"I bet it is!" she agrees, clearly delighted with his commentary. "Shall we go look?"

"Let's!"

The museum is just closing. Riale explains that he's on urgent Imperial business and needs to look around inside. Can his urgent Imperial business not come back tomorrow? No, he's setting off for Highpoint first thing in the morning. Well, all right then, in you go. This isn't anything dangerous, is it...? He assures her that it's nothing she needs to worry about, and promises not to disturb any exhibits or leave any lights on. As soon as the door shuts behind them, he starts describing the front hall to Ranelin.

"Huge windows, of course, on all sides, mostly plain glass but they've got the panels set in this lovely honeycomb pattern. There's a skylight, too, same style, this place must be incredible around midday, I wonder if it's right under the sun's path...?" He checks his city map. "No, looks like we're on the south end of town, so there'd be a bit of an angle. And there's other buildings blocking our view of the Twilight face out the east side, so it's probably nothing special at dawn, you'd need to wait until around midmorning before it started getting direct sunlight... Dawnbrook being Dawnbrook, though, I'm sure even the indirect light makes for an amazing show. The floor's all polished granite, I have no idea how they keep it this shiny, it might be enchanted. Who had this much money to spend building an extravagantly gorgeous museum? Whoever they are, I love them and want to be their friend."

Ranelin giggles, then considers.

"I think I can make enough light to send through the windows. Do you want to see what they're like when they're lit up? I can probably only do one at a time, and I'll need to know where it is..."

"That sounds amazing," he says. "I can bring you to them - here..."

He goes up to the east-facing window.

She carefully floats up to touch the window, keeping a steadying hand on Riale's arm.

And then dazzling white shines through it, iridescent and glittering. The honeycomb pattern catches a thousand shifting colors, brilliant and radiant.

"Does that work okay?" she asks. "Not too bright?"

"It's amazing."

"Good!"

"I'm putting it in the book like this."

He does that. It's gorgeous.

Ranelin smiles brilliantly, looking delighted.

"Let me know when you want me to do another!"

"I bet the doors will be even better—they're over here—"

Doors.

Light!

"I was right! They're even better!" He puts them in the book. "...It occurs to me that people might be weirded out by the glowing museum and we should maybe cut it out and go look at elephant bones!"

"Oh. Yes, that might be alarming." She dismisses the light, and returns to Riale's shoulder.

"Worth it, though. That was so pretty."

He continues into the museum.

"Aww, they've got a stained glass model of the world's shell with all the faces coloured appropriately, that's cute, I'm putting it in the book... you can really tell this is a Dawnbrook museum..."

Ranelin giggles.

"I like it."

"Dawnbrook's a good place."

He keeps going.

"Oh, that's lovely... there's another model of the world, and it's, really tall? Like, it's in the middle of this big open space where there's stairs up to the second and third floors and it's like a balcony all around, and this hollow glass world goes all the way up almost to the roof, and it's got glass continents hanging inside it... I'm gonna go up the stairs so I can see the top of the mainland properly."

"Oh," murmurs Ranelin. "That sounds amazing. If very delicate. Esere must have done something to keep weather very mild, or they've made advances in architecture for stability - probably both, you've had more time than most worlds..."

He climbs a flight of stairs.

"From the second floor I can see the mainland... the whole world's hanging from a chain attached to the ceiling, it looks pretty well anchored, but Golden Plains has the mildest weather in the whole empire anyway, and they don't get earthquakes, I bet it's not a huge concern... anyway, so the continent. They don't have anything political marked, it's all just geography, but I can still tell where everything is. Golden Plains is along the eastern edge, it's pretty flat and grassy, lots of green and yellow, and then the Dawnbrook plateau coming up in the northeast, right in the path of the sun. Over to the southwest is Dusty Hills, which is rockier, more greys and browns - wow, they didn't just make it bumpy to represent the hills, I think those are all to scale... there's only one mountain in Dusty Hills province but it's a big one, that's where we'll find the city of Highpoint tomorrow. Up above Highpoint there's three province-sized continents pretty close by; Heron River in the northeast, then Jeweled Sea a little higher up in the southeast and Rainmere a ways higher up in the west..."

"Do you know if they have smaller models, somewhere? Maybe not made of glass, but shaped and textured like the continent."

"They might... let me get this in the book and then we can go check." He's quiet for a few seconds. "There."

"If they don't, I can show you how to make one from the copy you have. Did Kastim mention you can do that yet?"

"No. I can do that?"

"Yes. It's easier if you have perfect copies. And you can't make people, if you were thinking of doing that. Creators have asked about that before."

"I wasn't going to make any people anyway, since Kastimund said the book versions only have their personalities and not their memories. Can't think of anyone I'd be willing to do that to, at least not right now. After we save the world I might want to figure out how to bring back the Emperor."

She nods.

"I'm sorry," she says. "It's not fair. None of it."