While Quinn hadn’t entirely forgotten about the fact that she’d telegraphed her abilities after the initial synchronisation, she’d pushed it so far back into her memory that she had, essentially, for all intents and purposes, forgotten that it would probably happen this time.

While she was downstairs in the core, with Lynx and the Library’s shadow, everything was fine. But since she didn’t tamp down before entering the main level, as she ascended the stairs, giddy on the thought of all of the new sensations she was experiencing.

And her aura pretty much flattened everybody at the check-in desk.

She stopped in shock.

“Quinn,” Lynx said, “tamp it down.”

She pulled it as far into herself as she could, which wasn’t as far as she wanted to. That’s when she realised she was literally leaking power constantly. At least it was enough to free the people directly in front of and inside of the check-in desk from her influence. But it wasn’t enough to free herself of the responsibility of re-learning how to manage it.

Milaro exited from her office, an eyebrow raised.

“You came up, I thought you’d call for me,” he said.

“Well, I was excited, and I thought I’d get to work straight away.” Quinn knew she sounded subdued now, her confidence slightly shaken because of the projecting she thought she’d had a handle on.

He studied her for a few seconds and then nodded. “I think we should get to work straight away,” His smile was kind, his eyes still tired, and somewhat haunted, not that she could blame him considering the damage to Nishpa.

Quinn sighed.

Milaro took pity on her. “Look, there’s a lot we need to do before you take on the next thing on your list, and one of them is teaching you how to restrain this round of power.”

“But shouldn’t it be just the same as it was before?” Quinn asked, deflated. “I thought I could just reel it in like I did with the previous round.”

“It should technically be very similar,” he said, “but to be honest, this power boost, this information infusion? It’s much larger and encompassing.”

Quinn blinked at him. “Let’s just go to my office. It has wards on it.”

She trudged into the office, instead of running through all the new sensations the Library had to offer.

“It’s okay, Quinn. We’ll get this sorted.” Milaro said quietly as they entered the room.

“Really?”

“Yep.”

Quinn did her best to pull her power in toward her, to wrap it around her, and make sure that outbursts or any emotional rumblings in her weren’t going to affect those around her. She closed the door behind her and turned to face Milaro. He looked slightly gaunt. She was somewhat worried about him.

“Quinn, you need to take a breath and calm it down,” Milaro said softly, his tone gentle and soothing. “I can literally feel the worry through your aura. Focus inward, and concentrate on restricting the flow of your power beyond your own shielding.”

“I should keep my shielding up all the time, right?”

“Well, haven’t you been?” he asked.

She considered that and realized she hadn’t. “Not all the time, no.”

“Considering the current circumstances, you should keep it active, at all times, just as a precaution.”

“Just in case?” Quinn asked.

“Yeah.”

She didn’t want to dwell on the ‘just in case’, because she knew, as well as anybody else, that right now wasn’t the most safest time for any of them.

“Okay,” so she sat down in her overstuffed chair and began pulling the power that she could feel emanating outside of herself in behind the shielding. There was a lot to condense. Her pool of power had practically doubled in size. Even as she pulled it into herself, she could feel the Library thrumming in response, their connection much deeper than it had been. She could sense things about the Library that she hadn’t been able to before. And if she focused, focused really closely, she could even pick up on actual conversations and not just sensations or emotions.

She focused in on the check-in desk and watched Betty and Jasper having a bit of a row.

Quinn frowned.

“What do you see, Quinn?” Milaro asked.

“Betty and Jasper are just...”

“Ah, yes, they’ve been at that for several hours.”

Quinn was a bit shocked by that. “What do you mean?”

Milaro smiled kindly as he explained. “You did appoint Jasper to be in charge of helping you with rosters and allocations.”

“Jasper helps me. Betty is supposed to be the supervisor to help run the... Oh,” Quinn paused. “Oh, I see. I’m going to have to talk to them, aren’t I?”

“I’m sure they can sort it out themselves,” Milaro said. “What I want you to sort out is the bleeding of the power still going on despite your current best efforts.”

Quinn took a breath and focused herself again. She still made a note that she’d speak to both Betty and Jasper together and make sure that they were on the same page and in okay spirits and, perhaps above all, not angry with her.

“Jasper’s been gone for a while anyway,” Quinn muttered as she continued to focus and condense her power within her walls. She realized she’d need to readjust her mental shielding capacity as well.

“Jasper has been gone for a while under your orders.”

“No, not under my orders,” Quinn said. “I didn’t send Jasper away.”

“Oh, then I have no idea why she was gone so long,” Milaro said, frowning.

Quinn shrugged and narrowed her gaze as she looked at him. “Speaking of sending away, you were supposed to be taking it easy back in your palace.”

“Yes, and then we were attacked by somebody who was supposed to be our friend.”

Quinn felt a wave of melancholy emit from her teacher. It was so fast she almost thought she imagined it and had no idea how to comfort him. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too, Quinn. I didn’t see that coming. And for all of my abilities, I should have. I generally inspect every single person that’s new and comes around us. I do believe at the time, though, I was preoccupied with several things including my son’s marriage,” he said, “there were extenuating circumstances.”

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Quinn nodded.

“We can’t catch everyone.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

“Well, we could catch everyone,” she said, grinning. “We’re going to make more of an effort now, right?”

He smiled. “We can talk about that as soon as you focus inward and start working on your mental and physical shielding, Quinn.”

She sighed, pulling her scaled feet up under her and held her scaled arms, open palm up in front of her resting on the desk. She took several deep breaths, centering herself and drawing her power into her center. Then she spread it out through her body, reinforcing everything around her, her skin, her hair, every limb, every appendage, all of herself, bringing the power right inside and making it an integral part of who she was. All she had to do was remember to circulate it and it should remain a part of her, even in sleep, no matter what.

Another line of defense.

Quinn wasn’t sure how long she meditated like that for. She was pretty sure it was a few hours before she finally looked up, blinking her eyes back open, and smiled at Milaro.

“Done?” Milaro asked.

“I think so,” she said.

“Worry about me,” he said with a smirk.

She did. She never stopped. She told him that. “I’ve never stopped worrying about you.”

“Excellent,” he said. “I can’t sense that you’re worried about me unless I look at you and then it’s not an aura thing. It’s not leaking out and reaching toward me like a baby crying its heart out. You’re just judging my lack of resting with your eyes.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” Milaro said. “That was a bit nasty of me, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was. And you still owe me a feast.”

He laughed. “Yes, I do. Soon. Hopefully, we’ll get this all sorted quickly.”

Quinn wasn’t entirely sure how to tell him that she didn’t think so. Instead, she shrugged. “Well, you know, maybe it will be, maybe it won’t be. But we’ll see.”

As if on cue, Jasper knocked on the door. “Come in, come in.”

“How are you feeling?” Jasper said, warily entering the room, as if she was testing waters to see if there was anything leaking out inside of the room.

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “I’m fine. I just finished synchronization. There’s always some hiccups afterwards.” She realized she sounded like she was an expert or something, which she so wasn’t. But still, it made her feel good to understand what was happening this time around without having to juggle the emotional backlash of realizing that she wasn’t even human.

She glanced down at her hands and realized that the scales had retreated and were barely visible inside her skin. There was a slight sense of loss, just a pang, just a tiny flash. But at least now she had the ability to keep herself and anybody else she cared about safe. If only she’d synchronized before the whole Nishpa incident. Maybe she could have just... maybe... she didn’t know.

“I’m glad to hear you have it under control...”

But Jasper didn’t get any further because Betty dashed into the room. “I thought I was the supervisor.”

“You’re the head supervisor. But Jasper is my personal assistant and originally all the rosters fell to me, so Jasper was the one who took over doing the rosters,” Quinn grimaced as she admitted the next part. “It sort of slipped my mind when I asked you to be head supervisor and take care of everything, so I hope I haven’t caused either of you too much trouble.”

They blinked at her. “You knew?”

Betty recovered first, an expression of delight crossing her features. “Wonderful! You’ve synchronized properly! Are you feeling tired? You’ll probably be feeling very hungry before long. I’ll make sure Cook is fetched and brings you adequate sustenance. You’ll be on your feet in no time and running everything like usual.”

Quinn blinked at Betty. Betty was fully capable of talking the leg of an iron pot. It was a saying Quinn had heard several times, completely and utterly not understood, but right now she could see how it would apply to Betty specifically.

Jasper laughed. “Well, I’m happy to relinquish the rosters if Quinn needs me for other things.”

Quinn nodded slowly, and Betty clapped her hands in glee. “Oh, perfect. I so did not want to fight, but I am very good at rostering staff on for the specific time periods required by Library patronage numbers.”

Jasper blinked at her. “Yeah, so I’m gonna leave the rosters in your hands. I’ve been on a bit of a mission myself, anyway.”

“But you did set up the rosters very nicely,” Betty said. “I’m extremely happy you had, only they run out in four days, so I’d already taken the liberty of extending them.”

Jasper waved her concern away. “I’ve already relinquished them to you. We’re fine.”

“So,” Quinn interrupted. “What were you doing?”

“What do you mean?” Jasper looked confused at first before grinning widely. “Oh, oh, wait a second, sorry. I went and hunted down the book locations.”

“What?” Quinn said. “I didn’t send you to do that.”

“That you did not. I had spoken to Lynx and asked him if he thought that if I got closer to the approximate area, if I might be able to perform a ritual to locate the book, you know, more specifically. It took a bit because I sort of had to hop through several portal attempts to get closer to the system where the book is supposed to be. Not all areas were the most friendly, but eventually I was able to pinpoint its location with much finer accuracy close to a door location. You can’t picture a door you’re not familiar with, and I don’t have the magical affinity to create a door. That’s why Lynx does so many of the calibrations when he’s sending us to other places, you know.”

Quinn nodded, realizing belatedly that between Jasper and Betty, she’d probably never have to speak again.

“Precisely, and so it took me a few weeks. Anyway, anyway, I have a location for you.”

Quinn couldn’t keep her jaw from the floor. Excitement nibbled at her, but she pushed it back, just in case she’d misunderstood that. “Wait, wait, what?”

“Exactly,” Lynx said, swirling into being right next to them. “I’ve been waiting for this. You got the location, then?”

“Yeah, we need to go through gate 73 of Naka Isle.”

“Are you serious?” he asked.

“No, I’m joking,” she deadpanned before continuing. “That’s the easiest gate to get to, close enough to make it there in a decent amount of time.”

“It’s a long trek then,” Quinn said.

Lynx sighed and shook his head as he frowned at something in his HUD. “Not as long as I anticipated.”

“Is it dangerous?” Quinn asked.

He shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure, it’s just that...”

She waited for the manifestation to get his thoughts organized.

“It’s just that it’s in a pretty barren region. Uninhabitable worlds... which we luckily don’t have to consider. But getting through to one of the habitable ones... and there are three I think she could be hibernating in, is going to be tough.”

“Yeah,” she said, “I get it.”

I can help with that. Let me send out some feelers. The Library interjected briefly, its presence diminishing as soon as it finished.

“Don’t worry,” Milaro piped in. “It’s going to be fine. You’ll take myself, Malakai, Nordon and Hilrick. What do you think of taking Hal too?”

Quinn nodded. “But doesn’t he have like a war or seven to win or something?”

Lynx laughed. So did Milaro. “Yes, yes he does. However, it doesn’t really mean anything. He’ll win it. He always does.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow, wanting to go deeper into that when time permitted.

“Okay, so team Quinn then,” Lynx said. “Quinn, Malakai, Milaro, Hal, Jasper, Geneva, Eric, Nordon, and Hilrick.”

Quinn nodded slowly. There was no Misha to kit them out and no Nishpa to heal them. She knew Geneva had some healing abilities, as did Hilrick, so hopefully that would be taken care of. Not to mention that she and Malakai could definitely patch people up. She should probably absorb some books to do with healing. “I think I need more healing books.”

“You read the Healing with Fire one, right?” Milaro said.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well, that’s one book down.” He mulled it over, his brow furrowed with concentration.

“What, and 83 to go?” Quinn asked cheekily.

“Pretty much, but your capacity should have increased with your synchronization.”

“You mean I’ll be able to absorb more than five books at a time?” The thought sent a sense of relief flooding through her. It made knowing what she needed to know in the time she had to learn it seem so much more within her grasp.

He sort of squinted as if he was calculating something mentally. “Maybe eight.”

“What are we waiting for then? Let’s make a list so I can learn them and so we can go.”

“Yeah,” Lynx said. “I think you should go sooner than later. It’s probably a better idea to get to Druvala as soon as you can.”

“Okay,” Quinn said. “You guys on board?” She asked everyone in general.

“Yep, I’ll round everybody up,” Milaro said, answering for them all. “Let’s just hope that we can get all the things we need without Misha. It’d be a good idea to leave tomorrow - as soon as possible.”

Quinn couldn’t help the pang of emptiness she felt at knowing that right now the supervisory golem couldn’t even pop in when her name was mentioned if she’d wanted to.