""Did you hear that Kharil is planning to leave, now that Asteveril have joined the Inasvin Alliance?" Nara had brought this up out of nowhere, but Inric had known then what it meant. "The same as Sarayan?" he asked. "Nara, are you -" "I don't know. I just - I don't want to abandon my family," and Nara had looked away. "And if the Library is staying neutral, I won't be needed here." And he had gone, and the Library had ended up in the fighting anyway, and long after all that misery was over, and Inric had returned to Seth-Varouin and started caring for his parents in their slow decline, the Library was still a precious haven to him. Even if he was away, knowing it was there had helped him as he had cared for his parents and endured the not-so-subtle disdain from those of his supposed peers. It was when nobody had acknowledged the death records that he had started worrying. And after the mourning period was over, he had returned - against Merianethel's gentle persuasion - to find, as he had suspected, that the Library had been abandoned. And even then, the challenge had been to restore, to rebuild, as much as possible. To restore it to what it had been. What it had never been, he knew now. Head in his hands, grieving for the loss of something he had never had, he almost doesn't hear the knock at the door.