Ithan works in Jesiba Roga’s subterranean office, unpacking and cataloging crates while one of the enchanted blue, leather-bound books repeatedly tries to escape the room. He physically tackles it twice, and Jesiba’s sharp commands and newly strengthened wards finally force the book to go still behind a shimmering barrier.

Exhausted and trying not to think about the blood on his hands and the body he hopes is preserved somewhere, Ithan stays confined to the office under Jesiba’s orders. Jesiba brings him one piece of good news: Hunt Athalar, Ruhn Danaan, and Baxian Argos escaped the Asteri dungeons during a rescue that destroyed the Spine, accomplished with the Hind’s help as well as Tharion, Flynn, and Dec.

Ithan presses Jesiba about her collection, recalling claims that her books came from the Library of Parthos. Jesiba explains Parthos was real and that the “magic books” were originally enchanted by her to guard the library, but they became aware and uncontrollable, requiring monitors like Lehabah to keep the guardians contained. She refuses to sell them because her spells are written inside and she will not release that knowledge.

Jesiba reveals the deeper history: a great pre-Asteri human civilization valued learning so intensely that a hundred thousand humans marched to Parthos and died buying time for priestesses to smuggle books away by ship. Most were intercepted and burned, but one ship—the Griffin—escaped across the Haldren and reached Valbara, aided by the mer at the Ocean Queen’s behest.

When Ithan demands to know who she really is, Jesiba drops her glamour, reverting to an unaging, youthful form. She admits she was a Parthos priestess and that the demon prince Apollion intercepted the Griffin; he refused to accept that the books’ “power” was knowledge, and he cursed her to live unchanged until she proved the books’ true power. Jesiba adds that Apollion had just consumed Sirius, and when his power touched her, it transferred, eventually becoming the sorcery she mastered over fifteen thousand years; she intends to endure until a world exists where the books can finally be safe.