirely sure how the whole universe was in sync. Different planets went around different suns at different rates, thus giving them different years. That was how it worked, right? She’d been thinking about that a lot since the previous evening. Obviously, the Library had a standard time or something that everybody stuck to, but still, she’d like to know how they worked it all out.

“Cook,” she said by way of greeting as she walked into the kitchen. Well, the culinary wing with the equivalent of 5,000 kitchens in it. Perhaps a slight exaggeration.

“Librarian, you are awake early.”

Quinn shrugged. “Am I really, though, or is this more the time that normal people with a lot to do would get up?”

Cook actually laughed. “Perhaps,” they said, “but you do more than enough, and sometimes, if you go to bed late, sleep is necessary.”

Quinn nodded, helping herself to what looked suspiciously like bacon and eggs. “Should I ask you where you got this?”

Cook shook their head.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Is it bacon and eggs?”

Cook shrugged. “Sort of. It is as close as I could get.”

She mulled that over and chose not to pursue it right then.

Belatedly, Quinn also summoned Malakai. Perhaps he could help her fill Milaro in on some of the things that had happened on the Ishiposa Isle. After all, he had been there. Plus, she had to ask him where her phone went because Quinn knew she hadn’t misplaced it, and she’d been fully aware that he intended to modify it so that it could work on magic.

She needed to know if he had succeeded.

She took her food and a cup of sort of chai tea, and meandered back to her office in plenty of time for Milaro to arrive. When he did, she had just finished her food and was still in an extremely good mood. A controlling mood of her own situation and circumstances that friends could help her with. She liked this frame of mind better. It helped her not feel so out of control and constantly scrambling.

“Why, most esteemed Librarian, you are up.” He said with a flourishing bow.

“I know, I know,” she said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “Early.”

“Well, I was going to say you are up and looking fine, but you are also up earlier than I’m used to.” He chuckled and lounged against the doorframe.

“Were you here all night?” She asked, curious about why he was standing in the doorway.

“I’ve been overseeing the procedure with Siliqua while Harish got some much-needed sleep.” Milaro grinned. “The lights in the core have always fascinated me.”

“What about you?” Quinn asked as she made a mental note to go and spend some time observing the core through that room. “Did you get any sleep?”

Milaro shrugged. “I’m an expert at power naps.”

“Is that really a thing?” Quinn asked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Technically.”

Magically enhanced?" Quinn asked.

“Sort of. Maybe more along the lines of meditatively enhanced.” Milaro winked.

“Okay, what do you have for me?”

“I’m just waiting. Malakai should be here...”

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“Right about now,” Malakai said, walking into the room.

“Close the door, please,” Quinn said.

Malakai looked at her quizzically, but did as she asked. “Any reason?”

“Well, it’s not exactly information I want getting out. There are hundreds of people currently in the Library,” she briefly closed her eyes, reaching out to sense the area, “close to a thousand. They’re in all different divisions, near all different branches. I don’t currently feel comfortable letting this information out, even if it’s accidentally. So, precautionary measures if you will. Before I get to how I healed Eugea, Malakai, where’s my phone and battery pack?”

“Oh, yes.” He fumbled in his storage and pulled out both of them. He placed them on the desk in front of Quinn.

She smiled as she noticed the little plug in icon. “Is that charging? Its battery is almost full. How did you manage it?”

“Okay, so what I did was I sort of Jimmy rigged some mana crystals with energy infusion. Now, you’ll need to use energy tokens to replenish it, but they’re easy enough to make. That way it should keep your phone charged. I’m almost done with figuring out how to integrate the mana, so it sort of...” he crinkled his nose like he was trying hard to figure out how to explain something. “It should, theoretically, be able to make a small gateway just for its signal so you can send and receive messages. So you can maybe text them and have them not worrying about you.”

Quinn’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I saw how you sort of missed people. Right now, it’ll only open enough for a text message. I haven’t figured out how to allow video or speech to pass through yet,” He shrugged, and for once seemed sort of shy. “I thought this way, you could at least communicate with them.”

“Thank you,” Quinn said, suddenly feeling overwhelmed with gratitude.

For once, Malakai didn’t have a snippy comeback. He just smiled.

“I’ll get you to go over this with me while we’re travelling,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow in question.

“Well, you’re coming with me to Halschius, right?”

“Oh yes,” Malakai said, a smile back on his face. “Of course I’m coming.”

“Excellent. Which is why I called you here, Milaro...” she paused as he held up a hand.

“When you get back, I’ll need you to walk me through how you rigged that phone up, Malakai. That’s fascinating.” Milaro’s tone was gently and full of pride.

Malakai actually blushed and cleared his throat. “Sure.”

Quinn grinned. “Great. Anyway. I figured we can go over the healing that I did for Eugea first. And then I need you to help me understand what’s involved in preparing and moving Tenejo and Adrito for travel to Halschius and how I can help.”

“Oh,” Milaro said, seeming taken aback. “Fantastic. That sounds like a great plan.”

“Of course it is,” Quinn smiled. She really was feeling much more prepared this morning.

“Are you feeling quite well, Quinn? You seem...” Milaro appeared to be reaching for words.

“Less frantically trying to figure out what we can do next that won’t continue to overwhelm me?” she asked.

“Pretty much,” Milaro said.

“Let’s just say I read a book last night that opened my eyes to some perspective.”

“What did you read?”

“I read de DeKarlyle’s Thesis.”

Milaro gave a sharp intake of breath. “Wait, you read or you absorbed?”

“Well, I’m assuming that if I had attempted to absorb it, it would have been much like the Chaos Filtration books and not allowed me to fully absorb that information properly. So I didn’t absorb it. I read it. And I understand things on a larger level now. I think I’ve gained perspective.”

“Very well,” Milaro’s eyes narrowed. “But that’s not the sort of book to test waters with. It’s highly advanced. Please, next time you choose to read a restricted text, let me know. Just so I can be prepared in case something goes wrong.”

Quinn nodded solemnly. She hadn’t even thought about it being potentially dangerous for her. “I will, I promise.”

“Good.” Milaro seemed slightly relieve. “Now, tell me how you healed Eugea.”

And so Quinn described how it happened to the best of her recollection. The very short version of her having an overwhelming feeling that she knew exactly what to do and that she simply commanded Eugea’s mind to clear of the pain that was being inflicted on her.

“That’s all you did?” He asked, leaning back in the chair in front of her desk where he’d plopped himself.

“Yeah, it was... her mind sounded like it was sort of crying out for help. Like she wanted to get out and just didn’t understand how to break through. And so I reached for her and I helped her get out. It was more a matter of, I think, the person who was inflicted with the pain understanding that they needed to get out and wanting to do so, wanting to return to whatever they had before they were placed in this mind hell hole.”

Milaro looked very thoughtful. Malakai simply nodded. “She’s right. That’s pretty much how it went. It happened inside of maybe two seconds. She went from obviously in pain and suffering to free and clear. It was quite fascinating to watch.”

“Obviously, she’ll still have memories,” Quinn said. “That’s not something I took away. I wouldn’t even know how to start. And to be frank, I don’t want to manipulate people’s memories because that’s kind of screwed up.”

Milaro chuckled, but it was a dry chuckle, like he wasn’t amused. “You speak the truth, Quinn. It is definitely screwed up. So there’s nothing you can tell me how you did it?”

“No,” Quinn said, shrugging and throwing her hands up. “That’s just it. I don’t understand what I did.”

“Would you mind if I looked?” He asked cautiously.

“Please be my guest. Figure out what I did.”

Milaro leaned over the desk and took her hands in his as he closed his eyes. She could feel him in her mind, replaying that memory. He replayed it over and over. And then he dropped her hands.

“That’s quite remarkable, Quinn. You did exactly what you said you did. You simply identified from the tears on her face, I take it, that she was desperate to get out of it. Not desperate to find other people, not desperate to be forgiven, but desperate to live. That might be the key that will help them unlock their minds from that state.” He frowned thoughtfully. “It’s something that Nishpa can work on with them, at least. That’s information we can give them. There’s an edge of desperation to survive and to continue on as they are. If she finds that or can instill that in them, the odds are that she can also heal them.”

“Oh good,” Quinn said. “I was kind of worried. I couldn’t understand exactly what I did. I just knew. A lot of this information that I’ve absorbed and read, it just comes to me when I need it to. Sometimes. It’s like instinctive.”

“Sounds like it,” Milaro said. “And now I believe I owe you information.”

“Why yes you do,” Quinn grinned over at him and steepled her fingers. “Explain the whole Tenejo and Adrito thing to me.”

“Well, actually, they’re almost ready to go. We had to bring several instruments with us when Ikeshal and Escadril were here. They brought some of the components, as did Nishpa, to help us create a force field that is, shall we say, strong enough and lends itself its own energy — powers itself, so to speak, so that we can make the jump between dimensions. If we have to jump between power sources, then the shielding would break and both of them would run free. That isn’t an option. We’re delivering them to Hal for the specifics of finding out what we need to know.”

Quinn wanted to ask if he thought she was doing the right thing, but to be honest, she didn’t really care. They’d tried. Tenejo killed his friend. He’d wanted to kill Milaro. He’d attacked them. He’d hurt Lynx. And he’d hurt Dale. So much so that the Golem even needed to be repaired. So no, she wasn’t about to give in anymore. After a lifetime of poor choices, Tenejo deserved whatever he got. “Okay, so they’re ready to travel then?”

“Yes, a few more hours and they will be.”

“Excellent,” Quinn said. “Then I propose that we leave first thing in the morning.”

“Do you want Halschius’s morning or our morning?”

Quinn paused. “When is Halschius’s morning?”

“In about four hours. Very similar time to the peninsula you were on to visit my daughter-in-law.”

Quinn nodded slowly. “Okay. Should we give Uncle Hal notice?” she asked.

“I think you should probably talk with Eric a bit. But I would assume that you should just go. You have a standing invite.”

Quinn nodded slowly. “So there’s nothing I can do to help with Tenejo and Adrito, then?”

“Nope. All been done,” Milaro hesitated a second before continuing. “However, I’ll instruct you on how to maintain and drop their shielding so that you can hand it off to Uncle Hal when you get there,” Milaro said. “I’ll remain back here to help Harish and Siliqua keep an eye on the current procedure and to help Dottie keep an eye on the Library.”

“Very well,” Quinn said. “Geneva’s here too, yes?”

“Yes, she is.”

“Okay. Then I’m going to find out what I need to be ready for my trip to see Uncle Hal.” Quinn was excited to visit Halschius, not the least because she was certain he could help her control the fire within.