Quinn suppressed a groan as the information continued to flicker in front of her eyes.

Main Branch Tome Report

4214 are still outstanding from the initial overdue amount. 13828 books returned. No books in reproduction. 312 in repair status. 17 missing restricted books.

Horticulture: 575/720

Bardic Musical: 632/897

Crafting: 529/730

Alchemical/Medicinal: 381/384

Combat: 791/837

Academy: 645/785

Culinary Arts: 282/282 - Culinary Branch Open - 3015 Books of 3795 remaining, 780 culinary specialist books returned. Would you like a categorical breakdown?

Yes or No?

No. It was always going to be no. For now anyway.

At the moment, she didn’t have the stamina to take in a whole heap of other parameters. Frankly, she was ever so slightly scared that opening the categorical breakdown would show her a gazillion other things the culinary branch needed. That wasn’t something she needed right then.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and counted to five. It wasn’t that Dottie and Geneva had done anything wrong. On the contrary, they’d done everything right, she’d just not been expecting such fast results.

“This is pretty impressive,” she said finally, unable to think of another way to express it. Because it truly was a feat in and of itself. “How did you do that?”

If Dottie had been able to, Quinn was fairly sure she would have blushed right then.

“I just had to organize the assistants and enlist several of my own friends to help gather the books. If they weren’t coming to us, we had to go and get them.” Pride and certainty filled her voice. She was certainly excited about what she’d pulled off. “It’s been almost three weeks since you said I could take care of it.”

That last bit sounded defensive. Quinn didn’t want Dottie to feel like she’d done something wrong. “I appreciate you taking care of that while I got myself sorted. I’m taking it the last three have been difficult things to gather?”

“Yes.” Dottie said, her tone certain.

“Actually...” Geneva started, glancing at Dottie to check if she had the go ahead. “We’re not entirely certain where the last three books for the alchemical and medicinal wings have gone...”

“How do you mean?” Quinn asked. Losing books appeared to be becoming a habit. “Have they been abandoned by the families they were left to? Have they disappeared? Is the system not able to track them?”

“All of the above really. Two of them we have locations for where they’ll require retrieval, but the other, while the system appears able to ascertain that it is still checked out, it cannot find a location.” Geneva sounded so apologetic. “We’d really hoped to have this all sorted before you got back on your feet.”

Quinn glanced over at the check-in desk where the assistants she largely didn’t know were working furiously under the guidance of Eric. He sat on the desk for once, instead of hovering in place. She really hoped he’d end up being fine. Hal promised he would.

“I’m okay, you know,” she said to Dottie and Geneva without looking back at them. “My wounds healed pretty fast, and I got my energy and stamina back almost immediately. It’s just the control I have to get down. No control and I’ll burn myself and all of us to the ground. Not exactly the best sort of Librarian behavior, right?”

The silence was sort of uncomfortable in the wake of her words. Quinn sighed heavily this time, feeling a bit of the weight of the universe pressing down on her shoulders. “So... do we have any idea where I need to start to find this book?”

Lynx cleared his throat in that annoying fake way he did. Considering he didn’t technically have an actual throat... “You’ll need to get all three of them. Two of the households are disbelievers of the Library’s return and the third book is... going to be difficult to find.”

Quinn suppressed a groan. As if that wasn’t the story of her life since coming to the Library. Finding those pesky, difficult books was basically all they needed her for. Slight exaggeration, but still. “Show me what you’ve got then.”

Dottie practically bounced into Quinn’s office, and the Librarian followed her, smiling to herself.

Once inside, Aradie swooped in, intoning a low soothing hoot as she swept over to the back of Quinn’s massive office chair and perched on top of it. With Lynx in tow, Dottie and Geneva by her side, everything felt pretty good with her own little world.

Except for Malakai and the others being badly damaged by Kajaro’s vortex frisbees, not to mention the fact that they couldn’t even put an end to Kajaro because the snake had nine lives... although they knew he’d already been through at least one of them. If she tried to just push all of that to one side, then things weren’t too horrible.

Quinn turned around thoughtfully, taking in the space. Right now, the room wasn’t filled to the brim with the conference table and seats. In fact, it had an additional comfortable couch in it. About to ask why it was there, her answer came in the form of Jasper launching herself from the door, across the room to lounge on it.

Quinn raised her eyebrow at the Alyenarvor. “You’re looking mighty comfortable there.”

“Aren’t I?” Jasper grinned. “And you look like you’re in one piece and not going to set me on fire today.”

Quinn cringed. That had become a slight problem recently. Her temper flared, so did her fire affinities. All at once, regardless of how close she was to other people or any type of flammable material. “It’s slowly getting better.”

Thing was, it didn’t have to be a temper. All it had to be was a stark emotion shift. Scared. Startled. Sudden worry. Panic. All of those triggered a shift in the volatile affinities that were her thirty-seven different fire affinities. It was taking time, too much time in her opinion, for her to understand how to react to things without setting herself and everyone else on fire. But she was getting there.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

The compartmentalization option constantly hovered in the back of her mind as an excellent way to avoid setting herself and other people on fire. It just wasn’t a good option.

For example, Jasper catapulting her way across the room by surprise would have probably ended in her being set on fire the previous week, but now Quinn could give her a wry smile and simply ignore the bait.

For the most part.

“I hear you have a book you need to find.” Jasper grinned toothily.

“You hear that right?” Dottie said, her body somehow puffing up with importance without changing in the slightest visually. One of these days, Quinn would learn to judge auras and how they altered perceptions around them. Today wasn’t that day.

Lynx rapped his hand on the desk where he stood close to the chair and Aradie. “There are three books we need to go after. The Hunter Guide to Field Dressings, The Jezishian solution to Maladies of the Mana Pathways - a beginner’s guide, and the Mattiniman balance between mana and energy - explained for the beginner.”

“So they’re all beginner books, then?” Quinn asked, curious.

“Mostly, yes. All introductory texts to their more advanced counterparts that’ll be in the branch once we open it.” Lynx explained.

“We hope?” Quinn added, her brows furrowed in thought.

“More accurate.” Lynx said. “I have no idea what’s in there or isn’t in there, or supposed to not be in there at this stage. But I’d imagine those books were unlikely checked out by anyone nefarious.”

This time Jasper sighed. “Why did you have to say that?”

Lynx shrugged. “The Library is jinxed enough. I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.”

Quinn motioned for Aradie to jump on her shoulder. But the owl shook her head looking pointedly at that specific shoulder. It’s really fine now. I can bear your weight.

Aradie quite literally rolled her eyes in disbelief, and Quinn couldn’t help a chuckle. Fine, but it should be good tomorrow, right?

Slowly, the owl nodded.

“Alright then. Where do I go for the first one?” Quinn asked mostly of herself as she scrolled through all the information they had on The Hunter guide to Field Dressings.

Except Lynx refused to meet her eyes, in all likelihood hiding something from her — again.

“Not the time, Lynx,” she said, marginally irritated. Miracles could happen though... the fire didn’t even threaten to leak into her veins. She chalked that up as a win.

This time Lynx sighed, quite theatrically. “You’ll need to go to Narilin’s homeworld.”

“Can I visit Escadril while I’m there?” Quinn asked immediately. She’d developed a soft spot for the large, oak-like Salosier. He was gruff, but strong and protective. And they wouldn’t have come through the last battle without him. His injuries still woke her up at night. She wasn’t sure how Salosier healed, but she wasn’t sure if anything could replace the arm he lost to rot.

“Probably. I’m not sure entirely how much distance is between the care facility and the book.”

“Spill. Who has the book?” Quinn asked.

“Narilin’s rivals.” Jasper called out with a certain hint of glee in her voice.

“Why is that so amusing?” Quinn didn’t understand the context here.

“Because!” Jasper was practically cackling by now. “Narilin is the epitome of what the Salosier aspire to be. She’s smart, well versed in so many different languages and scripts it’s amazing. Her abilities with the books? I’ve never seen anyone like it.”

Quinn counted to five. For the second time in far too short order. “And why is this amusing?”

Jasper looked at her like she couldn’t believe Quinn didn’t understand the situation. “Their rival family is nowhere near the level needed to help restore the Library. It’s just ludicrous that they’re holding onto a book and incurring potential fines in the process.”

“Not potential.” Quinn said firmly. “It’s overdue. They’re getting a fine and I’m going to have Eric craft it. It’ll put him in a better mood before Uncle Hal gets here.”

“You’re going to make his day.” Lynx muttered. “He’ll be insufferable.”

“Well then... I guess that’s a lot of us lately.” Quinn winked at him and turned to Dottie. “So point me to the right location and you and I can go fetch this book. Then we’ll have an easy one, right?”

But Dottie was sort of dancing back on her feet, like she was backing away.

“What is it now?”

“I can’t leave. It’s part of my library pact.”

Quinn blinked. Rapidly, trying to sort that piece of information out in her head. “Wait. You have a pact with the Library?”

“Of course I have a pact with the Library.” Dottie repeated, as if it was common knowledge. “A superellex futora can’t survive away from our planet without a pact.”

Yet another text Quinn needed to get for species information. At this rate, when she had the time, she was going to grab every single volume on every species she could find, and spend a few months devouring them. “Anything else I should know about that pact right now except for the fact that you can’t leave the Library?”

“Nothing relevant.” Dottie said without even a hint of hesitation.

Quinn didn’t push it any further. It wouldn’t get them anywhere anyway. Instead, she focused on the information being shared with her. Feshpa-Alin region of space. Which was the adjacent region to the Tecopsis, the cousins of the Salosier.

Not that it meant anything when she could just open a door and step into another region of the universe.

“Will we have any resistance?” She asked. “Like, other than the fact that they are withholding the book.”

Geneva shook her head. “Shouldn’t have any. This family probably just wants the Librarian’s ear...” she added the last somewhat dubiously.

Quinn checked over the information on the region, relieved to see that she wouldn’t require any special gear to breathe there. Except... she sighed as she noticed some fine print.

“You will need specific foods to combat the elevated alkaline in the atmosphere.”

Quinn turned, her mouth open in shock. “Cook?”

She’d never seen them out of the kitchen in all the months since he’d first entered the small one they started with.

“One and the same Librarian.” Cook held out four small bags, each packed with a selection of dense squares Quinn couldn’t identify.

“These are?”

“Make sure you take only the bags as labeled. Each species has different levels I need to combat against. These will keep you safe whenever you decide to go.” Cook bowed once briefly.

“You should visit more often.” Quinn said, smiling. She was glad to see them out of the kitchen, even if it felt a little odd.

Cook shook their head. “I am less comfortable out here. But should you need me... I would return.” They whispered the last of that with a hint of actual emotion, of determination.

Quinn smiled. “Thank you.”

She watched them go and was about to start gathering together those coming with her when she stopped cold. No one looked even remotely like they were getting ready to leave. “Are we not going yet?”

“Ah. No.” Lynx said, his eyes flickering as if he was scouring the data collections. “Not quite yet.”

“And why not?” Quinn prompted.

“Because while you’ve been sequestered away learning how to control your awakening stuff, the power levels ticked over and you have yet to visit the core.” Lynx crossed his arms and stared her down.

“Oh.” said Quinn. “Why didn’t you just say so? Do I need to synchronize?” She asked, almost hopeful. Although considering the news she learned the last time... maybe she shouldn’t be.

“Not yet. The system is still getting used to the new influx and our memories haven’t all been recovered. But we do have one big problem to address...”

“Ah.” Quinn nodded as the pieces clicked into place. New influx of power meant they needed to activate more pillars. And it meant...

There was a rumbling beneath Quinn’s feet, and she looked up at Lynx in confusion, even though she sort of, kind of, had an inkling. A guess she didn’t want to be true.

“Yes. That would be Ashiron straining at its bindings.”

“Well, hell...”