"The inn is nesting," Lady Corvina announced, watching as vines that definitely weren't there yesterday crept up the exterior walls, blooming with flowers that seemed to glow from within. "It hasn't done this since..."

"Since the last time it tried to grow roots," Gus finished, his newly renewed stone form resonating with the building's strange energy. He reached out to touch one of the luminescent blooms, and it chimed softly in response. "Though something's different this time."

Pip consulted her aunt's notebook, where new words were writing themselves: "An inn that wanders must still know how to grow. Some roots reach through space rather than soil."

The vines had appeared overnight, after their encounter with the First Welcome. At first, they'd seemed ordinary enough - if you could call anything about a magical inn ordinary. But then Felix had played his morning welcome song, and the plants had begun weaving themselves into patterns that looked suspiciously like the network's pathways.

"It's like they're mapping connections," Felix said, strumming a chord that made the vines pulse with golden light. "But not just to other inns. Look." He played another note, and the flowering tendrils reached out toward seemingly empty air, creating doorways that opened onto distant places - a sun-drenched marketplace, a storm-wracked coast, a quiet forest grove.

"The spaces between," Lady Corvina breathed, her quill moving frantically. "The inn isn't just showing us where it's been. It's showing us where it might need to be."

Before anyone could respond, one of the vine-framed doorways shimmered, and through it stepped a familiar figure - though not the one they'd been hoping for.

"Aunt Ma-" Pip started, then stopped. The woman who emerged from the portal wasn't her aunt, but she moved with the same purposeful grace, wore a similar innkeeper's apron, and carried an identical weathered notebook.

"No, dear, not Maple," the woman smiled. "Though we did learn our craft together. I'm Diana Thornheart, keeper of The Rooted Waypoint." She gestured back through the doorway, where they could see another inn, its foundation seemingly merged with an ancient tree. "And I believe it's time we discussed why some wandering places need to remember how to stay still."

The vines rustled anxiously, and Gus took a step forward, his stone face showing more emotion than they'd ever seen. "Diana," he said softly. "It's been..."

"Three hundred years, four months, and twelve days," she finished. "Hello, old friend. Still keeping this place's heart beating?"

"You know each other?" Pip asked, though she had a feeling she knew the answer. Her aunt's notebook was already filling with notes about parallel histories and intersecting paths.

"Oh yes," Diana said, as more vines curved around her like old friends welcoming home a lost family member. "Gus helped build The Rooted Waypoint too. Back when we were all trying to figure out how to balance movement with stability." She looked at the golem with something like fond exasperation. "Though some of us chose different ways of solving that puzzle."

"The network is shifting," Gus said, his voice carrying centuries of concern. "The patterns are changing. It's not like last time, when we could just..."

"Choose a side?" Diana finished. "No, it's not. That's why I'm here. That's why the inns are reaching for each other." She pulled out her notebook - an exact mirror of Aunt Maple's. "The network doesn't just need wandering places and fixed points anymore. It needs something new. Something that can be both."

The vines trembled, and every doorway they'd created flickered with possibility. The inn itself seemed to hold its breath, waiting for a choice it didn't yet understand.

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"Well," Felix said, playing a tentative melody that made the vines dance, "at least now we know why Gus has been so particular about the garden lately."

Diana moved through the inn like she'd never left it, trailing vines that seemed to recognize her touch. "You haven't changed the floor plan at all," she noted, running her hand along a wall that hummed in response. "Still keeping the old pathways open, just in case?"

"Some things shouldn't be forgotten," Gus replied, his renewed stone form catching golden light from the growing vines. "Even if we chose different paths."

"Different, but connected," Diana corrected, opening her notebook to reveal drawings of root systems that looked remarkably like the network's magical pathways. "Just like the ancient forests – some trees stand still, gathering strength, while others send their seeds on the wind. But underneath..." She gestured, and the vines pulled back the inn's floorboards to reveal glowing patterns that matched her drawings.

"The root network," Lady Corvina gasped, her quill barely keeping up. "It's not just metaphorical. The magical pathways are actually..."

"Growing," Felix finished, playing a sequence that made the patterns pulse. "Like a garden spreading underground."

Pip watched as her aunt's notebook filled with new revelations: "The wandering ways were never paths – they're roots, seeking nourishment, carrying magic where it needs to flow."

"Exactly," Diana beamed. "And that's why we need both kinds of inns now. The wanderers like yours, spreading magic to new places, and the rooted ones like mine, anchoring the old powers. But lately..." Her face grew troubled. "The balance is failing. The network is trying to evolve, but it's forgetting its roots."

"That's why Aunt Maple left," Pip realized. "She's not just researching wandering buildings – she's trying to understand how they connect to the fixed ones."

"Always was clever, your aunt," Diana smiled. "She saw it coming first. The need for something new. Something that could both wander and root." She turned to Gus. "Something you've already learned how to do."

The golem's stone fingers traced one of the glowing root-paths. "When I chose to stay with the inn, to become its mobile foundation... I never stopped being connected to the earth. I just learned to carry a piece of it with me."

"And now we need to teach that trick to the whole network," Diana said. "Before the disconnection tears it apart."

The vines began moving more urgently, weaving themselves into complex patterns that showed inns across the world – some wandering, some fixed, all connected by the ancient root system that carried magic between them.

"But how?" Pip asked, watching the patterns shift and strain.

"The same way you taught the network to remember its first welcome," Diana replied. "By showing it how to be both at once. Your inn already knows how – it's been practicing since the day Gus chose to stay. A foundation that moves, roots that wander..."

Felix started playing, his music catching the rhythm of growth and movement. The vines responded, dancing between stillness and motion, creating doorways that felt both temporary and permanent.

"The inn's not trying to nest," Lady Corvina said suddenly, understanding dawning. "It's trying to teach itself to bloom."

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Guest Book Entry: "Diana Thornheart: Where roots meet roads, where stillness greets wandering, magic learns to grow in new directions. May these paths always lead home."

New Verse of Felix's Inn Song: "Through earth and air our magic flows, Both rooted deep and free, The Last Stop Inn knows how to grow While wandering endlessly..."

Lady Corvina's Chronicle Entry: "Revolutionary discovery in magical infrastructure! Network confirmed as living system analogous to mycorrhizal networks in ancient forests. Note: Must revise all previous theories about magical transportation. Additional Note: Gus's dual nature as mobile foundation possibly key to network's evolution. Final Note: Beginning new classification system for hybrid magical architecture."

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As evening fell, the inn settled into a strange new equilibrium – still ready to wander, but now trailing rootlets of magic that would help it stay connected to every place it had been and every place it might go.

"You know," Gus said to Pip, watching Diana harmonize her rooted magic with their wandering ways, "sometimes the hardest part of staying isn't standing still. It's learning how to move without losing your connection to where you began."

The vines hummed in agreement, weaving past and future into something new, something that could both wander and remain, something that understood that every journey needs both wings and roots.

Through one of the vine-framed doorways, they caught a glimpse of Aunt Maple in a distant forest, teaching other inns the same lesson – how to dance between stillness and motion, how to stay while wandering, how to grow while remaining free.