Aronia's gaze drifted to the staff of the woman again and again.
The shards weren't mounted delicately. They were just jammed in the wood.
An archaeological disaster. A deeply magical archaeological disaster, possibly very dangerous. Probably.
She felt a powerful urge to hand the woman several educational pamphlets regarding proper artifact handling. Possibly by throwing the pamphlets.
"Did you do… 'make' this?" She asked the woman about the staff.
"I did," she said simply.
Aronia rubbed her forehead.
"You can't just put unknown artifacts into other objects."
"It doesn't matter."
Aronia sighed. Most people looked at dangerous magical artifacts and saw tools. The 'handling with care part' wasn't held in high regard if they could get power out of it.
People like her, though, looked at them and saw future incident reports.
More importantly, Aronia could feel it. The pull.
The same subtle pressure she had experienced from the fragments in Vault Seventeen.
Only stronger. Much stronger. That wasn't good.
And if she could feel it from several feet away...
Her eyes returned to the staff. To the embedded fragments.
To the woman's hand, resting casually around the shaft.
No containment specialist in the Archives would ever approve such an arrangement. No researcher would willingly stand near it. And no sane archivist would carry it around all day.
Yet the woman appeared perfectly functional.
Tired. Travel-worn. But functional.
Which suggested one of two possibilities.
The shards became weaker when gathered together.
Or the woman possessed a level of mental fortitude that bordered on the absurd.
Aronia strongly suspected the second option.
Because nobody carried that many shards unless they had already spent years resisting their call.
And if that were true, then this woman might know more about the shards than anyone currently living.
Aronia studied the woman for several moments.
The woman simply waited.
At least she wasn't erratic. And obviously not human.
Most visitors felt compelled to explain themselves eventually.
This one appeared perfectly content standing there with a staff full of dangerous artifacts and letting everyone else become uncomfortable first.
"What did you say our name was?" Aronia asked.
"I am Blackbird Sonder. A sorceress."
Naturally. Aronia closed her eyes. Of course she was.
"I have come a long way for the shards," she continued.
"Great."
Aronia said it automatically.
She did not think it was great.
Not even slightly.
"You don't sound pleased."
"I never do. It's just... We become suspicious when strangers travel enormous distances seeking dangerous magical objects."
Aronia glanced briefly toward the wardens.
They remained nearby.
Alert.
Watching.
Waiting.
The sensible response might have been to summon more guards.
The Archives possessed procedures for suspicious visitors.
Several procedures.
An entire shelf of procedures.
Unfortunately, Aronia had spent enough years around dangerous things to know that acting immediately and acting correctly were not always the same thing.
Because there was a problem.
Sonder did not look unstable.
She did not look enthralled.
She did not look like someone whose mind had been consumed by a magical influence.
If anything, she looked tired.
Very tired.
Like someone who had spent far too long carrying a burden she would have preferred to leave elsewhere.
That did not mean the shards were harmless.