Quinn didn’t need Malakai to tell her twice. “Well, let’s get going. Thank you, Harish. Bye.” She took one more glance over her shoulder at where Misha’s, perhaps eventual, body was soaking in goop and walked out of the room. It was highly disturbing having seen Misha like that, so this was a welcome distraction. They made their way to the hospital wing.
“You doing okay there?” Malakai asked, nudging her like he always did.
“Yeah, I’ll live.”
“Really? That dire?”
Quinn thought about it, but it wasn’t even that. It was something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “No, not that dire, just...
“Have you been texting home?”
The question caught her off guard, and she shrugged. “Every now and again.”
“Do you still miss it?”
“Of course I miss it.” And having to answer that question made her realize that she did miss it. “I just didn’t have much keeping me there, anyway.”
“You miss Hallie, don’t you?” Malakai sounded a little smug, like he knew everything.
“Not... maybe a bit.” She squinted over at him. “I always thought she was annoying, but I sort of... I guess I got used to her.”
“Funny that,” Mal said. “I’ve gotten used to this really annoying Librarian that came and invaded my universe.”
Quinn punched him lightly on the upper arm. “Ha ha, very funny.”
“You really had to reach to punch me that high, didn’t you?”
“Shut up,” Quinn said.
He reached forward and held the door for her, mock-bowing as he waved her through.
“You know, you don’t need to do that,” Quinn said, but thanked him.
He smiled, and they walked, leading the way.
She wasn’t the biggest fan of hospitals. What with all the white and death. Chatting as they walked distracted her from her surroundings. “You know your way around.”
“Yeah, because I keep having to come and get checkups, remember?” He did a broad sweeping gesture of himself. “Super injured, really bad, still can’t use mana quite yet, still have several days that I can’t use mana.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” Quinn said, giving him a wink. “I’d almost forgotten. I wonder why.”
“Hey, be nice. It wasn’t forgettable.”
“True,” she said, putting him out of his misery. “It was kind of heroic.”
“Now you can shut up,” Malakai said, as he pushed open another door and ushered her through. The room was large, maybe 15 by 20 feet. There was a big window and somehow a cloudy blue sky outside. Quinn did a double take. “What the...”
“Don’t ask, it’s a Library thing,” Mal said softly, gesturing for her to walk over to the bed where Irias lay with her pale wooded skin and the strange red veins that ran through her. Her mother Karella sat off to the side, her eyes sort of vacant, as if she wasn’t quite there. Not that Quinn could blame her. She’d lost her husband and almost lost her daughter and couldn’t remember anything that really happened. That sort of stuff? That was nasty.
I thought you said she was awake? Quinn let her inner voice tap on his awareness so that she could speak mind to mind to him.
Well, she kind of was, but she seems to not be now, Malakai said.
Quinn sighed and Karella’s eyes slowly focused on her.
“Oh, Librarian,” she said, “the doctor should be back shortly. She’s sleeping again.” Karella sounded very out of it, not actually fully present in the moment at all. Quinn worried about her.
“How are you doing?” Quinn asked and really wished she hadn’t. There was a pain that flitted through the Salosier’s eyes as if somebody had wrenched out her heart through her nostrils. Very uncomfortable and extremely sad.
“I have my daughter still,” she said, a small smile on her lips that faded almost as quickly as it appeared. “I will persevere,” she said. Suddenly there were footsteps walking toward and then into the room. Quinn had never been so happy to see a doctor before in her life.
“Ah,” Dr. Miles said, “she seems to be stirring again. I had left her to double-check something with Dr. Vivit, but he is currently in surgery and will not be joining us.”
Does Irias need surgery?" Quinn asked, somewhat surprised.
“Oh no,” Miles looked confused for a second. “The doctor is performing surgery and thus cannot be here.”
“Oh,” Quinn said, feeling slightly silly for having misinterpreted it. She glanced over at where Irias was indeed waking up. She looked brittle, like a strong wind might break her in half. Her pale, barked skin was even paler than usual and it made the red veins really stand out. Karella looked around, blinking, somewhat confused and her eyes fell on her daughter again and a small smile tugged at her lips as if she was remembering something, but it didn’t last for long and it was gone and pain crossed her face, along with some elements of horror that Quinn hadn’t ever really noticed before.
A chill went up Quinn’s spine. She wouldn’t have wished the way they found them on anyone. Pits full of bodies, dying and dead, desecrated, desiccated. It was horrific. It was definitely the thing that nightmares and horror movies were supposed to be made about.
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“She’s still waking up,” Dr. Miles said. “We have her on some strong, sedative medication. It’s a little bit more complex than that when it comes to Salosier anatomy.”
“I know,” Quinn said. “I remember reading that.”
“Excellent,” Dr. Miles said. “Then you’ll understand that her ability to process what has occurred to her will take time. She’s having difficulty accessing the regions of her brain and body that will hold the memories we need her to share with us in order to decipher some of the information about the Bardocian root and to determine where this attack originated and whether she and or her family had anything to do with it.”
“Was this a recent thing? Did they do this when I came back?” Quinn asked, because the one thing that had been plaguing her was what if this hadn’t even been a problem until they found her? And when they realized that there was a Librarian, and the Library wasn’t going to shut down, did they do this? Did they take these people and ruin their lives and suck them dry? While she knew, sort of, that it wasn’t the case, there was still that part of her that thought, just on the offside chance that there might be.
“No,” Dr. Miles said very firmly. “This started hundreds of years ago.”
While relieved, it still didn’t completely make sense to Quinn. “But why? I don’t understand.”
Malakai shrugged. “As good as I could guess,” he said, “I would say that they needed a contingency plan, and this was one of them. If the Library fell apart, the only possible way that we had a chance against the rampant release of chaotic magic was a unified Salosier front. And so this, this makes sense.”
“What do you mean could have stood against them with the Salosiers?” Escadril had been formidable, but Quinn didn’t think most Salosiers were particularly dangerous in a fighting manner, even if they could book doctor you under the table.
“Not quite how I meant it to come across.” Malakai paused for several seconds before attempting it again. “The Salosier ability to form and reform books, especially magical ones, could potentially help pass along at least a portion of magic from the books. It could potentially be a way to stall the complete consuming chaos running rampant until another solution could be found. An outside chance, but still a chance.”
Quinn mulled over what he’d said. So the Salosier could make magic books without the Library. To be honest, she knew a lot of the species had their own specific tomes. It sort of made sense but wasn’t something she’d given prior consideration. “So, does Irias remember anything?” she asked softly, glancing over at the Salosier who was desperately clinging to her mother’s hands.
Red tears, sort of like deep orange, more thick like sap, ran down Karella’s face. Not that Quinn could blame her. She’d lost so much.
“Anyway, Librarian,” Dr. Miles said, grabbing her attention.
“Sorry,” Quinn said, “Go on.”
“The Bardocian route, we initially thought, was just one of the older petraligno offshoots,” He spoke in a hushed tone. “And it is extremely close to that. We have come to believe it’s actually one of the sister branches of it.”
“What do you mean, sister branch?”
“There are offshoots of both the Salosier and the petralignos, and we believe that this actually belongs to... It is difficult to describe.” Miles paused, as if trying to dredge up the information in a palatable way.
“I can do it,” Karella interrupted softly. “I’ll explain it.”
Quinn turned to the Balisor matriarch, giving her full attention.
“The offshoot Dr. Miles suggests,” Karella said, “has an ability to morph. Their bark and the rest of their appearance. Paler, darker, or even as a different substance, as long as they remain within a small percentage of their original shape. So they can’t morph like your manifestation, Lynx, can. He is capable of taking on any shape, any time. There are several species out there that can completely shape shift. These guys, however, are not capable of that.”
Quinn nodded slowly, taking it all in.
“They can’t morph their shape so much as they can just disguise themselves within that shape. Kind of like they’re camouflaging their appearance to something you’re expecting to see. There aren’t that many of them.”
“Is that what the fake Iris did?” Quinn asked, suddenly needing clarification.
“Yes,” the word splintered as she spoke, cracking half way through and making it a two syllable one.
“Oh... I,” Irias said. Her voice was so mouse-like, not like the fake Iris had spoken at all. Quinn almost didn’t hear her and only really paid attention because Malakai tapped the back of her hand.
“I think I remember a name,” she said, speaking slowly. Her voice was a little croaky. Maybe she’d sound different once she’d fully recovered. “Or, I did remember it. I have to, I think I just need time to try to remember,” she finished.
“Of course, just take your time. I’m so sorry.” And then Quinn turned to Karella, realizing she probably should have said this sooner, “I am so, so sorry for your loss.”
Karella’s face fell a bit. Quinn could see the pain so raw, recent, and obvious in her features. The Matriarch didn’t try to hide it. She wore it like a badge of honor. Like a badge of future revenge, to be honest. Not that Quinn could blame her. If something happened to Malakai, or Lynx, or Milaro, or even Erik or Geneva, and especially Dottie or Nishpa. Quinn could list them all. Yeah, Quinn would probably go nuclear on people. And frankly, now she could. She had so much power. But she’d need more before this was done.
Karella gave her a very sad smile. “You know, I really thought he might have been hidden, like my daughter. That perhaps, perhaps, he hadn’t been taken how I thought he was. Maybe he was just somebody they’d disguised themselves as, like they did with Irias. But that wasn’t the case. I really wish they’d have just let the parasite take him over as well.”
“What?” Quinn said. “What do you mean, parasite?”
“I really wish they didn’t give him a parasite...”
“No,” Quinn said, trying to get her to understand. “What do you mean, a parasite took him over?”
“Oh,” Karella said, “I’m so sorry. I forgot you are still relatively new to all of this. I was lucky. Another month or two, and I think my damage would have been so severe a parasite could have taken over as well.”
Quinn turned to the doctor. “You removed parasites?”
“Yes, a lot of them.” He blinked as if it was common knowledge.
Karella, looking between both of them, piped up again. “It’s basically how they function.”
“How who function?” Quinn asked.
“The other branch of the petraligno.”
“Who are?” Quinn was very proud of not having lost her patience yet.
“Oh,” Karella smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. The malusigno. Frankly, there aren’t that many of them left, but they operate with bardocian root because it feeds the parasites they’re attuned to. Well, helps their magic, anyway. They don’t access mana and energy the way we do. Their power comes directly from the parasites they command, and it feeds through the bardocian root back to their power base.”
Quinn blinked. “So, you’re telling me that people very similar to the Salosiers and the petralignos called the malusignos are run by a parasitic species they are sort of in collaboration with and those parasites link to but do not control that species?
Karella nodded. “I was very lucky. The parasites take a long time to acclimate to their new hosts. In this case, however, they appear to have been draining them. And my husband,” her voice cracked, and it took her a few seconds to continue, “sadly, was one of them. His real body was the one you saw. He was taken over completely some time ago.”
Quinn didn’t know what to say. And she was saved by Irias speaking up.
“Oh, I remember her name now,” Irias said.
“Whose name?” Malakai asked, his tone soothing.
“The lady in charge,” she perked up, her tone almost excited. “She checked on the state of feeding several times that I remember. Although... it’s hazy and vague, it happened enough that I’m certain it’s not a figment of my imagination.”
Karella spoke softly, as if she was trying not to startle her daughter. “What was her name, sweetheart?”
“Oh, sorry.” Irias blinked and refocused. “Her name was Sarila.”