Page 124 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

Clovis stormed back towards Evar, only the Soldier’s intervention stopping her from adding to his already impressive collection of incipient bruises.

“They were intimate. It’s written all over him,” Kerrol said, tilting his head as if Evar were a page of a book.

“Evar, you dog!” Starval seemed impressed.

“Why would you do that?” Clovis raged. “After all I’ve told you!”

Clovis had hauled him back through the Exchange and into their pool. They’d emerged to an audience. Evar didn’t yet know how Clovis had worked out where he’d gone but, clearly, she’d summoned everyone to watch her attempt to follow him. The Assistant had said nothing yet. The Soldier had only prevented Clovis from beating Evar with her fists and feet and done nothing to protect him from the accusations she delivered with a sharp tongue.

“You think I’m lying?” Clovis shouted over the Soldier’s arms. “You think sabbers didn’t kill our people?”

“No,” Evar said wearily. “I believe you.” He looked around at his siblings: Clovis straining to reach him, Kerrol standing too still with his curious stare that somehow always seemed to be fixed on a point five yards behind Evar’s chest, no doubt hurriedly adding factors to the equation that represented his brother. Starval was squatting, holding his favourite knife with his fingertip on its pommel and the library floor beneath its point, and flicking it each time its spinning began to slow. “I believe you. But Livira didn’t kill your parents, Clovis, or your brothers.” Clovis flinched at that. She’d never mentioned her brothers. “Livira hasn’t killed anyone. And our people have killed her family, her friends—”

“That’s called justice!” Clovis roared. “I’m glad they’re dead!”

“It’s called revenge.” Starval looked up from his spinning blade. “It’s what people do.”

“It’s an understandable response,” Kerrol said, though Evar wasn’t sure if he was talking about a specific thing one of his siblings had said or everything they’d said and done.

“You!” Clovis broke away from the Soldier and faced the Assistant as if they’d never met before. “How do we get to these sabbers? I couldn’t touch her. She couldn’t even see me.”

The Assistant’s eyes glowed a deeper shade of blue. “Your fixation on these historical figures is illogical. They’re long dead and nothing you do can change the facts of their lives.”

“He!” Clovis pointed an accusing finger at Evar. “He kissed her! Are you saying that didn’t change the facts of her life?”

“That was an event in the life she led. Past tense. It occurred centuries ago and has been a matter of historical record since before you were born. It was only possible because of Evar’s unsanctioned entering of the Exchange. Something I will ensure does not happen again.”

Clovis spun away from the Assistant and began to pace. “We need to lure them back into the wood. Or better still, here, the place their crimes were committed.” She glanced back. “What would happen to any of them that came here? We could touch them?”

“You could touch them.”

Evar shuddered. He knew what Clovis meant by “touch.”

“And if some of them escaped? If they got back to their world?” Clovis asked.

“Their world is your world,” the Assistant explained again. “But if they came here, they would be part of now and no more able to affect what has already passed than you or Evar are. It’s not possible to change the past. If you visit a time ahead of your current one it becomes your now, and everything before it is your past.”

“If they tried to go back, they’d be ghosts there too?” Clovis stared intently.

“They would have the same experience as you.”

“But we could touch them there—I got hold of Evar when we were both ghosts.” Clovis smacked her fist into her palm. “If they come here, they can’t escape me again, wherever they go.”

Evar tried to state it as clearly as he could. “If someone leaves the Exchange via a pool that leads to their past then they’ll be a ghost in the place and time they visit. And a person’s past is any time earlier than the ‘most forward’ time they’ve visited. So, if Livira visited this chamber, then every time before now would become the past for her?”

“As you say.” The Assistant inclined her head. She walked between Evar and Clovis to kneel beside the pool. A moment later it was nothing but a shallow, dusty depression. “I will reinstate the pool at times when water needs to be drawn from it.”

“Evar will try to find a way round you,” Clovis said. “We should chain him up.”

Starval stood. “You’re not chaining anyone up, Clovis.”

“He’s a traitor. He had a sabber at his mercy and what did he do?”

“He showed mercy.” Kerrol strode forward to stand by Starval. “What else would you expect? You’ve met our brother before, yes?”

“I didn’t expect him to defend her from me. Me!” Clovis banged her chest. “I didn’t expect him to fucking kiss the animal! Give him another chance and he’ll be fornicating with it...” She spat her disgust on the floor and started to stalk away.

“Clovis!” Evar slipped past his brothers and went after her. “It’s not what you think. Livira’s—” He didn’t even see the punch coming. Or the ground after that.

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