The shivers that ran up and down Quinn’s spine had nothing to do with the atmosphere they were in. It was that voice, that one voice, that still haunted her in nightmares. It was a voice she apparently followed with her mind whenever he spoke of something involving her - to the extent that she could track him down and listen to his plans on a more astral presence level that she didn’t understand.

And now, here he was. Kajaro, in the flesh, most definitely not dead, and not an image projected inside of her head. She slammed her shielding into place, thickening it, making it as dense around herself and her companions as she could.

“Oh, little librarian,” Kajaro said, his tone mocking. He moved toward her, his body swaying in that sinuous movement only snakes possess. “I see you’ve all grown up now.”

Quinn scowled. She didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t imagined meeting him face to face so soon. In her mind, she’d be stronger, more sure of her abilities and herself, and thrash the ever living breath out of him. She’d never imagined what she would say to him when she got to confront him, because this wasn’t the ambush she’d been expecting. They’d been supposed to ambush the Sölem, not the other way around.

And she could tell, as Hal rallied himself, that he’d been completely blindsided as well. But he recovered quicker than Quinn could think of something to say, or not to say, or maybe to crack that emergency escape teleport that Milaro had given her. It took a lot of willpower not to do the latter.

She breathed deeply as Hal shifted his stance and plastered a cocky smile on his face. “Ah, is that you underneath that hood? I should have taken bets on it.”

Hoody didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he withdrew into himself slightly and pulled behind Kajaro. It was comical in a morbid sort of way, given Hoody was a lot bulkier than the serpent man. Quinn desperately wanted to know who it was, especially if Hal knew him. He had to be, like, ancient, right?

Kajaro laughed. “It seems he doesn’t want to talk to you,” Kajaro said. The S was long, sibilant, so snake-like. For a second he turned around and looked at Hoody for a moment before switching his stance back to face Quinn. “So, what brings you to these parts? Uninhabited worlds? You’re not supposed to be here, Librarian.”

“If you hadn’t sabotaged my Library and nicked off with a bunch of my books, then I wouldn’t have to be here now, would I?” Quinn surprised herself with her answer. She’d been thinking those words, but hadn’t imagined she’d have the courage to say them out loud. But she wasn’t scared anymore. In fact, she was actually sort of pissed off. She pointed to the book under his arm and said, “That book belongs to me and my library, and you should bloody well give it back.”

Kajaro raised the equivalent of a Serpensiril eyebrow. “What, or else you’ll glare me to death? You don’t even know what’s in this book.”

“I do know what’s in that book. You’ve already lost two of the five set. You know that, right?” She put one hand on her hip and did glare at him to drive home the point.

“I practically gave you one myself,” he scoffed, waving the mention of DeKarlyle’s book away.

But Quinn wasn’t about to be intimidated or to have the narrative changed up on her. He might have taken the chance to plant the mind bomb in her, but she was a hundred percent certain he’d never thought, not in a million years, that her and Malakai would be capable of taking him down. “We also retrieved that one from the Esposian continents”

Kajaro nodded and then yawned, his forked tongue darting out of his mouth as he glanced slyly over at Hal. “Ah, yes. Adrito. Whatever have you done with him? I can’t sense him at all.”

Hal grinned slowly. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yes.” Kajaro blinked. “I would, that’s why I asked.”

Hal actually laughed that full-throated laugh of his, as if he hadn’t expected the response at all. “Kajaro - you and I would probably be marvelous friends if you weren’t a zealous fanatic.”

“Likely, but in order for that to happen, you’d have to stop being an inane oaf.” Kajaro shot back.

Quinn rolled her eyes, all the while monitoring the people who surrounded the Serpensiril. She’d noticed there were two aracnios with him. Their carapaces seemed quite darker than Jim and Bob’s had been. All eight appendages and mandibles moved restlessly, their many eyes on everything at once as they swayed in the non-existent breeze. These guys looked vicious.

There were two sedimentites directly behind Hoody and Kajaro. They looked like a living bunch of boulders, and as they shifted, the ground rumbled ever so slightly. And from their demeanours they were nothing like Larry, the jolly little sedimentite who was one of her library assistants. She missed the Library, and they’d only been here a few hours.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the one she didn’t know, who looked extremely much like a salosier, but was shorter and stockier, gnarled and almost looked like the wood he was made of was burned beyond recognition even though it obviously hadn’t crumbled into charcoal. Information flashed up in front of her face and she remembered she wasn’t stuck in a dream and the system had grown strong enough to reach most places. He was a petraligno, and his name was Itujo.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Okay, she could deal with that. And for those few seconds, Hal and Kajaro continued to trade insults, and if Quinn wasn’t mistaken, Hoody was casting a spell... some sort of magic swelled around him.

She shot out her right hand, having found gestures really helped her when executing something new she’d come up with. “Encase.” She spoke the word, wrapping a shielding around Hoody’s hands similar to what she’d used on Adrito, to interrupt whatever ritual or spell he was muttering under his breath.

It didn’t work the same way, but it achieved her purpose of halting the spell casting.

Hoody looked up, surprise reflecting in the eyes she only saw briefly before he turned his face away and growled. The sound reverberated through the ground in a guttural noise. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“What?” Quinn asked, battering her eyelashes innocently. “Am I just supposed to let you cast your spells on us without fighting back?”

“It’d be easier on all of us if you would.” His voice held a lilting quality that sounded familiar, as if she should know the person speaking, or someone close to it.

“Obviously it’s. not one of my goals to make anything easy on you,” she said. “So how about you just give me back my book and we won’t have to kick your ass?”

Hoody blinked at her, and then Kajaro laughed. It was a strange sound, like tree branches devoid of leaves skittering over a tin roof. The sound was brittle and yet bold as it snaked down her spine, practically rebounding off her bones within her skin. The sensation wasn’t one Quinn relished. She double-checked her shielding, triple-checked her mind and felt safe within her abilities to control. It gave her more confidence to speak to him.

But Kajaro was smirking at her as the silence grew.

“What’s your deal?” She asked, trying to keep the defensiveness from her tone. “Just give me the book and bugger off so I can go back to my job?”

He laughed, full-throated, and echoed around the clearing. “Oh, librarian, you’re not even supposed to be here. You were supposed to die, what eight years ago? I don’t even know how old you are. A long time ago, before you ever had the chance to come here.”

Quinn scowled, pushing down at her initial reaction to the obvious anger bait he placed temptingly right in front of her. “Guess I don’t like dying.”

“We seem to have that in common.” Kajaro actually laughed. And Hoodie, well, he joined in.

Hal clapped his hands together. “Enough of this. Davishk, it’s about time you told me what you’re doing here.”

Davishk stepped out from behind Kajaro and pushed his hood back, flexing the fingers on his hands that Quinn had hurt earlier. His features resembled what Quinn would think of as an upright, bearded dragon. He had beautifully smooth scales accentuated by black ridges, even though they glowed a strange sort of golden-green underneath.

“Really, Halithrija? You, of all people, are telling me this is enough?” Davishk threw his head back and laughed. His scales glistened in the strange double twilight that had settled over them in the last ten minutes. The others they’d come with moved as if of one mind. “You take all the fun out of things, and for that, I believe I owe you payback.”

Quinn knew, deep down, who this Davishk was. Who he had to be. And suddenly, everything clicked into place. It all made so much more sense now. Her own skin bristled underneath her armor. As if the scales were trying to get out, to answer whatever call Davishk was putting out. She exerted all the calm mind techniques she knew, attaining complete control over her own body and soothing the cosmicisodracus portion of her into taking a back seat for now.

Davishk looked around, his expression confused for a second. “Where is she?” he asked, the question directed pointedly at Hal.

Hal shifted, allowing his usual resting height to fully emerge. His eyes followed the movement of their opponents as he did so, cracking his neck as he took everything in. “You’ll have to be a bit more specific, dear cousin. After all, you know how thick I can be, right?”

Hoody looked decidedly peeved at the comment. He opened his jaw to say something but close it again as if he’d had second thoughts. “She’s here. I can sense her. Do you have the manifestation hiding somewhere here? Is that it? He shouldn’t even be functional.” He said the latter with a sneer, in such a way that Quinn wanted to jump the distance and punch his mouth shut for him.

But even with this much back and forth, she could tell this Davishk fellow was far too powerful for her. For now, anyway. Besides, she had a sneaking suspicion that right now, it would be unwise to draw more attention to herself. Malakai inched closer, placing himself slightly to the side of her and a step in front of her. She appreciated the gesture because judging from the abject terror in her gut right now, this was what the premonitions she’d been having were all about.

“You’re just getting emanations from us because we’ve all been in that little pocket of the universe. You know that.” Hal sounded convincing, but Quinn suspected it was herself Davishk was sensing, and that didn’t bode well for any of them. If he found out...

But it seemed Hal was on the same page.

“Are you going to stand there sniffing the air, or do I have to throw the first punch?” He asked, and didn’t wait for an answer. A split second later, he hurled a massive fireball directly at the Petraligno, who’d moved closer to Nishpa, catching both him and Davishk off guard. The latter of which caught a second fireball directly after.

The Petraligno screeched with a sound that wasn’t like anything Quinn had ever heard before.

Quinn cringed. Popped a regeneration lolly, and reinforced all the shielding she had up. Distract Davishk from the truth. That’s what they had to do now.

“Escadril!” Hal yelled through their communication link. And a split second later, the massive Salosier appeared, landing in a super hero pose directly in front of the king of Halschius. He stood up, even as roots shot up through the ground, tangling themselves around the feet of every single member of their attacker’s group.

“Took you a mite longer to call me than I anticipated,” He mumbled to Hal.

“I was busy,” Hal shrugged his answer as he raised a hand to fend off Davishk’s first attack with a shield like substance Quinn didn’t understand. He looked at her. “Focus Quinn.”

And she realized she’d been staring. Suddenly, Hal spoke in her mind again. I’ll distract him while you both pull Kajaro as far away from Dravishk as you can.

Quinn nodded. That she could do. Summoning her ice balls, she sent foot long sharpened darts aimed with deadly precision toward his face. Preoccupying him with those allowed Malakai to herd him in the direction they wanted. It would have been great if she wasn’t a hundred percent sure he was currently biding his time.

She only wished she knew for what.