"I'm sorry, miss," the rather nervous-looking young sailor said. "You know the rules. We can't bring a non-Lemurian on board."

"Do you really want to take responsibility for getting in the way of Library business?" I asked. "My mission is hugely important to the whole Empire!"

He looked helplessly up the gangplank, no doubt wishing his captain was here. She, however, was wisely remaining belowdeck in hopes of avoiding this very argument. "I'm sorry," he said again. "Rules are rules."

"Well, let me put it another way." I stepped in close so that I was right under his chin. To his credit, he didn't back up, even when he saw the look in my eyes. "Far to the north of here is a city called Hattush. Have you heard of it?"

He gulped and nodded.

I continued, "The city was falling under the sway of a demon lord, and to get this man, I destroyed it. Completely. Utterly wiped from existence."

"Um..." His voice quavered. "The demon or the city?"

"Both."

He let us on board.

I could understand his reluctance. I hadn't yet gotten around to telling Iason this, but the punishment for bringing an outsider into Lemuria was kind of, well, death. For the bringer and the bringee. I was confident it wouldn't be a problem, but, well... I could see why the sailor wouldn't want to be a party to it. 

Which was why I wasn't giving him the choice. I literally fought a demon lord for Iason. I chose him. I... well, let's not put a word to it, okay? The point was, I wasn't going to be separated from him now. We hadn't even boned yet!

I mean, well, we sort of did... bone-esque activities a few times, but only under weird circumstances. We hadn't actually, you know, deliberately...

I'm not flustered, you're flustered! Shut up.

Anyway, once they let us on board, we settled into the cabin they'd given us. Looking around, Iason whistled. "I can't believe they let us have passage in a room this nice for free."

"I'm on a mission for the Empire and they know it. The Library has plenty of money, it'll pay them well."

Iason nodded. "So this is a Lemurian ship, huh? I'm a little disappointed. Other than the crew all being nearly as short as you, it's not that different from one of ours."

"No?" I asked, studiously ignoring the crack about my height. "Then you haven't noticed."

"Noticed what?" asked Iason. 

"We left dock right after we got on board, right? We've got to be well out into the Sea of Reeds by now, and we'll be in open ocean soon enough. But I'm not sick."

"...Hey, you're right!" said Iason. "The ship isn't rocking at all!"

I patted the wall. "Enchanted wood," I said. "This will be the smoothest sailing you've ever experienced, even if we hit storms."

"Okay," he admitted, "I'm kind of impressed now."

"Great," I said. "So... uh, seeing as we have time to kill..." I trailed off. I felt like my tongue had grown to three times its normal size, and the temperature of my face had increased several thousand degrees. I was certain I must be blushing, which was embarrassing as hell, which made me blush harder...

"Seeing as we..?" Iason asked. Then he looked at my face. "Oh. Oh! Uh, yeah, we, uh..."

I looked at anything that wasn't him. "So, uh... I have some ideas on what we can do to uh, well... but we'll have to set some ground rules first..."

"Oh, absolutely!" he agreed. "What, um, what rules did you have in mind?"

It took about an hour to cover everything for both of us, but neither of us minded. After all, we weren't writing a contract to buy a house; we were sharing fantasies and desires, suggesting things to each other and finding things we both wanted. In the end, I set a few hard limits: nothing that lasted past this trip, no pain or physical harm, nothing that would draw attention from the sailors, no revealing Lemurian or magical secrets... those were the main things, but it ended up a pretty long list.

Finally, we were ready. Iason took a deep breath. "I swear to abide by all the rules and limitations on which we've agreed," he said, and I added just a touch of magic to his words. We both felt the ripple of truth, the mark of a geas truly created.

I closed my eyes. This is it. "Then, subject to those limitations, I too swear to obey you in all things and all ways." Again I added a touch of magic. Again we felt the ripple.

I opened my eyes and looked up at him, fighting the goofy grin trying to cross my face. "Now what?" I asked.

His own smile was... well I think he was going for cunning and wicked. It mostly looked dorky. "Now I give you your first order," he said. "Lemma... forget completely about this geas."

I blinked. Why was Iason looking at me like that?

"Come on," he said. "Let's explore the ship."

I stood to follow him. "I thought we were going to..." I started.

"Nope," he said. "Come with me."

I followed him unwillingly as he walked up onto the deck. Even here, the ship didn't sway or rock at all. It remained perfectly straight while the sea tilted back and forth around us. "Neat," said Iason.

"Yeah, I guess, if you haven't seen it before."

He turned to face me. "Kiss me," he said.

"But the sailors—!" I started to protest, but by then I was up on tiptoes, leaning up to bring my lips to his. I intended it to be a quick peck, but he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. I felt his tongue against my closed lips, a silent command to open them, and I did. I couldn't help it.

Fuck, I said. Am I so turned on by the idea of obeying him that I'm doing it even WITHOUT a geas?

Eventually he released me, and I panted for breath, my eyes wide and wild. "Wow," I managed.

"Yeah," he said.

A nearby sailor snickered. I began calling up fire—not a lot, just enough to teach her a lesson!

"Lemma," Iason said warningly, and I immediately shut it down.

Shit, that was INSTINCTIVE. A warm feeling flooded through me. If it felt that good without a geas...

"Let's go back down," said Iason.

Yes! I thought. Finally! Let's do this!

Back in our cabin, he sat on the edge of the bed and just looked at me while I gradually started to vibrate with the tension.

"So, should we talk about the geas?" I asked.

"Hmm," he said, "maybe after you do some things for me."

"What? Hey, now wait, I'm not just going to—"

"Strip," he ordered flatly.

I sucked in my breath. This was so unlike Iason, I'd never seen him so... so commanding, so powerful, and I was already half out of my tunic. I was sure I could have chosen not to strip, but if that was what he wanted before we could get into the real control...

"Come here," he ordered when I was naked. I stepped closer, and he pulled me down into his lap. Still fully clothed, he began to gently stroke my naked torso.

I put my arms around his neck and sighed blissfully. It felt good—really good! Not as good as if he'd actually had control over me, but—

"Kiss me," he said again, and I hurried to comply. I kissed him hard, plastering my body against his, hoping that he would feel how eager I was, how ready, and finally respond with the geas.

As we kissed, he kept one hand around my waist while the other trailed down between us and between my legs. I moaned as his fingers slipped into my slick, hot wetness and began to tease.

"Please," I whimpered against his mouth. "The geas..."

He smiled down at me. "Are you sure it's needed? Tell me the truth, if I ordered you to get on your knees right now, would you?"

"Yes," I said automatically. Oh gods, it's true, I would.

"You'll obey me even if we don't do the geas right now, won't you? You can't help yourself."

"Yes..." I moaned, squirming in his lap, like a puppet dancing at the ends of his fingers. "Please... anything..." And it was true. Was it that thing the dragon put in my head—or found in my head?—that made me crave obedience? Was it some kind of strange influence? Or was it just... my own feelings?

It didn't matter. All that mattered was that I had to obey, needed to obey, wanted to obey, without any magic at all, and that was the hottest thing to happen to me yet.

Eagerly, I obeyed Iason's command to strip him. I knelt in front of him and stroked his already hard cock, shaking with need, desperate for permission to straddle him again.

"If I made you wait," Iason said. "If I ordered you stop here, on the edge, for an hour, two hours, the rest of the trip, would you?"

I nodded mutely, eyes locked on his cock. The more turned on I got, the more obedient I felt, and the more obedient I felt, the more turned on I got. I was trapped in a cycle, and it was incredible.

"Good girl," he said. "Now come up here so I can fuck you."

His big cock slid into me with ease, and I practically came immediately. But I held off as I began to ride his hips, feeling him fill me over and over again.

He groaned, and I knew he was close. "Cum when I do!" he commanded. "Cum and remember!"

He spurted inside me, thick and hot and creamy, and I threw my head back and screamed as I came.

I collapsed against him, his cock still in me, and began to laugh. "Asshole."

He stroked my hair and smiled broadly down at me. "I thought you'd like that."

"You thought right!"

Over the next few days, we had a lot of fun. Iason played with my perceptions, my memories, my will. He implanted a command that I would get hornier every time I heard the word "please" before dinner one night, and by the third time someone at the captain's table asked someone else to pass something I was barely able to sit still. We had sex just about every possible way we could on the ship, including in a few places that I suspect the sailors would rather we didn't.

Finally, the announcement came down: we had reached our destination. Iason and I went up on deck, and he looked around in surprise. "There's nothing here!"

And he was right. Nothing but ocean in every direction. We'd sailed straight out of the Sea of Reeds and into open ocean, beyond where even the Sea People ranged. "Nope," I said. "Nothing at all."

"I could make you tell me," he said faux-grumpily.

"You could," I agreed cheerfully. "But that's no fun. Anyway, you should be finding out just about... now!"

There was a strange sound, a vworm, and a glowing glyph appeared around the ship, a circle inscribed with a triangle with the ship inside, and a complex tracery of runes and magical symbols around the outside. It flared from red to blue to white, and then the world turned upside-down and inside out.

And with a plop, we were in the middle of a lake, an enormous city of shining towers built along its southern and eastern shores.

Iason stared around wildly, and I grinned. "Welcome to Lemuria."

As we drew up to the port, I explained it to Iason. The continent of Mu—all of which is ruled by the Lemurian Empire—isn't exactly part of our world. It mostly is, but it's shifted slightly... sideways. Close enough that you can still see the sun and moon and stars, but far enough that you can't touch it.

Except at the three Gates. Three places where Mu's little space of its own and the rest of the world draw close, and a little magic can form a bridge between. All three are in empty patches of ocean. The Atalan Gate lies west of the Inner Sea, and leads to the port of Atalan on the eastern shore of Mu. That was the one the thief who stole the Lost Library had used decades ago, so that was the one I used to enter the world. Next was the one Iason and I had just used, the Lemuria Gate, which lay southeast of the Bay of Reeds and led to Lake Murin, where the capital of Lemuria itself was built.

And then there was the third gate, on the other side of the world from everything Iason knew. We didn't use that one—our treaty with the fey established the valley around it as a No Man's Land.

Even if we hadn't, frankly, most people wouldn't go to the Shattered City if you paid them. Between the monsters, the ghosts, and the monster ghosts, it wasn't a fun place, and that was before the architecture started getting into your head.

But we had a more pressing problem as we came ashore: bureaucracy.

"I'm going to have to ask you to come with me," said the city guard at the harbor.

"Hmm," I said. "Nah."

"Miss," he said warningly. "You know the penalty for bringing in foreigners."

"Yeah," I said, "but I'm on business for the Library and the Enforcers, and I need this man's help."

Iason tried to look nonthreatening, which is not easy when you're more than six feet of broad-shouldered, heavily muscled, grade-A beefcake, though the lack of weapons or armor was probably helping.

"I'm sorry," said the guard, "but there are no exceptions."

"Oh, I think there are," I said, gathering up magic. If I hit the guards fast, we might be able to disappear into the city before the Enforcers came after me, and then I'd just have to stay one step ahead of them until we could reach the Library...

"Is there a problem here, officer?" asked a voice from behind the guard.

A man stepped out of the shadows of a stack of crates being offloaded from the ship. He was small, with dark eyes and a shiny bald head. Looking at him, it was impossible to tell if he was thirty, fifty, or even a very healthy and shockingly unwrinkled seventy—but I happened to know he was at least ninety-five.

"Archmagus!" the guard gasped. "What brings you here?"

"Her," Archmagus boKorell said, stepping forward. "The Enforcers have business with her." He glanced at Iason. "And her companion."

"Of course!" the guard gabbled desperately. "Do you need an escort?" It could do a lot for a mere guard's career to be seen with the head of the Enforcers, I knew.

"Thank you, but no," said boKorell. He beckoned to me and Iason. "Come along, you two."

We followed him along the twisting streets of Lemuria. Iason looked around in wonder at everything—the shops, the things, the people, the things that were also people.

"Stay close," I warned him. "These streets were designed by ancient mages to confuse invading armies. You do not want to get lost here."

He looked suitably chastened and hastened to stay beside me. We walked past the Imperial Academy—from the outside, a windowless, doorless, smooth pink tower hundreds of feet tall. Inside it was a massive, sprawling complex that bore no resemblance to the outside whatsoever. "The entrance exam," I told Iason, "is literal: if you can get into the building, you get into the school."

"But... there's no doors," he said.

"Nope. But there are lots of ways in—teleportation spells, dimensional folding spells, shadowstep, enchanting a student to let you in, turning into a bug and riding a student's clothes... lots of ways."

"You blew a hole in the wall, didn't you?" he asked.

"Maybe."

"She did!" the Archmagus said from ahead of us. "Took us five hours to repair, and they had to admit almost a hundred new students that just walked in through the hole. That's when I started watching her, I just assumed we'd be hunting her down for her crimes someday."

"Wait, seriously?" I asked.

"Oh yes," he said. "I'm still not sure we won't have to at some point."

We continued on past the Imperial Library—a massive tetrahedron, the oldest building in the city—and the Imperial Palace, before we finally reached the headquarters of the Enforcers, tucked in under the Palace's outer wall.

We followed him in, Iason earning plenty of stares from the other Enforcers. "Your... companion can wait here," boKorell said when we reached the little reception area outside his office. I remembered it well—last time I was here, he'd given me the quest to find the Lost Library.

I saw Iason about to protest, and spoke before he could. "It's okay," I told him. "The Archmagus knows you need to be safe if he wants any cooperation from me—and he needs cooperation from me, don't you, Archmagus?"

He arched an eyebrow. "You've changed a great deal in three years."

"Have I?" I asked. "I think I look basically the same."

"More or less," he said. "You were a wan little thing, and much healthier-looking now. But I meant the several decades' worth of cynicism you've acquired."

"Heh," I said. "Yeah. That could be true. But I am right, aren't I? You need me, and as long as you do, Iason's safe."

He ducked his head and gestured to his office. "Indeed. Shall we?"

Inside, he sat at his desk while I sat at the chair across from him—the same place I'd sat when he put me on my quest. And arrayed around the desk were—

"Shouldn't those be in the Library?" I asked. Every one of the books I'd found and sent back to Lemuria was here. I could feel the energy in them humming, almost like they were singing to me—like they knew me.

"That's what we need you for," he replied. "You recovered them, so they recognize you as their Librarian. They won't permit anyone else to touch them—so we need you to Shelve them."

"Shelve?"

"A simple ritual. A few days of purification, and then you enter the Library with the book and return it to its proper place. Once its magic is fitted back into the Library, it will become quiescent, usable by any legitimate visitor to the Library, not to mention the other Librarians."

"A few days?" I asked distastefully. Purification rituals suck. Strict control of what you can eat, what you can do—and no fun with Iason for the duration. 

"Oh yes," he said. "Per book."

"What!?"

"Yes, you need to cleanse yourself from the residues of the magic before you can do the next book."

"That'll take weeks!"

"Yes," boKorell said, "that's why I want you to start as soon as possible."

"There has to be a faster way," I insisted. "Do I really have to do them one at a time?"

"Well..." said boKorell. "Skilled Librarians have Shelved two or three books at once in the past. But it can have strange mental effects, and if those distract you... well. There have been deaths."

"Oh," I said. Death didn't sound fun, especially not death from my mind being eaten out from the inside by magical backwash. "But... I mean, I have had a lot of experience with strange mental effects."

"Hmm," said boKorell. "Well... if we could ensure you retain control even under the strain of the Shelving..." He considered, then snapped his fingers. "Of course! The geas! The one I placed on you when you set out!"

I stared at him. "...You could watch, and use it to take control if things went wrong! Use the compulsion to finish the quest to carry me through whatever the Shelving puts in my mind!"

"It would be an unprecedented feat," he said.

"Yeah, it would be, but... uh... that geas is gone." He stared at me, and I explained how it got tangled up with Brinksmoor's geas years ago, and the two spells destroyed each other.

"Well, no matter. If you really want to do this, you could just agree to the geas again."

I considered. On the one hand, safety, and my mind stays my own. For weeks. On the other, a geas, a few days, and then I'm free!

Free to, well, spend time with Iason. Help him find a new sword and armor, maybe head out west to the towns near the Shattered City. They can always use skilled monster hunters out there. And, of course, play around with spells to get him into my head...

I could be free to be a slave.

"I'll do it," I said.

It took four days to cast the geas, study the ritual, and purify myself. Lots of hot spring bathing, no sex, nothing to eat but unseasoned boiled grains and bitter tea. They didn't let me see Iason, but I talked to him through a curtain once. He was fine—they didn't quite know what to do with him, so they'd provided him with food and assigned an apprentice Enforcer to be his guide around the city.

Finally, at dawn on the fifth day, I went to the Library. I stood in the center of the Grand Annex, shelves stacked like rings all around me, wearing a diaphanous white gown that was completely not at all my style. The books of the Lost Library stood on plinths all around me, while the Librarians, Archmagus boKorell, and Iason watched from a safe distance.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. The threads of magic twined through the room, thicker and more complicated than anywhere else I'd ever been. But I could tell there were two distinct sets, the Library's own magic, and the magic of the books I'd found. The books' threads hummed like in boKorell's office, and now they really were singing to me. I could practically hear them saying my name.

I shook my head. These were the mental affects I'd been warned about, and I had to keep them at bay. Books can't talk, they don't have minds!

Time to get to work. I reached out mentally and grasped a thread from each book. They vibrated together, sending a hum through my brain, down my spine. I reached for the magic filling the Library too, and brought threads from the shelves surrounding me to the books, starting them vibrating in time with the books' threads.

The books began to glow, and slowly rise from their plinths, hovering in the air.

Lemma... they whispered. Books, threads, Library... the sound of my name was everywhere, even inside me.

I focused on moving the books, weaving their magic in with the Library, but as I did the vibrations expanded and spread. Energy crackled from the hovering, glowing books as they began floating outward toward the shelves, discharges of purple lightning sparking out from them.

Lemma... listen to Us...

I tried to ignore the voice, even as it vibrated through my whole being. Lightning arced from book to book randomly, around the circle and over my head. The Library was resisting, pushing back, pushing into me, inexorable, huge and old and powerful and irresistible.

We belong to you Lemma... you belong to Us...

I shivered. The forces around me could rewrite my entire being, arc through my mind and turn me into... what?

We know you hear Us, Lemma... open to Us and be vastened...

Books don't have minds! Libraries don't have minds! I knew that! And I knew the magic feeding back into me could affect my mind. But knowing that didn't change how I felt, didn't change that I could feel the mind of the Library. No one book had a mind, but together, lines of magic from book to book, humming and singing, all that knowledge and power flowing through this building...

Join Us Lemma... surrender yourself as you have always dreamed...

I wanted that. I wanted that so badly... that mind was everything I ever wanted. I wanted power and I wanted to be controlled, wanted safety and wanted danger, and here I could have all at once. Surrender and become a part of it, and my self would be just one tiny piece in a vast and ancient mind, one with more power than any mage who ever lived. It would annihilate me, and it would make me invincible.

Bolts of purple lightning lashed out against walls and shelves, crackling endlessly across the room while the Librarians cowered. Wind whipped my dress.

I let go.

We were huge. We were everything. We were the stones of the building and the spells that bound them, the words on the pages of every book and the magic that fired them. We were the Library.

And, laughing, Archmagus boKorell strode out into the annex. The geas snapped down around Lemma, tiny little flesh part of Us. But... but she was part of Us, and the geas that bound her... bound Us.

"What are you doing?" It was her mouth that spoke, but Our voice, the voice of Many, echoing through the library.

"So long," he said. "So many years to make this happen. Getting Vilnus to steal the Library was the easy part—with his crimes, he was happy to do it in exchange for my assurance he would never be bothered by the Enforcers while he lived, as long as he never returned. Then it was simply a matter of waiting, waiting through all those long, long years for someone impatient and arrogant enough to attempt a Shelving on this scale, but who would surrender easily enough to the Library to make it worthwhile. And now... now the Library itself, the most powerful magical being in the world, is mine! Now... I will become a god!"

"You desire to control Us," We said.

"I do control you! My geas surrounds you, compels you! My control in this moment is total, and I command you to be mine!"

There was nothing We could do. We had to obey. We had never experienced desire before Lemma became a part of us. The only desires we had were those which came from her, and she was bound.

boKorell stepped closer to Lemma. He grabbed her arm and pulled her to himself. "Now we begin the true ritual," he said. "The ritual of my ascension. Your will is mine; once I claim your body, your power, and the power of the Library, will be mine as well!"

"Yes," We said through Lemma's voice. We found a word, a word that sent thrills of excitement through her, a jolt of pleasure—something the Library part of Us had never experienced before. "Master."

"No!"

A man, another tiny fleshy thing, stood at the edge of the annex. All the other humans had fled as the whirlwind built and the lightning crackled, but this one remained.

"Lemma, snap out of it!" he called. Another word from the part of Us that had been Lemma: Iason.

"We are the Library now," We told him. "The one you knew as Lemma has been consumed. She is part of Us now. And We belong to boKorell."

"No!" he shouted again. He stepped out into the storm, hunching over and pushing forward slowly. "You don't belong to him, Lemma! You belong to me!"

"There is no longer a Lemma," We said.

Iason...

"That's right!" shouted boKorell. "You're mine!"

The entire library crackled with power now. Every book glowed purple-white, every fixture sparked and thrummed with energy. 

boKorell laughed in exultation. "Your first command, Library!" He pointed at Iason. "Destroy him!"

A bolt of purple lightning stabbed down out of the sky and struck the ground at Iason's feet. Marble exploded outward, and Iason went flying. He lay still a moment, and then slowly staggered to his feet. "I know you can do better than that, Lemma!" he shouted. "You've killed demons and vampire queens!"

"What was that?" boKorell demanded. "I commanded you to destroy him! Kill him, now!"

Lightning struck again, this time the wall behind Iason. It exploded, throwing him forward onto his face. Again, slowly, he got to his feet. "That's it? Come on! This is pathetic, Lemma!"

"You have no choice but to obey!" boKorell screamed.

"We... do not... desire... to harm this man," We said.

"You must!"

No! something inside Us shouted. We were trapped. All Our power, and We were still caught between two traps. We had to obey boKorell, and We refused to harm Iason.

There was another word in between. We are the Library; We are made of words. This was another new one, one that came from the part of Us that had been Lemma, a word at the heart of everything she was.

Choose.

So We did.

A bolt of lightning stabbed out again. boKorell screamed as it engulfed him... and then he was gone, nothing left of him but a shadow burnt into the floor.

"Lemma!" Iason shouted up to Us. "Thank goodness! Now let's end this!"

"We told you," We said. "Everything she was is a part of Us now."

"No! Give her back! Give me back my Lemma!"

Iason...

The word was in Us. A stream of words, images, ideas. Something inside Us that wasn't there before.

The Library shuddered. Something was wrong. Something inside Us was not fully Us anymore.

What is that..? it thought.

The Library shuddered again. The thing inside Us could see it now, underneath. We were complex, maddeningly complex, but We were still of Order. But underneath...

What is that!? it—she—thought again with horror.

Chaos, we said. Primal. Ancient. That which Shattered the City. It is stronger by far than Us... but it sleeps.

"Lemma!" Iason shouted again.

The Library shook again. You must stop, We thought. We must be in harmony. Our discord feeds it, and it could wake.

That can't happen! she thought.

It can. It will. That Which Sleeps Beneath the Library is the very reason We exist. We were placed here to delay its waking... but someday We shall fail. Perhaps today.

The Library shook again, and Iason was thrown from his feet.

You must let go. Surrender and become one with Us once more. Allow Us to resume Our harmony. We shall sing it back to sleep.

The tiny voice within the chorus hesitated. But...

Let go. Be free as a part of Us. No more desires, no more bonds, no more ties to the mortal world. Total freedom from the tyranny of flesh and the limitation of the mortal mind.

The voice could do that. It could be free and uncontrolled forever as part of the chorus... or it could be free to obey. Free to be controlled. Free to...

You seek to hide a word from Us. We are words. You must not do this.

"Lemma!" Iason sobbed desperately, pinned to the ground by the wind. "Stop this! I need you! I love you!"

Why put a word to it? the little voice thought in even more terror than That Which Sleeps Beneath the Library inspired.

Because words are all We are.

Because if this is the end... I have to say it just once.

"I love you too," I said quietly. Bending down, I helped Iason to his feet. Around us, the chaos of the Library ended. The books settled on their shelves, Lost no longer. The shaking stopped, the wind died down, the lightning flickered away. Deep, deep beneath us, That Which Sleeps continued to sleep.

I looked at the stain on the floor where boKorell had been. "We're going to have some explaining to do," I said.

We did. Fortunately, the other Librarians had stuck around long enough to see boKorell declare his ambitions. And anyway, with the head of the Enforcers dying a traitor, their organization was in enough chaos that they were happy to sweep me and Iason under the nearest rug.

By the next morning, we were free to go. Iason had been granted honorary citizenship, and we were free to go.

We walked slowly down Elfsteel Street, looking at magic swords. No iron, of course, but elfsteel is stronger, lighter, and holds an edge better anyway, plus it can hold spells. "You sure about this?" he asked me.

"Some people won't like it," I admitted. "Especially once they realize what's happened. But it's not like they can stop me."

"Then I guess we... try out some practice geases, before..."

"Yeah," I said. "And then maybe go out west and hunt some monsters, like we talked about?"

"Sure," said Iason. "That sounds fun. And if it helps avoid people who might have a problem with, um... us..."

"Yeah," I said. "A bonus."

We'd agreed it was time. We'd experiment, try things out, but soon enough... we'd craft something that didn't have an endpoint. We'd be... permanent.

And of course there would be people who had a problem with a powerful mage being married to a foreigner, and even more about her being, well, a loveslave to a foreigner. But sooner or later people would figure out the rest...

"I can hear it, you know," I said. "All the time, like a song you can't get out of your head."

"But you're still... you, right?"

I nodded. "As much as I ever was. I'm just... connected now. That knowledge, that power... it'll take a lifetime for me to figure out how to touch it safely, but... it's all there."

"Well," he said, "if people do show up angry about it... we'll be ready for them."

I grinned and slapped him on the back. "Yeah we will! But we need to get you a good sword and new armor first."

So that's the story. I went out, I found some books, I came home. I nearly lost myself, many times, but in the end I found the secret: I gave myself to someone else to hold onto.

So I'm home to stay, and I'm staying Lemma, the same Lemma I've always been, the only Lemma I know how to be:

Lemma Kyrie baSontara of Lemuria.

The Librarian.