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‘Don’t smother her,’ came another familiar voice, which Emiliana needed a few more moments to fully register as Chergoa. ‘Let her breathe.’

“Right, right, sorry.” The smiler took a few steps back, allowing Emiliana to recognize that it was Ibai Blackburn. Of course it was. “I have a lot to apologize for, apparently. Dang.”

Emiliana inhaled deeply as those words took their time registering. She focused. Suppress the pain. Put in the background. First, figure out what was happening. “What do you mean by that?” she asked, slowly rolling her neck, closing her eyes, then opening them again.

“Well. Um. Hmm. Where to begin? Okay, so I was tryin’ to help you out. Y’know. Of your little meditation coma. But, uh. I think I might’ve just prolonged it. But to be fair, it’s not entirely my fault! I just happened to learn a few things that made me change course a bit.”

‘He got distracted.’

“No! No. I specifically did not get distracted, this time! I tried real, real hard to avoid that. And I did! But as new information came to light, I had to make different decisions! Which made things take longer, unfortunately.”

‘Uh-huh.’

As she listened, Emiliana’s gaze moved around the room, absorbing more of their surroundings. Having been living in the Library of Erudition for so many months now, she’d gotten to know most of the building, but this particular chamber was looking... unfamiliar. The bookshelves on the walls seemed similar enough, but then she noticed several smaller, free-standing glass cases, as well.

They also had books in them, but only one each; and abruptly, this room started to feel more like that of a museum than a library.

“Where are we?” she had to ask.

“Oh, we’re in one of the secret special chambers,” said Ibai. “Neat, huh? I finally convinced the Library to let us in. There’s all sorts of cool books here!” He sauntered over to the nearest case and opened it.

Immediately, the room began to rumble, and the all-too-familiar sound of rustling papers and shuffling books began to arise. The sentient Library was about to launch an attack on Ibai, as Emiliana had seen it do so many times before when he so brazenly grabbed one of its books off its shelves.

“Oh, pipe down, already!” said Ibai, sounding genuinely annoyed for a change. “You know I’m not gonna hurt it! Just relax! This is important stuff I’m trying to tell her about!”

And to Emilaian’s amazement, the trembling actually slowed, then subsided entirely.