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“Do not let me hold you back.” Nithel said with a small smile that made Alessio smile back a little, suddenly warm inside and a little bewildered by it. “But be careful Alessio.”
His friend’s protectiveness touched him, although he had a hard time taking it seriously with everything that’d already happened to him. It seemed like a fact of fate that he always managed to strike people as someone perennially helpless. Alessio nodded with a slightly crooked smile.
“I’m very responsible.” He said in a not at all reassuring voice. Nithel looked like he was thinking about touching the creepy curtain. And he made bad decisions? Please let the sleeping daemons lie.
Alessio took his friend’s hand as he threw open any window that was curtained. Evening light flooded the floors and the air is thin and sharp. Mechanically running through these actions, he couldn’t focus on anything but the odd feeling of “safe” human contact. This couldn’t be real, it was too…warm.
He didn’t let go of Nithel’s hand as if letting go would break the spell or something. There were so many books to go through he hadn’t seen so many he could actually touch and flip through in years. He took a book from the shelf and dropped cross legged on the floor, fire-dashed eyes never leaving the page. Alessio had to find a book with pictures so his friend could appreciate it.
In a matter of seconds he had several books out and was systematically piling them by subjects. There were histories, botany, zoology…were they from the castle or from their worlds? He skimmed over the spine of a brown steel-encased tome for the title; Casumbran Creatures and Lore. After a moment Alessio carefully peeled open the pages. Soft iridescent reader greeted him, laced over the parchment. It was for people who couldn’t read, the powder was supposed to be pixy dust mined from the time they existed but it was expensive to keep buying so a sign of nobility was to be able to read without it.
Alessio blew on it softly and the glittering dust fluttered in the air within seconds clustering into a dimensional image of the Silver Tree with the two runes that were too blurry to see with the reader. That was the story of humans entering Casumbra, Alessio had heard it a billion times so he turned the pages very gently so he didn’t spill the rest of the reader.
The powdery images still circled around him and Nithel showing the beautiful tree branched out through the Sioan Forest surrounded with wooden notes where people left their petitions for the vigilante guild. It fissured a little and a girl with golden hair slipped into the world, back when Casumbra was newborn and open and different things from all worlds wandered in and out almost randomly. But Deep Magic closed off eventually and with it the natural connection between worlds. The reader faded after it had shown people–mostly children–wandering through the tree and settling Casumbra. Alessio was still absorbing pages of trivia for each creature and folklore. The whispery voices were distracting but he was hopeful if he continued to ignore it the whatever would do him the same courtesy.
“That’s not how a real daemon acts anyway.” he mumbled. When the now-pale dust settled he glanced up at Nithel then at Jericho who had just stepped in. “Maybe there’s a book about your world here…”

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