I knew it was my last day in Sentortzi by the time I was finished eating breakfast. It was nothing magical, just a subtle increase in the presence of guards and the knowledge that it had already taken longer than I''d counted on. I visited the stables on my way back to the inn and scratched each of the moskar in that spot they liked, Shitheel watching me carefully like it was a trap but still letting me do it. I climbed into my wagon, maybe for the last time, and just stood there for a moment thinking about how much I was going to miss it before realizing how silly that was - concentrating, I stepped into my memory palace and just like I''d envisioned there was a brand new door that led to a divination-perfect replica of the wagon - through the little windows I could see landscape rolling by.


    Run away, get dragged away, whatever. They couldn''t take my homes from me anymore.


    Once I got back to my room I changed into comfortable clothes and packed two more outfits, as well as a few other little trinkets and things in a pouch. I wasn''t bringing anything magical with me, under the assumption they wouldn''t let me take it anyway. Katrin and Errod were a little behind in English even though they''d made frankly amazing progress, so I even left the bracelet behind for them - I''d already become pretty fluent in Imperial without it, probably due to my own use of Comprehension and the fact it was made in part with the knowledge from a version of my own brain.


    I wasn''t sure if I would be picked up right away or if I''d have time to stop by and see Harmid in case he''d done more research, but just in case I pulled Katrin and Errod aside. "Before you leave town for wherever, can you check in with Professor Yanipliss? And then if you haven''t heard from Talia about the magic item I commissioned check with her too, and if she has it just... I guess bring it with you, and if I ever get out of this fucking mess I can find you by the fate threads. Um. If you run into the kids lie and tell them I''m fine, otherwise they''ll try and bust me out or something. Actually, on that note...


    "I think probably once Hammersmith sees my Dumines she''s going to find some excuse to keep me there - and the more I learn about the Empire the more it sounds like they fucking hate Sahrger so I''m probably already an enemy of the state or some shit. I''m pretty sure it would be legal to lock me up just for pretending to be human. So... don''t feel like you have to do something stupid. If I get out I get out, if not there''s probably nothing you can do. Whenever you''re done here, just go live your lives. Go to Erathik and date Lute, or go to Good Charl and join up with Mama Carnage like we talked about, or just... have an adventure for me, I don''t know.


    "I''m not sure why you stuck with me, but I appreciate it. It''s... it was nice, and honestly a new thing for me. But we''re not family, and you''re not obligated to worry about me. Not that my family ever seemed to feel obligated to... well, I guess they weren''t my family either so... Anyway. You bought me a few extra months, that''s more than I could have expected. And like I said, I can find you with the fate threads if I get out, if I want to reclaim my wagon or whatever. Until then, it''s best if we just call it here. Uh. I don''t know, this feels awkward. Sorry I was kinda bitchy back in the jungle. Um. I''m going to go."


    Errod rolled his eyes so hard I thought he was going to hurt himself, and blocked my way to the door while Katrin pulled out a long piece of yarn. I''d packed my knitting stuff, so she had to have stashed it away ahead of time. Why? They took the yarn between them, and - ignoring my questions - each held one of my hands and wrapped the yarn around so we were very loosely tied together.


    "I offer these bindings," Katrin said, "under the eyes of Yesrin. True blood and breath of the Runelighter family is given to you, now and forever, to accept or reject freely. May the gods and the soul of the world know us as kin, and our ancestors welcome you when this life ends." I tried to say something, but no sounds came out. Errod repeated the recitation, and then both of them kissed me on the forehead and cheek.


    "You''ll have to find your own first name," Errod said, "but you''ll always have our surname if you''re willing. As your brother, I promise that Lord Protector Hammersmith will release you on the first of the tenth after you open the way to Brinkmar for her, because otherwise on the second of the tenth we''ll set the Endless Empire ablaze."


    "That''s maybe a bit hyperbolic," Katrin added, "it would likely take us at least a week."


    The room was getting blurry. Stupid dust in my stupid eyes. As if on cue, there was a knock at the door - spared having to find my voice, I opened it and found exactly what I expected. Well, almost - there was only the one guard, which I felt a little insulted by. I''d assumed they would send at least three, even with me bound by an oath.


    "First Citizen Helma Patak would like a quick word with you," he said, "if you have a moment."


    A quick word. Of course. I turned and smiled at Katrin and Errod, still unable to put together a coherent sentence, and I slung my bag over my shoulder. I walked out, pulling the door closed behind me. Time to face the music. The panic, that tremble in my hand somehow left over from the torture and the old original fear of being trapped and the trauma of being shipped off to a new group home by CPS all mingled together, but I stepped out of my body and let it walk on auto-pilot so I could compose myself. We headed to the library of all places, and through a small door at the back that I hadn''t noticed before. I popped back into my body for better control as the guard led me down sloping narrow hallways that were clearly taking us below ground level, and I caught glimpses through some open doorways of dark rooms filled with shelves. It was an entire second library, under the first.


    I began to feel disoriented as the passage continued to take odd turns. Were we still under the library? Had we made it another level down? There were branching paths, but each direction looked the same to me. I turned on my view of the fate threads which helped somewhat, but I still felt sure I would get lost if I tried to retrace my steps without assistance. Finally we reached a hexagonal chamber, and the guard closed the door behind us. There was a door on each of the six walls, all identical, and if I hadn''t been watching the fate threads I never would have noticed when the whole chamber rotated - meaning the door we''d come through was actually two to my right now. There had to be magic involved, not just because the rotation had been smooth but because there''d been no sensation of movement at all.


    We walked up to one of the doors and went through, and a few moments later came to the first elevator I''d seen since Earth. I couldn''t see the mechanism since it was enclosed, so I wasn''t sure if it was pulleys or gravity magic or what. Whatever it was the ride was fairly smooth, and we seemed to go down about five more stories - unless the little bit of light I could see through a crack in the door had specifically been engineered to be misleading which, given the rest of the path we''d taken, was maybe a possibility. The doors opened, I stepped out, and they closed behind me without disgorging the guard.


    I was in a very nice lobby, with a receptionist behind a desk. It felt more like I was in an Earth office building, magical lighting cold like fluorescents and the marble tile of the floor something that wouldn''t be out of place in any bank. I half expected the woman behind the desk to have a telephone and a computer. She stood, smiling in a sort of blank corporate way, and gestured me forward.


    "Miss Smith," she said without any warmth, "I''m so glad you could make it. Your appointment with First Citizen Patak and, by extension, Lord Protector Hammersmith isn''t for another half-bell. There was someone else that wanted to meet you before you left our fine city - I hope you don''t mind the detour."


    Huh. Okay. I shrugged, and tried to look agreeable as I regretted leaving my armored jacket and other magic items behind. I hadn''t replaced my throwing knives yet, nor could I attack anyone with the contract in place, but I had the sudden sense that I was in danger. Wearing a normal dress and not having anything more dangerous than some knitting needles made me feel way too vulnerable. The woman stepped out from around the desk and led me to another elevator, but when the doors opened she held me back.


    "Not that one. It''s... not safe."


    The doors closed, and opened again a moment later. The cab looked identical, but this one seemed to have her seal of approval because she stepped on and gestured me forward. Was it another security thing? Some decoy trapped elevator car? Or, the extra-paranoid part of me asked, was it the exact same one and she was fucking with me? I stood next to her - I didn''t see a great alternative no matter how nervous I was - and we began to go downwards again. The moment the doors had fully shut, her whole demeanor changed and she went from cold and professional to mildly panicked.


    "Listen closely. He knows everything, whether or not he''ll admit it. If he asks you questions, for gods'' sake just tell the truth. It''s a game to him, to see who will lie. He... he hates being lied to. Please. I don''t know what he wants with you but just... be smart, give him whatever it is he wants, and I''m sure you''ll be okay. I''m sure of it." She didn''t sound sure at all.


    The doors opened before I could reply, and just like that she had a perfect smile plastered on her face as if nothing had happened. I stepped out, and in a repeat of the previous elevator with the guard she left without me. What the fuck? I was now in a small antechamber with some comfortable-looking benches and a large door of dark purple wood that was just slightly ajar. Well, screw it. I stepped forward and swung the door open. Beyond was a room of dark gray - almost black - stone, and cool blue lights. There were some chairs, but where I might have expected a table or desk or fireplace the back half of the room opened to what looked like a version of the library out of a nightmare.


    The shelves vanished into darkness above and below, and all of the books were identical silvery-black rectangles. Metal spiders climbed up and down the shelves, enormous and bearing human hands on the ends of every leg, and as I watched they retrieved or re-arranged books seemingly at random. It was incredibly badass, but it did make me wonder why the chairs were set up to be facing this bottomless pit of arachnid librarians.


    I didn''t have to wait long to find out; one of them came skittering into view at the lip of the pit, but unlike the others this one had a humanoid torso - slightly larger than a normal person, and very robotic, but clearly still meant to look like a human man. Interestingly, he wasn''t chiseled or scary or anything like that. He was a bit pudgy, and had bureaucrat vibes. "Greetings, Miss Smith. It is a pleasure to meet with you... again, or for the first time? An interesting question. My name is Sentortzi."


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    I flicked on my view of the fate threads again, and almost gasped. There were thousands of them, all coming from Sentortzi. They had an insubstantial look I recognized from experiments with Katrin - we''d taken it to mean they involved a branch of magic I couldn''t see, although I could still make out some colors. A strange orange hue, some white, and the faint shimmer of fate magic. They weren''t pure fate, that was for sure. Other threads were almost striped yellow and orange, and extended to the spiders off in the bottomless black library.


    I dropped view of the threads - there were too many, they were just getting in the way - and took a seat. "Is the city named after you, or are you named after the city?"


    He settled on to the ledge, mirroring the way I had sat in the chair.  "The former. Before there was a city, there was just me and what books I could salvage from the collapsing Empire. I had worked for the Clockmaker as a librarian, and in the chaos following his disappearance or death I was forced to set out alone in search of a safe place for my hoarded knowledge."


    "Cool. And now you''re a giant spider guy. Or... are you the whole swarm of spiders?"


    "Ah. A smart question, but one that is difficult to answer concisely. On the topic of potentially having more than one body, I had the pleasure of meeting with a Calliope Smith before this."


    So he wasn''t going to answer the question. I decided I''d take that to mean they were all, to some extent, him. "Yeah. She told me she was going to Sentortzi to talk to a demigod, so... I guess that would be you. I thought demigods had to promise not to fuck around with politics though - so why were you working with Hammersmith?"


    The humanoid torso bobbed in a sort of quarter-bow. "It is true, we accept certain limitations lest the Hunter devour us. But the spirit of the law is intended to prevent us from warring with each other over the prime plane, or subjugating normal humans and standing in the way of what many believe to be the intent of the gods - to have a world where average people can thrive and learn and experiment with magic. Thus, we can still have an impact on the world within some established guidelines. Some control parts - or the entirety - of other planes, and some are like myself; I stay here, beneath my city, and leave the political decisions to others. I serve as a guardian of knowledge without bias - or, without certain relevant kinds of bias. Those that know me may petition me for information, entering into the same fair contract that others do."


    I thought about all the threads. The contract I''d made hadn''t added a thread to me, but it could be he had a different method. Could I, possibly, follow those to everyone he had made a deal with? I hadn''t seen them when I was outside of the city though, which would make sense if we were deep enough. So, no following them - but I could remember what they looked like and possibly recognize them if I saw someone with one attached to them. "And what did Hammersmith want to know?"


    "Sadly, my work requires the strictest confidentiality."


    "Sure, but I was already here - right? You can at least tell me what I would have already known. I can assure you that we were, in a fundamental way, the same person."


    He froze, becoming disturbingly still. I took it as him hesitating, thinking. Was there meat under there somewhere, or down at the bottom of the shelves in the darkness? Or was he actually a robot? Connie hadn''t ever described him to me, but she''d implied she had the same question. After just a few seconds he began moving again. "In a fascinating turn of events, the details of the contract do not treat you as a separate entity. Very well. Broadly... she wanted to find out if the scenario that led to your presence was accurately described beyond what her own fact checking could establish, and she wanted to investigate likely outcomes for the various actions she could take. I was, of course, already looking into the situation before she told me about it."


    "You knew?"


    "Not details. I knew that the past, anything prior to noon on the first of the fifth, was inaccessible for viewing by my preferred methods. Applying more... force... to the equation eventually revealed the day of the upcoming Grand Alignment as if it was in the past, but there was too much interference to see anything clearly and the mana required was not sustainable. Looking even further back was somewhat easier, but I was still limited in what I could recover. It was immediately clear that the planes had been... reverted to an earlier state."


    "Okay. Well, you''re welcome - I bet being able to look at some part of the upcoming few years, even a different version of it, is invaluable to an information broker."


    "Less than you - or I - would think, unfortunately. But it is true that I have benefited from this unique occurrence. It has led to me doing much research on the possibility and effects of time travel, and how the universe handles apparent paradoxes. One of my professors that was most suited to this research was tragically killed, but I was able to recover some documents from his quarters. I have obscured his absence from the rest of the faculty, and had Professor Yanipliss take up the slack - I believe you know him?"


    Hmm. This seemed a lot like the kind of situation the woman in the elevator was warning me about. Still, I didn''t see any reason to offer up too much. If Harmid had told this guy about me I was going to murder him, but I didn''t think he would have done that. It was possible this demigod had the ability to spy on everything in the university - it would be weird if he couldn''t, now that I thought about it - but I didn''t need to assume he had the time and bandwidth to actually do so. "I talked to him, yeah. I didn''t tell him about what''s going on, I just happened to run into him and he loaned me a book."


    He tilted his head, and one of his fucked up spider legs tapped against the edge of the floor. "I see."


    "Look, it''s cool to meet you and everything, honestly, but can we cut to the chase? You called me here for a reason, I''m sure."


    "Yes. I have a job to offer you, Miss Smith. A simple delivery. If you will enter into a binding contract with me, and promise to deliver a package to me the next time we meet, then I will in turn offer you a favor - with some limitations, of course, but most favors you might request would be easily within my considerable power."


    I shook my head. "I''m not a fan of binding contracts, if I''m honest. What would the package be, and where would I need to go to pick it up? I''m probably going to be stuck in a cell thanks to Hammersmith, unless your favor could get me out of that."


    "The package would be this," he said, and held up one of those silvery-black book-like things I had seen the spiders re-arranging, "and I could indeed order guards to free you from your other obligation if you choose that as your favor. I could even guarantee safe passage out of the city via my personal teleportation chamber to a destination of your choice, so you would not need to risk encountering the Endless Empire''s forces."


    "Wait. You''re going to give me that thing, and then you want me to give it back to you?"


    "When next you meet me, yes."


    I didn''t like it. At all. It was too good to be true, for one thing, and also felt like some kind of trap. "No. Not unless you tell me what it is and what it can do."


    "I will not divulge specifics, but... very well. It is similar to what it appears to be - it is stored knowledge."


    "Stored how? It''s not a book, I''m sure. I''m assuming it''s magic, and I''m saying that I want to know the specifics before I agree to this. Is it volatile? How do you recover the knowledge, does it just cram it into your head if you accidentally open it or is there a device it slots into or what?"


    He froze for a split second. "Have you seen fabrication templates before? Magical prototypes?"


    "Yeah, I saw a shop full of them last time I was here. They like... capture the essence of an object, so people can fabricate them perfectly with magic even if they''re complicated. Right?"


    "Essentially correct, and fundamentally what I am holding. I would encourage you to learn more about them, the concept is fascinating."


    "Why don''t you just tell me now? Look, I''m going to be a pain in the ass about this. We''re talking about making a binding contract and me agreeing to maybe carry this with me for... however long, under gods know what conditions. I want details. You''re an information broker, give me some information."


    He froze again, for longer this time. "It would be best if this information came from elsewhere."


    I stood up, stretching. "Well, I have a busy day. It''s been nice though. In the future, you should offer your guests a drink or something." I turned and started walking for the door, but I didn''t get far before he called out.


    "Wait. It would be acceptable for me to explain the concept to you. I learned the foundations of it long ago, before the collapse of the old Empire." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself; I wasn''t sure what the big deal was since this clearly wasn''t a big secret, they sold this shit in stores. "Templates can encode a frozen moment of the common local understanding, that collective consciousness that helps to guide and interpret magic. Someone who has only seen an egg in passing could try to create one from memory, but with nothing but their own knowledge - having only seen the shell - would never get the inside correct. The common local understanding would fill in those gaps, but if it was an exotic egg from far-off lands it would still come out wrong because there are limitations of time and space - and so it would have the internal structure of a better known, local egg. Templates are used instead to capture this understanding and transport it to other places and times. In addition, if they are for a physical object they can be made with the assistance of other skills to capture its structure in perfect clarity."


    If it was for a physical object. But it didn''t need to be, right? He''d said this was knowledge, so you could somehow make a template of just pure thought. Huh.  "What happens to the original? Like, is that your only copy of a memory or something? Is that why you want me to bring it back to you, you just want to forget for a while?"


    "A copy can be made and restored, if desired. I will not be discussing further details. The offer of a favor is quite generous."


    The spiders moving those things around... he''d made cloud storage for his brain. I had too, in a way, since I was building that whole fake hotel in Ematse... but this was something else. He was an information broker that was also... how old? Fifteen hundred Earth years, minimum. It wasn''t just fifteen hundred years of memories though, it was all the accumulated knowledge he could get his hands on. Could you even stay sane if you remembered it all at once? Could you keep it organized and find anything? Maybe that''s what he was doing, turning it into a physical library so he could move things around or store them for later without having to fully know them all the time.


    I realized I''d been staring into the distance, thinking. Well, time to either go for it or demand to leave. "The contract would need to be simple. No bullshit, no tricks. I want to write it myself."


    "Acceptable." A strange ivory sphere drifted into view from behind him, and settled down in front of me. "This will allow you to make a binding contract. It is a very rare artifact, very old. Only a handful are still in existence. Place your hand on it and state the words, and I will do the same."


    I took a moment to think about it. I didn''t want to try and trick him, but I did want to leave myself a little wiggle room if possible. Best to just word it simply, and go from there. "You will immediately grant me a favor that is within your power and that you might grant any other very important and favored petitioner, to the best of your ability and without further cost. You will not try to twist this favor or use our interactions today against me in any way, or otherwise seek to harm or imprison me. In return, I vow to take the knowledge you give me and deliver it back to you the next time I see you, making all reasonable efforts to keep it safe until that time."


    He did the freezing thing again for a moment, but then said - hesitantly - "This is acceptable." I remembered to turn my view of the fate threads back on before he finished agreeing, and saw a thread spinning itself out of the sphere. It attached to both of us and pulled tight, popping free of the sphere as it did. Huh. Okay, this was it. All I had to do was say the word, and I''d be able to teleport right out from under Hammersmith''s clutches.


    And it didn''t feel right.