From where Quinn crouched on the ground, she almost thought she misheard what he said. Surely he wasn’t grandstanding again, not after last time. Still, that pendulum had been a pretty close call, so she wasn’t about to test him too much.

She quickly glanced around, trying to get her bearings, after all, she was quite certain that not twenty seconds prior to this she’d been standing outside of the bubble on the observation platform. She couldn’t locate it through the smokey interior and realized it must have been one way glass.

Too much thinking was dangerous in this instance as, even condensed, she couldn’t be sure what Adrito’s mind was doing. As she rolled out of the way of the pendulum again, only to realize it was perilously closer than last time. Her body still held definitive weakness, as she was already out of breath. Despite the healing, despite some sleep, her body hadn’t fully recovered yet.

“Why Librarian,” Adrito called out in a singsong voice as Quinn skittered behind what seemed to be a rock, even though she was fully aware it was simply an illusion. “You know, I know you’re there, right?”

When she didn’t answer, he laughed. “You’re being awfully quiet. I seem to remember you had so much to say back on Ishiposa. Do tell me what I’m doing wrong again. I’d so love to hear it.”

Quinn paled and hedged a bet. “What do you think you’re doing wrong?” she asked and moved immediately after speaking.

“Me?” Adrito said, his voice seemingly coming from everywhere else at once. “I’m not doing anything wrong. In fact, I’m about to do a very right thing. Something I should have done days ago, immediately once you set foot on my island, once you started messing with my people.”

“I didn’t mess with Eugea. I took her out of the torment you deliberately kept her in.” Quinn snapped, despite her resolution to remain calm until she’d managed to figure out a plan of escape. She moved again, as soundlessly as she could manage, tiptoeing, gently sliding, and hoping that the illusions held up. She had no idea how this magic or technology worked, but if felt sort of holographic like... she could only hope it was controlled from an outside source.

“Eugea was a part of a greater whole, working toward a common goal. You don’t even comprehend what you did!” His voice screeched loudly, and sent shivers down Quinn’s spine.

And yet... she wanted to know more about what he was saying. There was something in his voice. This feverish sort of reverence. She didn’t understand where it came from or what it meant, but she needed to find out. There was something about it, as if her gut was trying to tell her this was all a hint. That if she understood his motivations, if she realized exactly what he was saying, then she’d be just one step closer to understanding this whole entire mess.

So Quinn pushed and guessed more wildly than she ever had. “Of course I comprehend what you did! You’ve been weaving your very own people into one big sacrificial net in order to fuel chaotic energy into overpowering the Library’s filtration systems.”

There, that sounded about as wild as she could manage.

Adrito’s wing sound changed ever so slightly. When he finally spoke, his voice was filled with suspicion. “How... there’s no way that can be a guess. Who told you?”

Quinn blinked rapidly and kept moving so he couldn’t hone in on her voice. She could only distort it so much with some help from healing manuals to use vibration on her vocal chords. How could she have been even close to right? That was the most ludicrous and far-fetched thing she’d been able to muster based on the very loose information she’d gathered while healing Eugea.

Then again... the universe was magical.

And, as if he heard that question, Adrito continued. “Who told you about the sacrificial net... surely you haven’t captured one of us?”

His voice sounded closer, and Quinn felt panic flutter through her chest. She had to remain calm. They needed as much information as they could get.

Doing her best to keep her fear under control, she spoke again. “Now, why would I tell you how I know? It seems you don’t know everyone around you as well as you thought.”

“Rubbish, Librarian. Now you’re just making things up.” His voice was way too close for comfort now. “Just who did you capture to reveal such an integral part of the plan? The rest of your guess is wildly off, but this...”

Not for the first time, Quinn wished she already knew how to teleport, but was certain it would be quite messy if she attempted to wing it. She didn’t answer him this time, and concentrated instead on trying to find another place to hide, trying to get away from where she knew he hovered. All the while attempting to come up with a plausible reason for her belief other than I added two and two and got four.

“The net won’t work, you know.” She said, making the sound bounce off the sides of the dome.

Adrito’s laugh echoed throughout the area again. “And what makes you say that then?” he asked, his voice dripping with slime.

“The net won’t withstand the chaotic elements you want to feed through it.” Quinn was even less sure of that answer. Surely he was about to call her on her bullshit?

“Of course it won’t, but it’ll last long enough to guide it right to where we want it.”

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She could hear the malevolence in his voice, the vitriol almost dripped from his words. And suddenly a clarity washed over her, and she knew exactly what they intended. With all the books they had, all the dimensionally related books...

“You’re not going to...” she murmured, hardly realizing she’d just spoken out loud.

“Oh yes we are,” Adrito’s voice came softly from right behind her.

Quinn darted forward and sought refuge behind a series of rocks. But they all dissipated slowly, one by one, leaving her nothing to hide behind.

She lashed out with a gust of wind, directly at his face, but Adrito batted it away as if it were nothing.

“Really, Quinn...” Adrito said, as he floated menacingly toward her. “What did you think you were doing? Did you sincerely forget it’s my imagination this entire area was created from? Everything in this dome is powered by my imagination. I can put the rock there, and I can make it vanish. Took me a while to figure it out, though.”

He flexed his hand and the other rocks near her disintegrated into nothing, into pinpoints of light before vanishing.

Quinn scrambled back, trying desperately to figure out how to keep him villain monologuing for long enough to buy her some time. Or, to be more specific, buy the people outside of the dome enough time to break in past Adrito’s defenses and get her out.

Adrito, still well within her line of vision, stretched his arms over his head, joined them together, and cracked his knuckles. “I could get used to this. Controlling all of my surroundings with my mind. And I’ll be able to, did you know that? Once chaos has chosen me, has realized my potential, and leant me its power. Then... then I’ll be able to make anything a reality that I want to. Create anything I dream of.”

“You could do that now...” Quinn started, but Adrito screamed.

“No! I can’t. No one but the Library can do everything! Don’t you understand? We’re all limited. Restricted because of the Library! But chaos... no, it allows us to reach our full potential once we overcome the trials.”

She could see his eyes and how they swirled. Fanaticism rolled off him in waves.

Trying to keep her wits about her, Quinn kept her voice as steady as she could. “What trials?” She made sure her voice was small so as not to pull him out of his strange half trance.

Adrito only half looked at her, almost through her, a puzzled expression on his face. “Surely you understand the trials?”

She shook her head, wondering if he even saw her. “No...”

Adrito spun in the air, arms outstretched. “But it is the most wonderful of chances. Once chaos is abundant, once we have eliminated the Library’s purpose... chaos will be free to find those of us who are not only loyal, but strong. It will choose those of us who can withstand the onslaught, and we will be baptized in fire, and reborn as the strong. The leaders. The blessed.”

“That’s amazing.” Quinn said, and didn’t elaborate that it was the most amazing load of crap she’d heard in a while, because that would get her nowhere. Instead, she wracked her brain for questions to ask... for the most important question to ask. “Who is we?”

He flew right up to her, where she crouched, not having moved from where she’d been behind the boulders when he made them disappear. His tiny face pushed close to hers, and she could smell a strange sense of rot about him. Not from his breath, but more from his entire being. There was a reason his coloring was so sickly. Something had triggered decay in his body. Perhaps his contact with chaotic magic was already too much to save him.

Not that she’d want to rescue someone like him after he’d already killed tens of thousands of his own people.

His eyes grew impossibly large for just a second before returning to normal. “We is us. All of us. Every single one of the Sölem.”

Quinn didn’t interject. She didn’t dare interrupt the current look of contemplation on his face. She held her breath until he continued speaking.

His eyes grew wide again and something slithered in front of the iris, just for a split second, like there was a foreign body in his eyes. “We are already enlightened. We see the restrictions for what they are, a feeble attempt to control us all and to hoard the magic for yourselves. To restrict the universe instead of letting it grow freely, instead of letting it devour what it needs so that it might become greater. You... are just the people it requires to feed off so that the rest of us will be whole.”

He paused, blinking rapidly, a wave of confusion covering his face... followed by fear. His body convulsed ever so slightly, as if he was about to have a fit.

Quinn’d had a highschool friend who’d had a type of seizure and it often began that way. She moved from her crouch, ignoring the pain that shot through her knees at having sat still for so long. But he shook himself out of it before she could reach him.

“Do not come so close to me!” He screamed at her, sharp teeth bared as spittle flew from his lips.

Quinn could practically smell the fear. Had he also had something internally triggered by an outside source? She backed away, slowly, trying to hold out her hands in a way to show she meant no harm.

“No.” He said, looking at his own hands and not at her as smoke began to rise from them. Then he turned his gaze to Quinn. “I’m supposed to be one of them... I am one of the chosen. All I have to do is kill you! All I have to do is sever your link to the Library and make you all pay. It’s so simple!”

His wings fluttered frankly, and Quinn backed up even more, noticing now that everything around them had fallen away, and she could hear a strange scratching from far above them. She only hoped it was the others and not some weird sort of wasp trying to peck its way through to her. Though she wouldn’t dismiss the latter as a possibility, since her luck had seemed to be going that way recently.

“It’s okay. Take a breath.” She said, trying her best to be soothing toward the homicidal Esposian.

But he snarled at her, even as smoke began to rise from his wings. “You’re right here. I can end you and fulfill my contract. Chaos will cleanse me in his name, and you will no longer stand in our way.”

“In whose name was that?” Quinn asked, backing up a few more steps. The smoke appeared to be hindering Adrito’s wings something bad. He was starting to lose his equilibrium.

But at her question, he looked up, confusion plain on his face. “He that is all... he that was there at the very beginning.”

The smoke was thicker now, consuming him, eating away at his wings. The sadness and confusion on his face almost made Quinn feel sorry for him. Except for the fact that he found a momentary burst of speed and was almost upon her before she could blink.

Quinn held up her hands and aimed her shielding at him, her only thoughts to encase him before whatever was trying to eat at him spread, but she released it a split second after an arrow caught him through the side and sent him plummeting to the ground.

He hit the ground with a thud, the arrow and blood frozen by her shielding as he lay on the ground unconscious.