Despite how absolutely adorable the dog-ears were, even as they jumped around on everyone, sniffing their feet, tugging at their pants, the state of the alchemical and medical branch was quite saddening.

They could survey the interior now there was no dimension eel to bug them. Even though it sat off its enclosure to the side, it seemed to be swimming happily in the clear substance inside it. But now, looking at the section closer, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of books strewn all over the floor. This made Quinn that much more grateful for the fact that she had been hovering during most of the eel capturing fiasco.

She didn't think she'd stepped on any books.

The books were scattered and damaged, far worse than anything she'd seen since she first walked into the Library all those months ago. It'd be a long process to restore all of these tomes. They needed the book doctor.

But Narilin was still healing up in the hospital after the entire debacle with the Balisors. It'd take a few more days at least. The type of damage done to the entire Balisor clan and anybody who'd come into contact with the Bardocian root was long-lasting. It was reversible to a certain extent, as long as they hadn't been exposed for too long. Karella was an extremely difficult case, considering how long she'd been under its influence. Narilin, by comparison, was almost better, just not quite.

So instead, her cousin Jane, who always assisted her, came to examine the situation. Quinn didn't even notice when she entered because she was in the middle of speaking to Hal.

"I thought you said you had a surprise for me. I could really do with a cheer me up," She pushed him, trying to coax it out due to genuine curiosity.

"I don't think you could do this particular cheer me up right now so how about we get all this sorted, young egg, and then I'll talk to you about the surprise." His half condescending, half grandfatherly tone was sometimes confusing.

Quinn glowered at him for a second before shrugging, "You know, I didn't know what it was, don't know what it is. But we do know we need to pick up these books."

Dottie trotted over with Carty, who Quinn hadn't seen in quite some time, rolling along behind her. She wasn't about to ask how the cart got up the spiral staircase to get here. She knew that the staircases could sometimes become ramps and she wouldn't put it past the cart to now be able to levitate because there was enough energy available in the Library. She'd seen more obscure, unbelievable things since coming to the Library than she ever thought possible. Everything was possible, maybe not probable, but possible. It was always there.

"Carty," she said, "my hero who dragged me up flights of stairs when I could barely move."

"Oh thank you, Librarian," he said, "I'm a bit chuffed you remember that. Anyway, let's have a bit of a look, shall we?" The cart was all business. He rolled over to where Jane was and gently tapped Jane.

She blinked looking around. "Oh Carty," She seemed at a loss for words, which was something that Narilin never was.

"What do you think?" Quinn asked.

"I don't really know what to think. The culinary branch didn't do this. Why is this in such a mess?" She asked.

Quinn shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure you'd believe us if we told you, but I'll tell you anyway. Um, when shifted into its dimensional stasis, I guess you'd call it, it seemed we forgot there was a dimensional eel contained inside."

"Ouch." Jane looked very thoughtful. She was slightly different to Narilin and didn't hold herself as separate. The assistant leaned over the books, touching them here and there, inspecting them.

Which made Quinn feel slightly better about the fact that all of the books in this particular branch, were in heavy need of repair. Narilin would get to them eventually, but Jane also seemed to know what she was doing without her cousin.

"So that still doesn't explain the extent of this damage. It would explain why the energy levels in here are very low and thus the books aren't self-repairing the little things like most of them can, but it doesn't explain the sheer... Dimensional shifting shouldn't cause such destruction. Anyway, it is what it is and we must deal with it. Correct? No sense in harping on the past when we have way too much to do in the future." Jane laughed at her own little joke.

Quinn decided she really liked this cousin and even though Narilin had been growing on her a little more, Jane was sort of more Quinn's person.

Lynx walked over and threw his hands in the air in a very human gesture. "This is a wreck," he said.

"The Library can fix it, can't it?" Quinn said, to which the Library answered her directly.

I can fix it to a certain extent, but I'm currently managing other things. This requires more precision than you'd think.

"Is there something else we should know about?" Quinn asked worriedly.

No, I can easily rebuild, I can easily expand, but refurbishing isn't my strong suit because I can't actually see the detail that I need to provide. That why we needed the golems to reshelve way back when.

Jane nodded, as if she talked to the Library every day. And, for all Quinn knew, perhaps she did. The assistant book doctor turned around and began sorting some of the books herself.

Quinn looked around, even as Tim and Tom popped into existence right next to her. They bowed in her direction, giving her one of their amazing clay golem smiles, and they went about their work of sorting the books with Carty and Jane, very gently, very specifically. And they began tidying the entire section.

Quinn smiled as she watched them and then sighed. This was going to be a lot of work. Although, being a Librarian and getting to use one of those ladders that reach up high in the bookcase and scooch along as she picked out books reminded her of fairy tales she'd grown up with, with big libraries.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

She liked libraries.

She loved this one.

But sometimes she just wanted to sit down and read a book.

Instead, she hardened her hand with her scales and bent down to pick up some broken glass that shattered when beakers and jars and bottles and vials fell over while the eel ran rampant.

"You know you could just do that with wind, right?" Malakai said.

"Stop grumbling and help me tidy up."

"Fine," he said.

"I'm trying to make you feel better about yourself," Quinn said. "You don't have any magic right now. Or you shouldn't be using magic right now. You didn't use magic, did you?"

"No, Quinn. I didn't use magic in the fight." Malakai rolled his eyes theatrically. "I'm going to be fine."

"Good, good. You've still got to rest and recover. Okay."

Lynx returned and opted to help, although he seemed to open a storage to where Quinn didn't know and take all of the rubbish with him.

"Lynx, you got an answer for me?" Quinn asked.

"An answer to what?" he said.

"Why this branch is almost falling apart while the culinary one wasn't."

He looked her deadpan in the face and said, "I have no clue."

Quinn laughed. She didn't know why exactly, because that wasn't the news she wanted to hear. She wanted him to know exactly what had happened. He was supposed to be retrieving memories, but she was also completely aware that it'd been much more difficult for both him and the Library to retrieve the memories than anticipated.

"I know I shouldn't find that funny," she said, "but I kind of do."

Link grumbled, "Well, at least one of us does."

"Oh, don't be like that," she said. "Look, you locked them all away, right?"

"After the whole debacle with the filtration system, waking up with a massive amount of our power already drained because of how I had to lock her away. Not to mention the fact that we no longer had a Librarian, so it was already going into one of the emergency modes. I just shoved everything that was draining power into its own little pocket area so that it was sealed away and couldn't pull on the power that we couldn't afford to give them."

"So, you sort of sent them into like a 500-year slumber?" Quinn mulled that over.

"Yeah, basically in a stasis - it should have held up over time. As if time didn't pass." Link said, frowning thoughtfully.

"Okay, so we can look at this logically. Maybe some of the levels, like the culinary branch, which is admittedly a little smaller than this area, might have had less destruction in it because it was on the ground floor, do you think? Could location have anything to do with it?" She asked.

He shrugged. "I really have no idea. We won't know until I either remember, research it, or we open more branches and see what state they're in."

"Good point, good point," Quinn said. "Well, either way, getting to know the alchemical and medical branch by having to clean it up isn't the worst thing I can imagine."

Lynx chuckled. "Thanks."

"And next time we open one, maybe we should try and do so gently," Quinn said.

"Is that an option when you open it?" Lynx asked.

"No, it's really not. I just thought maybe we could do that," she said. "It'd be nice, hey. Please open the branch gently. Pull it through softly."

I can hear you both, the Library said into their heads, which only sent Quinn off laughing more.

It was strange. They had like 300 patients in a hospital wing that they'd built, with doctors and surgeons taking care of them. There was a whole group of the Sölem out there trying to tarnish the Library and bring it down. The Library's brother had turned on them all and wanted to see the Library dead and gone, and Chaos returned to the universe, and Quinn couldn't help but find joy in this tiny bit of rebuilding the Library.

"You know," she said.

"What?" asked Malakai, but his tone was soft, and she knew he actually wanted to know.

"I'm just grateful for moments like these. Sometimes it's nice to just stop, recollect why we're here, and appreciate the fact that we are, that we have all these resources around us, and all these people who are willing to step in and help, and that there are magical books," she paused, grinning, "You don't even understand how cool I find that, even after all this time. Magical freaking books, guys."

Malakai smiled at her, patted her hand. "You get excited over the weirdest stuff."

"I know, but isn't that part of my charm?"

He raised an eyebrow. "You have charm?"

"Hey, that's mean."

Lynx chuckled this time, "But he's right."

For the next couple of hours, they cleaned up the alchemical branch, getting everything ready for the glass blowing station, for the milling station, the cauldrons, the cutting station that she didn't exactly understand, but didn't feel like she needed to yet. She even blew a kiss at the dimension eel as she walked past. It floated happily in whatever substance it currently found itself in. And then she visited the terrariums, watching the greenery begin to take hold.

Turning around, Quinn took in the brand new branch. The lights were still all on bright, and the bookcases were back to what she'd expect from the Library. The rich, deep, wood with its ancient essence that lingered all around them. Carty was down to his last delivery of books. There were a lot of holes in the bookcases, which reminded Quinn that she hadn't checked the branch stats. She sighed, not really wanting to bring up the branch stats, and Aradie flew down from one of the tall bookcases, and settled on her shoulder, cooing in her ear.

"I know I need to open them and double-check. I just don't want to." Quinn sighed and pulled up the Library stats. "Here goes."

Alchemical branch officially opened.

Beginner books verified, relegated to main branch Library.

Analyzing intermediate, advanced, master, legendary. Alchemical and medical books.

Processing.

Processing.

Error.

Missing the following number of books.

Alchemical and Medical branch books missing: 5,892, 212 already returned, 5680 still remain outstanding.

Quinn groaned. "Oh, that was so not what I wanted to hear."

Would you like a categorical breakdown?

Yes or no?

"Nope, definitely not right now," she said. "This is a lot."

Malakai elbowed her. "But you're not in it alone."

She looked around at Eric and Geneva arguing over some book they held between them, at Milaro and Hal working side by side in an odd juxtaposition, at the rest of the crew turning the branch into what it was supposed to be. It was a nice, homey sensation.

Quinn nodded slowly, a smile forming on her lips. He was right. She definitely wasn't alone. And for now, that's what she needed.