Nishpa went to speak but stopped. Quinn grew weary of people coming into her office and doing just that. “What is it?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing really. Milaro can just be hard to track down,” Nishpa blinked a couple of times and turned her full attention to Quinn. “I wanted to check and see how you’re doing, anyway.”

“I’ll be okay,” Quinn replied. “Still dealing with a lot up here,” she pointed to her head, “and a bit in here,” she pointed to her heart. “I just got sucked into a magical fantasy world and all I got were book hoarding aliens that keep wanting to steal my books and destroy my Library and me. In doing so, they hurt a friend and that’s a little bit more than I thought I’d have to deal with as a Librarian when I chose it as a career path.”

Nishpa chuckled and Quinn smiled.

“It’s good that you can laugh about it,” Nishpa said.

“Yeah, if we don’t laugh, we’ll cry, right?” Quinn replied. “I just... it can be hard.”

“Precisely,” Nishpa agreed. “Just know I have cleared everything with Escadril’s family and I’ve arranged the Balisor meeting too. I’m not entirely sure what the reception will be like, but we’ll deal with it.”

Quinn nodded. She heard voices approaching. One was definitely Milaro and the other...

“Lynx,” she said as he rounded the corner. She paused. He was back in Lynx form. He came up to about mid-thigh on Milaro and was animatedly chatting with the Elven King. “What brings you here?”

“I was in the section of the Library he got your books from,” Lynx said. “I don’t know that I agree with him on the books he chose, but he has good reasoning, so I’ll allow it.”

“You’ll allow it, will you?” Quinn raised an eyebrow.

Lynx chuckled. A chuckle was a very strange thing coming from an actual lynx. It was sort of disconcerting and yet somehow really cool.

Milaro simply glared at the lynx and placed two very large books on Quinn’s desk in front of her. She raised an eyebrow as she read the names: Jade’s Mental Arithmetics of Prevention and Barley’s Diametrically Opposed Mental Defence as an Application.

Quinn frowned. “Diametrically opposed to what?” she asked.

Milaro chuckled. “Trust me, absorb the book and you’ll understand. He was the first to jump in with an opposite opinion to everything. This book is him just giving you ways that people will circumvent any and all defences that you put up. However, he also gives examples of how you might overcome and withstand those attacks or even better yet, battle those one on one and win.”

“Oh, that sounds really cool,” Quinn said.

“It is. Now absorb them. I bought you energy food.” He placed two cupcakes on the table in front of her.

Quinn raised an eyebrow. They looked delicious. One of them looked suspiciously like red velvet with a cream cheese frosting. The other one looked like a piece of vanilla cupcake sliced from the heavens with maybe buttercream. If what she was sensing was right. Or she could be totally out of it. She’d always had a good nose, but that would be a difficult distinction to make. She continued to examine them. “These are energy food?”

“Yes. Cook decided you deserved more appetizing energy replenishment food.”

“I won’t argue with that,” Quinn said, unable to keep the delight from her tone.

“Go on, absorb the books. We haven’t got all day,” Lynx said, jumping up onto the couch and curling into a ball. His feet disappeared under his body and Quinn was reminded of cat memes again.

“I should, should I?” she said.

“Oh, definitely.” Milaro grinned. “They’re energy replenishment. So once you start using energy, the regeneration will kick in.”

“Fine,” she said, and took the red velvet one, eating it in four massive, sweet-filled bites. “Oh, it’s so good,” she said.

Milaro smiled. “Glad you like it. Now absorb the book. Don’t put the food to waste.”

She opened the Mental Arithmetics book, placed her hands just above the pages, and breathed in the magic, activating it. It went through her fingertips, all through her body. She could feel it igniting every single vein, every single cell. It was different now that she’d learned so much about herself and the way her fire magic moved through her system. It was the same for every single other bit of power she possessed. It needed to know her inside and out so that it didn’t accidentally rip her apart when she overused it, or when she almost misused it, which she hadn’t done yet. But she knew it was a definite possibility.

It suffused her very being, all the knowledge diving into her brain and finding similarities that she’d already absorbed. Instances where she’d already used mind magic. And it began melding, weaving all the information together. She could feel every single word as it found its place and its purpose within her mind. She couldn’t reach for that knowledge yet, but it was there. And it just needed time to percolate, or cook, along with the rest of everything it related to.

Her eyes flooded open as the information came to settle in her mind. She glanced at her energy, because she hadn’t actually checked before absorbing the book. Which, in hindsight, had been quite ill conceived.

“Wow,” she said. “That took a whopping 1,200 energy, but it’s already ticking back up.”

“That was a hefty book,” Milaro said. “Let yourself regenerate some of that energy.”

She nodded, feeling slightly spacey in her head. She could already feel her mind probing elements of her defences and she began to understand there were cracks in them. Things she needed to build and do and protect better.

“Okay,” she said, cracking her neck from side to side. “I think I’m still good.”

“Well, you could eat the other cupcake,” Lynx said. “I know Cook thought you’d really like that one.”

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Quinn chuckled. “I think I’ll save it.”

“Very well,” Lynx said. “I wanted to know what it tasted like.”

“Pretty sure it’s going to be vanilla,” Milaro chuckled.

“I’ll save some of the frosting for you,” Quinn grinned at the feline and Lynx purred in response.

Nishpa simply watched them.

“Go on,” Milaro said. “Do the next one.”

Quinn checked the energy usage for this one. It required 1,300, which she had in abundance, and she’d still have several hundred left when she’d finished with this one. But it was probably best to check the books beforehand from now on.

This time, the energy stung as it rushed through her body. She felt that this book, in particular, was close to being an advanced book and maybe a bit beyond her reach. But she strained with it, she accepted it, and she let the sting soothe her until it faded. That information was even more encompassing and so complex that she was definitely going to need to sleep on this one to understand what the hell she’d just learned.

“How do you feel?” Milaro asked, leaning a little across the table. His brow furrowed.

“I feel okay,” Quinn said. “I just feel a little stuffed, you know, full of knowledge and crap.” She shrugged, stretched her shoulders, because she’d started feeling sick and then realized she’d been sitting like that for a while now. “Oh, more time passed than I thought.”

“That was one very involved book,” Milaro said, in an evasive way that made Quinn think he wasn’t telling her everything.

“What aren’t you telling me, Milaro?”

“Well, I mean, generally speaking, if you’re not yet ready, magic-wise, to absorb the knowledge of a book, it won’t actually work.” Quinn blinked at him. “You mean you weren’t certain that I’d be able to absorb the information in this book?”

“I was mostly certain you’d be able to. You have come a very long way in regard to your mental magic.” Milaro acted like he genuinely thought it was okay.

“And, to be fair,” Lynx added, “I accompanied him for precisely this reason. Just in case.”

Quinn glared at them both. It was like they thought Lynx being there made all the difference. “Well, it’s happened now. You could have given me a heads-up. We’ve talked about this, Milaro.”

He hesitated, and she watched as realization dawned on him and he paled a shade. “Ah, yes, that, that was very uncool of me, wasn’t it?”

“Don’t do it again.”

He sighed. “I sincerely believed you’d be able to do it. I just, there was a very slight chance. Frankly, there’s always a very slight chance that you might not be able to absorb it.”

“And what’s going to happen to me if I try to absorb a book’s contents and it only half-absorbs and doesn’t work?” Quinn leaned forward at her desk, trying her best not to get too upset. After all, there was no harm done, and yet...

Milaro shook his head vehemently. “That’s can’t happen,” he said. “That’s not how it works. You’re either able to absorb them or not. You might get a slight backlash if you can’t, but it’s not going to be any worse than a few of the headaches you’ve had from overusing magic.”

She nodded. “The lighter headaches, right?”

“Of course! Not the almost collapsing type,” Milaro said, looking anywhere but directly at Quinn. She sighed. They weren’t going to get any further, but at least he did seem somewhat contrite.

“Are you quite done with her now?” Nishpa asked, perhaps taking pity on the fact that Quinn probably looked like she wanted to smack both Lynx and Milaro’s heads together. She was just too short to do so. Milaro glanced at Lynx, who stood up and stretched.

“I believe we’re done. She does have to sleep. You know that, right, Nishpa?” Lynx drawled out as he stretched languidly, lightly pawing at the ground.

Nishpa raised an eyebrow at the Lynx. “Yes, I’m fully aware of that. You realise mind healing is quite literally what I do?”

Lynx stretched again and shrugged his feline shoulders. “I’m aware. I apologise for coming across as abrasive.”

“You’re definitely back to your old self, Lynx,” Nishpa said, fondly reached out and scratched behind his ears.

“Don’t do that. You know I’m not a real cat,” He muttered, even if he sounded somewhat pleased.

“Then stop turning up like one, and I won’t have to resist the urge.” Nishpa scolded without any real force.

Lynx stepped back and sat on his haunches on the ground, just below the couch. “Maybe I don’t mind it so much,” he said. “I’m trying to remember all the kindness. From before we started getting my memories back, I want to thank you. I’ve learned a new level of appreciation from this.”

Quinn had to pick her jaw up from the floor. Well, practically anyway. Milaro laughed out loud. “It took this to teach you that lesson?”

“You know, I’ve always just been busy.” He practically growled before continuing. “I just didn’t have time to...”

“Be nice?” Nishpa teased him.

Lynx harrumphed and glared at her.

“And now go back to being busy. Stop running around the Library like you own it.”

Quinn couldn’t stop laughing. Nishpa and Lynx had a great rapport. It made her miss Malakai.

Nishpa shot her a glare. “Enough from you. We have a lot to do to prepare to leave.”

“Yes, sorry.” Quinn did her best to sound contrite.

“The Feshpa Alin region is not the best for humanoid species,” Nishpa looked her up and down. “You, however, can fly. At least you’ll be able to hover over the root systems.”

“Root systems?” Quinn asked.

“Yes, the Feshpa Alin region is home to the Salosier and more of their cousins and related species. You, you don’t want to accidentally step on somebody’s root system.”

Quinn thought about the forests she’d been in, like the one they went to when they visited Arnekai in the darigháhnish region of space. She’d stepped on plenty of roots then. She nodded emphatically. “Right. Hovering it is then?”

“Yes. Don’t land on anything that isn’t specifically marked. And Narilin and I will take you over what specific marking means and—”

“Isn’t that where you’re supposed to be going?” Lynx said, impatience coming to the fore. “I thought you were taking her off our hands.”

“Hey!” Quinn said. “Taking me off your hands? Right now, I’d just like to kick you guys out. I could do with a nice little nap. My head feels the size of the Sahara Desert.”

“The Sahara, what now?” Lynx raised a bushy feline eyebrow.

“The Sahara Desert?” Milaro asked. “Is that—”

“Yes. It’s an earth-ism. It’s not even a saying. I was just trying to find a comparison. Maybe I should have used the Pacific Ocean.”

“Which we also wouldn’t have understood.” Milaro pointed out ever so kindly.

“Fine,” she said. “My head is just a little cotton woolly. It feels like I’m not going to absorb much more.” Nishpa frowned. “Well, you don’t need much right now. You should probably eat, pack, get an early night, because we’ll have to leave in the middle of the night.”

“What?” Quinn didn’t like the sound of that. “I like sleeping in a bit.”

“Yes, but we have to get to the Feshpa Alin region of space, and we have to observe the Salosier start of the day. And if we don’t get there before the sun rises for them, then they may take that as an affront. And we do not—I repeat, we do not want to give the Balisor any reason at all to take affront to us. So we’ll have to leave around midnight here.”

“But that’s really soon, in like 12 hours.”

“Exactly, and that’s why we need to go now. Come on.” Quinn sighed and pushed herself to standing, as Aradie went and flew onto her shoulder. She cooed in Quinn’s ear. “Yeah, I know. You better just be able to come with me this time.” To which Aradie shot her pictures of beautiful forests with amazing foliage and trees. “Oh, you like it there?” She reached up and scritched Aradie’s feathers behind her ears.

“Quinn, come on!” Nishpa called out, already at the door. “We need to brief Narilin and get you ready for tomorrow’s departure.”

“The Librarians’ work is never done,” Quinn mumbled under her breath, and she swore Aradie laughed.