Page 115 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

“The idiots killed themselves with their own weapon!”

On each floor it was the same. All humans, or all sabbers, or a mix of both, all dead. Livira staggered from the house’s tall entrance, retching, Evar on her heels. A glance through the doorway of the house opposite revealed the corpses of a woman and a sabber locked together in the hall.

“How far did this reach?” Evar gasped in horror.

“The whole city.” Livira understood as she said it. “The whole city. Everyone killed on both sides. That’s why the pool brought us here. We wanted somewhere there wouldn’t be any fighting...”

Understanding dawned slowly across Evar’s face. He looked sick. “What kind of demented foe brings a weapon like that into a city? A weapon they clearly lacked the wit to control?”

“They’re animals,” Livira snarled. If she’d had a sabber before her in that moment, and Malar’s skill... she would have cut it down.

“The world would be better without them.” Evar nodded sadly, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “We should go. There’s nothing left for us here.”

They walked to the end of the street, each wrapped in their own thoughts, clenched around the horror of what they’d seen.

“We should fly,” Evar said. “I don’t want to see any more.”

Livira nodded. Not to acknowledge the enormity of the crime that had been committed here almost seemed the coward’s way out. And yet what was she supposed to do? Enter every house, witness every corpse? Stay until the stench of their rot engulfed the whole city and flies obscured the sky?

“You’re right. We should go.” She turned for one last look back down the street. It felt like it might be one of many similar roads in her own city. “Wait! There! Look!”

“I don’t see it.”

There was nothing where Livira’s finger was pointing. But there had been, she was sure of it. A white child at the window, bone-white, white face, white hair, gone almost as soon as spotted, taken by the shadows. “A little boy.” She started off in the direction she’d pointed.

“Don’t.” Evar caught her shoulder. “What if it was a boy? We can’t help him. We can’t comfort him. We can’t do anything but watch. All this has happened. We’re nothing here.”

An unexpected sob racked Livira, convulsing her body.

“Livira...” Evar tried to turn her to him, but she couldn’t let him, not now. And like an arrow she took to the air.

Livira didn’t slow until she reached the twin pools on the platform before the howling wolf god’s head. All the assistants were gone, perhaps taking their own portals to return them to the depths of the library unknown weeks or months of travel from the entrance.

“Let’s get out of here.” Livira stepped towards the nearest pool as Evar landed less gracefully beside her.

“Agreed.” He gathered himself to jump.

“Wait.” She reached for his hand. “So we both go to the same place.” She laced her fingers between his, remembering the kiss that had been forgotten in the horror that followed. It had been a good kiss. More than good. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t your fault... obviously. I’m just...”

“I understand.” Evar gave a grim smile and squeezed her hand. “This has been my third nightmare. I’m not sure the past is a land I want to visit again.”

She wanted to protest that she was in his past, her pool many places down the row from his, but instead she just nodded. “On three then.”

“Three.”

They jumped, passing through echoes of the original emotional turmoil, hardly noticed now, burdened as they were with their own. A moment of rushing, passing lights, a sense of swinging around some vast corner, and they were side by side on hands and knees, panting beside a pool in the quiet of the woods.

Livira lifted her head at the sound of a guttural snarl and the pounding of running feet. For a moment she thought another Escape was coming for them. But this was somehow worse. A full-grown sabber with a streaming mane of red fur was charging towards them. A female one.

“Evar!” A scream half of terror, half warning.

But Evar was already gone, tearing across the grass towards the foe. They slammed together at devastating speed about five yards from Livira. Surprise registered on the sabber’s face just before the impact but somehow it managed to twist at full sprint, evading Evar whilst simultaneously straight-arming him into the ground. By some miracle, Evar’s trailing foot hooked the sabber’s ankle and even as it went down with a roar of hate, he was on it.

Again, the thing twisted, its speed and strength breathtaking, reversing their positions, pinning Evar to the ground.

“Evar!” The sabber roared. “What the fuck are you doing? Are you blind? She’s a sabber!” The sabber glanced up at Livira, pure hatred in its eyes.

“No, Clovis! No! It’s this place. It changes what you see—”

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