"Well done, then. So you're going to go get a lot of books, then?"

"That's the plan. I was planning on bringing fifty for them, too many more will get awkward to carry. You want some too? Using and changing the bluestream, theory and practice?"

"Yes please."

"Promise, Promise me another month or two's sorcery lessons and you'll get your books. Sorry about the pun, I had to do it at least once."

Promise snorts. "Sorcery lessons are all yours."

So Steel bows sarcastically and goes to her camouflaged gate room, finds it unchanged, and visits a bookstore and a survival food store and takes care of miscellaneous chores on the other side. Three days later, she comes back, drops off Promise's books, and hauls the rest back to that court, arriving two days short of her three-week prediction.

Where Verve is waiting.

Before she moves to land, Steel notes every nearby fairy and every change in the harmonics that looks like it might mean sorcery. Is there anything suspicious here?

Verve has some sorceries active on her; so do some of the small fairies tending the garden, so does the garden itself. They are not readily identified from Steel's perspective.

She lands, force-shell active and giant bag o' books flopping onto the ground beside her. "Hello, Verve."

"Hello, Steel. How many mortal books did you bring?"

"I ended up getting forty-eight mortal fiction books, and four more story-books that are not fiction, but stories of real mortals' lives. Is there anything around here that can be usefully lifted and carried to make up the difference?"

"That depends; can you divert a river on your own?"

"I've done rivers before, but they can be tricky. It will also take some planning to do without causing water to rush into undesired areas. Perhaps I should see the river and the new path it should take first."

"I can show you." Verve takes to the air.

Steel follows. Her flight path doesn't quite match Verve's, but it's smooth enough that it doesn't look like she's drunk.

There is a river that currently switchbacks its way along a plain half an hour west. "Master would like this river to form a waterfall here - removing part of this hill and turning the water over it should do and it will run into a lake from there which should drain out its normal channels, just slightly faster."

Steel settles to the ground and studies the river, the hill, the lake. She gets out some paper and sketches plans and calculations. "Where should the removed dirt and stone go?"

"Border the river after its splashdown, on the south side, to encourage it towards the lake - it should go there on its own but it can't hurt."

"Alright. This will take at least two days to do properly, I have to plan it out and I'll have to stop for rest during. But I can sleep anywhere and I've brought food, so no need for me to impose on your hospitality."

"If you'll give me the books now, I'll leave someone to watch the river diversion and assuming they don't have anything alarming to tell me you can simply take the stone you want without pausing afterwards."

Verve turns out not to be able to carry that many books. She flits away, comes back with three vassals, leaves one perched somewhere to watch Steel, and divides the books between herself and the other two.

(Someone brings her bag back and leaves it with the tiny fairy who is watching her.)