The murder board, as it turned out, was much easier to describe than to actually fulfill.

  Quinn pulled back, quite proud that the Library had been able to create something akin to a whiteboard. It’d serve the same function at any rate. So far, however, she had relatively little information on there.

  Who exactly is S?lem?

  Which was just the problem, wasn’t it? Were they the ringleaders? Or was that the name of the conglomeration of different species and factions that made up?

  Aradie hooted very deliberately.

  Quinn threw her hands up in the air. “I know! That’s just it - I still feel like all we have are bits and pieces.”

  Aradie didn’t make a sound, but the stare she gave Quinn spoke volumes.

  “I know, I know. Just look at what we do know.” Quinn said in a mimicking voice.

  Her owl pecked her ear lightly.

  “You sort of do sound like that when you speak.” The Librarian rubbed the edge of her ear. “But I get it. I’m just procrastinating that I’m not entirely sure how to approach this.” She tapped a finger against her lip as she considered the board with literally no information on it.

  Could she have done this on her console? Sure she could have. But, there were such benefits for her to making an actual visual list manually. Something about memory retention and being able to see things in different lights.

  Eric fluttered up to her shoulder, a bar of some sort of food in his hand that he tore at thoughtfully. “So. This is what you’ve got?”

  She didn’t dignify that with an answer.

  “No, really.” He said. “Looks like you’ve got it solved.” But that was as far as the imp got before he broke character and laughed.

  “I’ll remember this,” Quinn said, narrowing her gaze. But he was right. She didn’t have anything. Yet.

  She sighed and moved forward, hoping that the whiteboard type marker the Library created for her would work. First up, she wrote down Balisor infiltrator? Identity? Then she backed away and frowned. They didn’t have any idea who it was. She’d died while still morphed into Irias. It gave them nothing to go on.

  Necromancy wasn’t exactly a lauded affinity, but instead an amalgamation of specific ones that had to be established in order to achieve such a result. Rare as... whatever was really rare. So it wasn’t like they could even figure it out that way.

  She added Esposian factions, Sedimentites, Aracnios, and a few other species to the list. She’d list the exempt factions on the other side once she had the main stuff down.

  “That’s all you’ve got?” Malakai spoke suddenly from next to her, but he sounded like his mouth was full.

  Quinn glanced at him and realized he was eating something that looked suspiciously like a tub of popcorn. “Yes.” She snapped. “That’s all I’ve got so far.”

  “Ah.” was all he said before he shoved more popcorn in his mouth.

  “None of you are being particularly helpful.” She sighed as she added her next set. Because she wasn’t sure about Korradine’s angle. There was something niggling in the back of her mind about the way the Unusceros Librarian had gone about. Well, everything. It rubbed her the wrong way even.

  Not that she didn’t believe Korradine had acted of her own free will. Oh no, she might have been influenced, but she’d been swaying in that direction long before. Frankly, Quinn was fairly certain she had been the intended plant all the time. The evidence pretty much said so.

  But, in that case, was it just Korradine acting in that manner, or were the Unusceros also a part of the grander plan? Because if that were the case, then didn’t they have bigger problems? Ones that reached a lot farther than she’d originally thought?

  She moved to the middle of the board and wrote Korradine’s name there, with a line and a circle to Unusceros with a question mark. Taking a couple of steps back, she admired her handiwork. It needed pictures and string if she was going to do one of those procedural show murder boards, but... she also just liked using lists.

  “It’s just a list.” Lynx said, popping in next to her. He sounded puzzled. “Why did you call it a murder board?”

  Quinn rolled her eyes. “Lists are great things,” was all she said and frowned, her attention back on that specific list because she knew she’d left something vitally important out.

  She continued to add, while totally ignoring Malakai’s popcorn crunching, a few more names. Like Kajaro, and the cosmicisodracus. All of them. By Dra, Dre, Dri, Dro, and Dru. Dri was the only one she had to keep a question-mark under. While the others had already divided themselves.

  But what for and why exactly? Those were things she still couldn’t put her finger on.

  That chaotic magic needed to roam free and not be caged by a filtration system? That seemed like such a crappy justification for mass genocide. Even when the argument was extended to include the weak would be tested and found wanting by chaotic magic and only the strong would survive. None of that made sense. There were no guarantees that anyone would survive chaotic magic, breaking free in its raw, destructive form.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  So just where were the guarantees coming from?

  She noted that down too, up in the right-hand corner.

  Everything had, or if Dravishk’s conversation with his sister was anything to go by, been planned since the Library’s inception. He’d also added a failsafe. Or at least, he thought he had. Whatever he’d done, it hadn’t worked. Was that the soul bomb? Where did Sarila come into all of this? Why were the Balisor’s wiped out in the way they were?

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. The headache was coming on fast now. There were so many avenues, so many paths to track.

  “Well,” Malakai sort of cocked his head to one side as he studied the board. “I mean they wanted to stop the filtration system from purifying the mana and leave it in its true form, right? That’s our whole thing. So why did the siblings allow the Library to be built in the first place? What did that get them?”

  Quinn ran over his questions. They were good ones.

  The Library chose that moment to speak up. My siblings, at least, as far as I knew at the time, didn’t want to be devoured. We had friends in many other solar systems, too. Thus - it was largely self preservation, and of those we knew and loved. Putting them before the chaotic creation elements that were turning on all of us.

  Malakai nodded, still chomping away. “Yeah, I get that. But... if Drav and Dro, actually wanted to welcome chaotic magic as their overlord and master or whatever... why would they have helped you build the Library in the first place. Especially if they were building in something to hopefully sabotage or destroy it in the future, anyway?”

  There was a lengthy pause. I don’t know. I never realized they’d done that until Quinn had that dream.

  “That’s just it.” Eric interjected. “They not only admit to sabotage, but in premeditated destruction of you and your system. Why would they have even helped in the first place?”

  The Library was quiet for a little while. So long, in fact, that Quinn felt sorry for it. Like I said. I don’t know. But I do know Drukala wasn’t involved, and I’m fairly certain my youngest brother wasn’t either. But I have to wait to wake him to find out.

  “Do you know who was the strongest?” Malakai asked, as if he was idly curious. But Quinn could tell he’d latched onto something. “Like was it you, Drav, Dri... who?”

  Quinn could practically hear the Library frowning with thought.

  Well... me, I guess? That’s why I was the one to become the Library. I needed Drav’s dimensional travel twist. But realistically I could have obtained that in other ways, this was just easiest.

  Silence fell over the room after that, and Quinn didn’t like the connotations one bit. “So, let me get this straight.” She spoke softly, gathering her thoughts as she did. Noticing that Milaro had also managed to let himself into the room with food in hand.

  “Your siblings and you agreed on this plan to make you into this huge knowledge and energy depository that would be effective against the downsides of magic - by removing the chaotic element. As the strongest and probably...” Quinn glanced around and nodded to herself, “most stable of the five of you, you all worked together to create the Library. A sharing of magic between everyone, having found a way for magic not to endanger lives?”

  Well I guess? I mean, Hal was there too. He’s been around almost as long as us. He has a few siblings too, but they’ve always been a bit preoccupied with their own wars.

  Quinn nodded. “So the five of you and Hal helped build you - helped transform you into this.” She waved around behind her and the office at the massive expanse that was the Library.

  Quinn get to the point.

  That was just it though. Quinn was trying to figure out how best to phrase it. Her thoughts were leading her, but she wasn’t entirely sure if she wasn’t just being a total conspiracy theorist. “Who’s idea was the Library.”

  Well, mine, of course. I did have a penchant for all knowledge. I had to know everything. Still do. It’s why the memories have been so painful for me to lose.

  “Like the cruelest punishment, right?” Quinn asked softly.

  Another pause before a very soft yes.

  “Do you think your own magic could have withstood chaotic backlash?”

  Likely. Not guaranteed, though. Stopping it from devouring planets wasn’t exactly on my agenda, but I’d been looking into ways to modify spatial displacement to help with that. I could always manipulate aspects of it, just not as a whole. That’s why... and the Library paused. Ahhhh. That’s why Drav suggested it. Sadness practically dripped off the last words.

  “I’m not saying that’s what happened, just that it’s a hypothesis.”

  “Wait.” Milaro seemed confused, which was a rare occurrence. “The Library was created because Drav assumed he’d be able to eliminate Drev?”

  Quinn shrugged. “Perhaps. It’s a theory. Makes sense. Why else would you make the most powerful of your siblings even more powerful?”

  “Point.” Milaro frowned. “It makes a weird sort of sense, except that it backfired and I don’t see why he wouldn’t have thought it would backfire.”

  Superiority complex. Plus, he never looked into the potential of system filtration. I don’t think he ever understood just how much power could be gleaned from the filtration system. Hal and I were quite proud of that, you know.

  Quinn smiled as she continued to write down tidbits and theories on her board. It was looking much better now.

  “But we haven’t learned anything.” Eric complained. “We already knew Drev was a dick. I don’t get why the why he was a particular one recently makes a difference.”

  “Because it helps solidify a timeline. I need to know how far back it goes — not only time wise but also person wise.” Quinn circled the Unusceros again. “Next, I need to figure out just how long Korradine was a plan for ... and if she was an outlier of her species or if the entire species was in on it. That’s our next stop.”

  “But we haven’t finished figuring out the ins and outs of Drav yet,” Lynx said, and then his face lit up. “But that’ll come as we put more pieces together. Let me pull up all the history on the Unusceros species for you. They’re rather unique, you know...”

  Lynx’s enthusiasm was obvious and slightly contagious. Malakai continued to eat popcorn.

  “Keep trying to reach your youngest brother?” Quinn asked the Library.

  Yeah

  The Librarian felt a pang for the Library. Sometimes one needed perspective outside of themselves. And the Library had got a huge dose of that.

  Lynx made a whirring sound and pulled Quinn’s attention from the whiteboard. His eyes lit up, and he focused on her. “Harish said Misha is about to wake up.”

  Quinn didn’t even think twice about dropping her marker and heading out the door.

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