"The world generally isn't; it's up to people to change that," he says. "That's something Kanero used to say a lot. Anyway - how do I make you a little glass continent?"

"It's sort of like - putting them into the book, but in reverse? You think about what the thing's like after it's already in the book, and then you reach in and pull it out. Editing's harder, I think you should practice with something small before you move on to making the glass continent small."

"Okay, sure." He flips through the book until he finds something reasonably small, a silver ring that belonged to his father, and which he used to carry around all the time before he accidentally dropped it off the edge of the continent when he was ten or so. Then he tries to do what she said, pulling it out of the book instead of letting the book pull it out of him—

And instinctively puts his hand out to catch the ring as it appears in midair over the book.

"Well, that worked!"

She smiles!

"Good! Okay, so Saerith is usually the one to help creators with editing, but I can try too if you'd like."

"Yes please."

"It's good practice for world creation. Okay, so, um. This might actually take a while, and - Saerith always makes sure that you have basics that you can edit with. We should maybe not do this in the museum when people might be worried about it."

"Well - we can save it for after we're done here if you want."

"Yeah. Do you have something big that you can pull pieces off of? I think that's what Saerith starts with."

"Yeah."

"Okay, good. That should be most of what we need then, you have a lot of perfect copies already, you should have enough to work with."

"All right."

Onward into the museum, then.

There do turn out to be elephant bones. Riale puts them in the book. He keeps talking about everything they pass that catches his attention - the light fixtures, the doors, the windows - definitely the windows - and of course the exhibits too, various animal skeletons, pressed leaves and flowers, rocks from all over the empire. There's a greenhouse. It's stunning. Riale is very excited about the greenhouse.

Ranelin's pretty delighted by the greenhouse, too! And also just about everything else, she likes listening to Riale talk about the world.

They get through the museum. Riale pauses, on the third-floor balcony looking down into the glass world, and says,

"I'm starting to feel like I know Esere pretty well. Just... looking at the world, thinking about the kind of person that would make it. He did a really good job. I wish I could tell him I'm going to save it."

"He wanted to make a world that could be saved," murmurs Ranelin. "His was too unstable to try. I wish you could, too."

"Well. Next project after saving the world, I guess. Bringing back all the other ones."

He steps away from the railing and starts down the stairs.

Ranelin smiles, and nods.

"Is Saerith the kind of person who'd appreciate waking up in a really busy city with a lot of people coming and going from all over the empire?"

"Yes! It sounds like the perfect place, actually. Especially if it has a nice view."

"Yeah. Definitely Highpoint, then. I'll show you when we get back to the inn and I can make you a little glass world."

Nod!

"Kastim might be able to help with teaching you how to edit, too, if I can't manage it. He usually is the one to translate for Saerith, at least in the beginning."

"Oh, good. Otherwise we might have to wait until tomorrow before I can show you the world properly."

Ranelin giggles.

"And that wouldn't do at all."

Out they go. He consults his map of the city and takes a different route back to the inn than the one he and Kastimund took to get here. Along the way, he puts things in the book - walls, windows, trees, flowers, particularly interesting cobblestones, somebody's cat. The cat is harder than most things.

Cats are complicated! Ranelin isn't sure how to help with putting one in the book. She finds them cute from a far enough distance away, but hasn't actually interacted with them. Something about sizing and cats being predators seems like it wouldn't mesh well.

But she's very pleased when he gets the cat in the book perfectly. Cats should be in worlds, too. Even if they should stay away from her.

"I think that one almost went in imperfect," he says. "But I got it. And there's the inn!"

He goes inside and finds the person he talked to originally. This person directs him to a room. It's a very nice room. Riale puts one of the embroidered pillows in the book.