Page 125 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

—

Livira’s different was what he had been going to say. Evar sat alone on the books of the fallen tower that had started all this. He had toppled it without meaning to, and his hands had somehow found the book that he shouldn’t have been able to read. He’d been going to say that Livira was different—but was she? Livira hated his kind, wished them dead. Now she probably wished him dead too. How was that different?

The falling tower and the found book had started this. They’d aimed him at his missing love and instead of finding her he had misplaced himself. He’d blinded himself with expectation and had lost his heart to a sabber. A creature very different from himself. Once more he’d failed the author of his book, despite her pressing need, and the guilt tore at him.

Livira’s different.

Livira was different. Evar pressed the heels of his hands to his temples, trying to squeeze some sense into himself. He couldn’t do it. The idiocy remained. He could no more squeeze it out than Clovis could punch it out. Even his diversion to the centre circle had only repaired the hurts Clovis had done to his body. His foolishness remained uncorrected.

Livira’s fragile beauty filled his mind. He couldn’t leave her the way he’d done. Not running from him. Not torn and bloody and raging.

He would return. He would find a way. Whether it took him or her or both of them to their hundredth year, he would place himself before her one more time and accept her judgement. He would speak his mind if she would let him, hand her the words to wound him with, throw dignity aside if that was what was required to place truth between them. And if her fury remained—if hate was all she had for him—he would let that run its course, offer his heart to her dagger in place of those who had injured her. And at last, if his dramatics went unanswered, he would leave, knowing that he had for once taken his shot.

Evar felt a cold knife at his throat.

“Starval. I guess I don’t have to ask how you found me.” He pushed his brother’s blade away.

Starval sheathed the weapon with an apologetic smile. “Got to keep my hand in. And no, you don’t have to ask. You leave a trail a mile wide. Despite all my training. Though to be fair, you and I are the only ones here who could spot it.”

“What do you want?” Evar tried to sound angry. He’d wanted to be alone, but as soon as he’d got his wish, he’d wanted someone to talk to rather than just lying on a book heap feeling miserable and enduring the headache Clovis had left him with. She’d been gone by the time the Assistant brought him round. Kerrol had warned of concussion. Evar had warned Kerrol to mind his own fucking business and had woven an unsteady path off into the stacks.

“What do I want?” Starval sat on the book heap and stuck his knife into the book cover between his legs. “I want to get you back to this girl, of course!”

“This sabber...” Evar hung his head.

“Don’t be an idiot. My brother Evar wouldn’t be kissing a girl if she wasn’t worth kissing. Have you met yourself?”

“You haven’t seen what I’ve seen, Star.” Evar kept his eyes on the forest of stacks rising above them, his mind full of the trees he’d seen in the Exchange. He ached for the peace of the place. “I saw them slaughter Clovis’s father, her little brothers, her mother. Hundreds of people cut down for no reason. I saw Clovis before the Mechanism took her. She wasn’t meant to be this way.” He rubbed his aching jaw. “They broke something inside her.”

“But—”

“This library is vast. Dozens of chambers, hundreds maybe. Perhaps more. And there’s a city outside it. I saw that city full of our people. So many they would fill this chamber, elbow to elbow. And I saw the sabbers sweep over their walls, murder them in the streets, in their beds, rivers of blood. Livira’s kind live in that city in her time. They own the library.”

Starval tapped the hilt of his dagger, twisting his lips. “People die, brother. That’s what I’ve learned. Life’s cheap, easily spent. And if there’s any joy to be had it’s in the moments between. So, when you find something that makes you happy you take it with both hands, and you hold on to it for as long as you can. It’s not going to last. It will be taken from you. But that’s not the point. The point is that you took your chance, you drank the wine, you took what good you could from the world, and you gave it yours.”

Evar turned to look at his brother. “I’m not sure you’re cut out to be a murderer.”

Starval shrugged and pulled his dagger free. “I’m good at it though.” He threw the weapon, lightning fast, and it sank into the spine of a book in a tower a few yards from where they sat. “You can come out of there, Kerrol. You can’t hide for shit.”

Kerrol emerged from behind the stack, hands raised in surrender.

“How did you know where to find me?” Evar said, exasperated.

“You’re very predictable, brother.” Kerrol came to join them. He sat on Evar’s other side. “Nice spot for sulking.”

Evar opened his mouth to say he wasn’t sulking but didn’t let the lie off his tongue. Instead, he asked, “Why are you here?”

“Same reason as Starval, obviously.” Kerrol raised his eyebrows. “Did I teach you nothing?”

“You want to help me get back to Livira as well?”

Kerrol snorted. “I want to get out of here.”

Evar stared from one to the other. “I don’t understand.” He waved at the surrounding chamber. “This is my life. But you two have the Mechanism. You wander different worlds every day.”

“One day in three,” Starval said.

“One day in four until Mayland vanished,” Kerrol added.

---