[ Magic with diagrams sounds great, honestly. He can cope with things being new or impossible on the surface as long as they've got some kind of internal logic. It feels like a stepping stone between what he knows and what they're dealing with here, and he's fully ready to compare forks to nuclear fission when she asks him a question.

Now it's his turn to freeze up, but it feels different. Wary. ]

A book. [ Is the flat answer, landing like a dead weight. After a beat: ] The Darkhold. It's... made of material from another dimension. Material we've got in our world, but... it behaved differently. [ Which is a lot of words to say nothing concrete. Carefully, ] It contained all knowledge, but it'd only show you what it wanted. Or what you wanted it to show you, maybe. But— [ A short breath, delibrate. ] It's back in Hell where it belongs.

[ There's an edge to the last sentence, a blend of reproach and regret. His confidence steadies immediately after, like he's cleared some kind of hurdle; he drops the pen, leans forward onto his elbows and lightly drags his hands over his face. ]

So it's not what caused this. [ hoPEFULLY. ] But that's something in common between three worlds. We've all channeled energy from other dimensions.

[ nts: very specific questions for the next Rifter survey ]