LSRO: Chapter 316 - Personally (Patreon)

Hey wonderful people

Here is another chapter. Funny that, eh? I'm really excited to share this one. And the next few. I think I'm starting to bring the threads together for the end of book 5 to work through into book 6.

Also still healing up. Send me good healing vibes.

You're all wonderful.

~~

Chapter 52

Personally

Karella was a name that Quinn hadn’t thought about recently. Not since they’d returned from the disastrous visit to the Balisors, retrieved the book that helped open the alchemical division from her, and healed her daughter, who had still been alive. She swore she hadn’t exchanged more than a couple of conversations with the woman, who’d seemed so distraught when her husband died. She’d passed all the tests. Quinn had even double-checked Dr. Miles’ records. 

So how had she fooled Quinn so totally? 

Quinn hadn’t expected any of these results to be related to Karella. Ardenil, sure, they’d already had several suspicious things happen because of Ardenil. But adding both of them to the board now, since Ardenil wasn’t apparently as missing as they thought, she added them both to it, and it made no sense in Quinn’s brain whatsoever. She leaned forward, slowly bashing her head against the wall next to her board. And she looked at it out of the corner of her eye. 

“Murder Board” was about as apt a name as it was going to get. It’d probably end up killing her through frustration in the end.

There was a light pop in the room that drew Quinn’s attention. She looked around to her right, curiosity piqued.

“That’s very odd,” Lynx said conversationally from her left-hand side. 

It was all Quinn could do not to scream. Apart from hearing the pop, she hadn’t felt his essence morph into form beside her. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow, as if asking why she hadn’t noticed, since her senses were so much better these days. Quinn was close enough that she could see the runic bands in his hair swirling quickly. She wondered what information he was processing. His entire genetic make-up, or holographic make-up, was still a mystery to her.

“Sorry,” he said, sounding a little sheepish, “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just heard.”

Quinn sighed, “Are you going to share what you find odd with me, or are you just going to stand there and stare at the board and make me try to guess?”

He cocked his head to one side and pointed at the board. “Kajaro is gone, dead, whatever. Drav’s still out there, but we aren’t even sure if Kajaro was fully on Drav’s side or not. Remember? It’s like Kajaro was playing things from different angles, multiple possibilities, and all of them with the caveat that in the end he would win.”

Quinn nodded. “Well, that’s generally why people make plans, right? And he was sort of a bad guy.” 

“Obviously not in his eyes. He also didn’t win,” Lynx mused. 

Quinn raised an eyebrow this time. “Look at you, getting all philosophical.”

“Yes,” Lynx said, “I’m starting to feel much more myself, almost like my very own entity.” 

“That’d be good, wouldn’t it,” Quinn said, watching him closely, “to be your very own entity? Not just a manifestation? Is that something that can happen?”

Lynx watched her for several seconds. “Well, of course it’s something I’d want.” 

“But whether or not it’s possible...” She pushed a little more.

“I’m not sure yet. I’d have to look into it.” 

The way he said it gave Quinn pause, as if it was something he wanted so badly and yet couldn’t be certain that he’d ever get to have. And yet? Something about him tugged at her senses. Not in a bad way, just in a different one.

“Anyway,” he was saying, “he appeared to be playing each side, if his relationship with Sarila is anything to go on.”

Quinn frowned. “So we’re missing elements here.”

“Yes,” he pointed to Kajaro’s name, “and then here as well.” He indicated where Karella’s name had been added. “But what was the binding event? What connects Karella to Sarila apart from the fact that Karella was in the Balisor camp when the toxin was put in the roots?”

Quinn shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Well, neither do I,” Lynx said. “But we should probably find out what that was supposed to accomplish in the first place and why Karella felt the need to hide from us, if she wasn’t out to fully destroy the Library.”

“I guess if she was involved in that,” Quinn said, “she wouldn’t want us to know because killing thousands upon thousands of the Balisor clan wasn’t a good way to approach us? I mean, that’s a very bad thing.”

“You can say evil, Quinn,” Lynx said. “We need to know why they were on the same side.”

Quinn groaned. “You’re really not helping. The board is getting complex enough as it is. Why can’t it just...” She glared at the board as if she was willing it to give her the right answers so she didn’t have to work them out herself. She stopped lamenting, took a few deep breaths, and turned to actually face Lynx. “So, where have you been since we got back?”

A bit of static flickered through Lynx’s eyes so fast Quinn thought she might have imagined it. “I’ve been... calibrating,” he answered, finally turning to face Quinn full on. “My memories are almost fully restored.” He hesitated, as if he wasn’t entirely sure how to phrase what it was he wanted to tell her. “I’m still working on and through some discrepancies, but I think I might have answers to several more of Korradine’s plans.”

Quinn studied him for a minute. “Including Ashiron, right? Because let’s face it, that one is a little more imminent than anything else that we have to deal with.”

Lynx hesitated before he answered. “Some of it. The synchronization between the pillar and the Library is still unusually high for one that is partially displaced. I do know that Korradine and I had many more conversations that I had completely and utterly forgotten. I’m not fully aware of all of their content yet, it’s a slow going process and Siliqua now has to split her time between myself, Milaro’s Kingdom, and whatever Harish is currently working on. Which is only fair. I can’t monopolize her completely.”

Quinn watched him closely, as if that way maybe she could figure out why the back of her brain itched every time he spoke. “Do you have any ideas about how we can solve the Ashiron situation?”

Lynx shrugged. “I have some theories on how we can fix it.”

Frustration welled up in Quinn. She knew why they couldn’t. Sort of. But she didn’t necessarily agree that they couldn’t try. She knew the answer before the words even came out of her mouth. “Can’t we just replace the pillar?” 

“We’ve already been over this Quinn, we can’t just replace the pillar without causing extreme instability to the Library. And its structure as a whole. If it were that easy, I’d have initiated it already. And I really do promise, as soon as I have all these greyer areas cleared up, I promise that we will get around to fixing Ashiron, okay?” There was a pleading note in his tone and eyes. As if he just needed her to trust him for a little while longer.

Quinn really hoped it didn’t come back to bite her. “Well, just keep in mind, we’ve only got like 80 plus days until it explodes and we all die.”

“I know,” He said, looking back at the board. “I know we’re on a timer.”

Quinn was overwhelmed by the sensation that Lynx was keeping something from her. This, coupled with her family - her uncles and aunts - also withholding information, made her feel as though she was back in her first couple of weeks in the Library. She took a deep breath to center herself. “Is there something you’re keeping from me again? Something that I need to know to do my job?” She tried hard to keep her voice steady, to maintain the even-keeled demeanor that Milaro had taught her, separating emotion from analytical processing.

Lynx’s eyes swirled, bleeding out into the sclera, his runes activated in a frenzy of movement. If she hadn’t been paying such close attention to his facial expressions, she could have gotten lost in those hypnotic circles. He hesitated, started to speak, stopped, and then began again.

“Not like you’re thinking,” he said, looking nervously from side to side and biting his bottom lip in a very human way. His gaze avoided hers momentarily before he sighed. “It’s not like that at all. I can’t tell you what it is right now because I haven’t verified it yet. I’m not certain. But when I can, you’re the first person I’ll tell.” He held her gaze for several seconds, his eyes still flickering. And then he popped out of her sight.

Quinn blinked. He was just gone. He hadn’t even said he’d be back later. That was no way to end a conversation. She sighed.

“Nice bit of avoidance there, Lynx,” she said to the empty room. She wasn’t expecting a response, and she didn’t get one. She stared at the spot where he’d stood, deep in thought. Had he discovered something else about his memories? Or someone else’s? Or the Library’s? Was there some piece of information she wasn’t considering that would make him act this way?

She could feel the headache beginning to pound. But she wasn’t so out of it that she failed to notice Malakai approaching. 

“What are you looking at?” he asked, tilting his head as he took in the murder board and its new additions.

“Oh, that. I’m just trying to figure out where what fits, and what we still need to do, and who we still need to find, and who is involved in what,” she said, covering her eyes with her hand. “And now Lynx is just acting really weird.”

Aradie chose that moment to coo and land on her shoulder. Images flashed in front of Quinn’s eyes. “I guess Aradie also thinks he’s acting oddly,” she said. Aradie brushed her mind with a series of other images.

“That’s concerning,” Malakai said.

Quinn frowned. “I think he’s figuring some things out. He might be evolving, maybe.”

Malakai gave her a quizzical look. “Can a manifestation evolve?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. Eight months ago, if you’d have asked me if magic was real, I would have laughed in your face. Now, isn’t anything possible with magic? That’s what your grandfather always says.”

Malakai frowned. “Perhaps.” He didn’t sound very convinced. “What else is on your mind?”

“You mean other than the pillar of doom underneath us that’s going to blow us all up and kill the universe? Nothing much.” All the words on the murder board began to bleed together, and she rubbed at her eyes. Maybe she needed to wipe it clean and start over again. “It’s not all that bad. I know they’re working on a solution, and they’re close.”

“I got that impression from Lynx, too.” 

“Still, I’d prefer it to already be solved. It’s like a dark cloud hanging over me that I can’t seem to get rid of.”

“You take things so personally, Quinn.”

She glared at him. “How am I supposed to not take things personally? They tried to wipe out every single potential Librarian with a compatible signature in the universe. They’ve tried to kill me multiple times. Even succeeded in killing my makeshift family. They’ve got a bomb in the Library that they have to know is there and works as a failsafe to implode the Library when their plan fails, which it has. So it’s very difficult not to take this personally.”

“I see your point.”

“And now,” Quinn said, “I want to sit here in front of my damn murder board, and I am going to figure out exactly what we need to do next.”

“Really? Why don’t we study the memories with my grandfather? Failing that, study the journals that Carafax gave us?”

Quinn took a step back. Her frustration at the lack of progress wasn’t helping anything. She turned and looked at him. “Yeah, let’s take a look at the journals.”

At least... until she could get a hold of Milaro to discuss the damned visions.

~~

So much to do. So little time.

This would have been much easier if I'd just made time manipulation a thing. She'd have had everything done in a day.

Much love

KT