Page 127 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

“You’re not coming back, are you?” Livira felt suddenly sad, her fear deepening.

“We can never go back. Time doesn’t work that way. Not once you’ve stepped into the current.” Yute paused just above the kitchen where people were talking in raised voices. “One of the earliest philosophers told us you can’t step into the same river twice. The library taught me you can’t read the same book twice either—you’re the river.” He set a hand to the wall. “This house will always be a part of me, however far I go and whatever ruin comes to it.”

“Yute!” Salamonda poked her head through the doorway and peered up the stairs. “Malar’s here, and he’s brought company!”

“I’m on my way.” Yute descended the remaining steps.

Livira followed him into the kitchen. It proved quite a squeeze. At least a dozen people had joined Salamonda, with more on the steps to the street and beyond.

“Malar!” Livira greeted the soldier. “Neera! Katrin! Acmar!” Everywhere she looked were children from her settlement, now grown into adults. Acmar was even balding in his haste to get old, though she’d never point it out. Little Gevin, who Acmar had carried into the city, was taller than Livira now and sported a neat beard like many of Crath’s men. There were children too, clinging to parents’ legs. A baby’s cries reached in from the street. “What is all this?”

Malar, wearing a pitted iron breastplate, with a ’stick slung over his shoulder and a blade at each hip, pushed his way to Yute’s side. “I got everyone who’d come. And a group of Livira’s folk to stop her running down the mountain after them.”

“We’d best go then,” Yute said. “We don’t have long.”

“Go where?” Salamonda elbowed her way between Acmar and Gevin. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got a meal to prepare, and—”

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Yute raised one hand and his voice. “It sorrows me to tell you that the end days are upon us. This city will fall before the sun sets, and any that remain will lose their lives to the invaders. I propose to lead those of you that will follow into the sanctuary of the library. To those who would rather remain outside, my advice is to flee northwest across the Terrent Ridge and aim for Harald Pass, thence into the Wilderland of Ost.”

A clamour of voices rose as Yute’s hand descended and he fell silent. He ignored them all, taking hold of Salamonda’s shoulders and steering her towards the door. Using his housekeeper to part the crowd, Yute won his way to the outside, Livira in his wake.

“Can’t we fight?” someone called from behind them.

“The king’s army will drive the sabbers back. Everyone says so!”

“We can’t just leave!”

Livira found herself on the street steps with Malar. Yute was already marching Salamonda up the road. The crowd that Malar had brought to the librarian’s house stood arguing, some clearly torn, others adamant it was all nonsense. Behind the house a loose pall of smoke was drifting across the lower city.

A dreadful thought skewered Livira. “Where’s Carlotte?” She wasn’t here. You didn’t lose someone like her in a crowd. She would have been the first person Livira saw. “You didn’t bring Carlotte?”

“Who?” Malar frowned.

“Carlotte!” Livira shouted her name in Malar’s face before facing down the road. “I have to go and get her.”

Malar took her forearm in an iron grip. The same painful grip Aunt Teela had used the day the sabbers came. “If you go down there you won’t save her, you’ll just die. No ifs or buts. Thinking anything else will happen is like thrusting your hand into a meat grinder and expecting to save all your fingers.”

“I have to go.” Livira tried to pull away. “She’s house reader for Sir Alad Masefield.”

“She’s got a decent chance then. You know what rich people are good at? Saving themselves. The Masefields will have an escape plan. And who’s going to get this lot to go with Yute if you’re not here? It was hard enough to get them to his front door, and that’s before they knew they weren’t coming back.”

Livira saw her predicament, caught between impossible choices. “You can’t just expect them to follow!” she shouted at Yute’s retreating back. She was talking about herself as much as the rest. Yesterday the city was in danger, yes, but it had been in danger before. It wasn’t going to fall, surely. Whatever Malar said. Yesterday—threat; today—disaster? She couldn’t believe it herself, not emotionally, so how could she expect her friends, her extended family, to act on one man’s word when they’d lived more than half their lives in this place, day after day, worked here, become part of the fabric of the city?

“I can threaten them,” Malar offered. “Take the fucking lot of them hostage at sword point.”

“You really believe Yute then?” Livira asked Malar. None of it seemed real. “The sabbers are going to be over the walls before dark?”

“They’re over the walls now,” Malar said. “Haven’t you listened to anything I’ve said? Everyone will be dead before the first moon rises. I’ve seen these bastards’ work up close. It was never a question of whether they could take the city. Not for the last five years anyway. Just whether they were prepared to pay the price. Seems like they were. There’ll be sabber corpses in drifts down there.” He nodded towards the walls and the Dust beyond. “But they’re in now and wanting payback. We should hurry, unless you want to fight them right here.”

Neera came to join Livira and Malar, followed by a tear-streaked Katrin.

“Jammus won’t come,” Katrin sobbed, her beautiful face a mess. “He doesn’t believe any of it.”

Malar raised an eyebrow. “Think you can talk them round?” Behind him the smoke had taken on darker hues. He looked worried. Livira had never seen him worried.

The recurring image of that sabber strolling into the settlement lit the darkness of her mind with more clarity than at any time since the day it happened. She saw its mismatched stare—one eye widened by the seam of an old scar. It was happening again. Right now. “Shit-on-a-fucking-stick,” Livira snarled. Malar raised his eyebrows, possibly impressed. She shoved Yute’s bag of treasures at the soldier and pushed past him. “Wait here.”

Livira took a deep breath, stalked back to the crowd around the steps, and dived into its midst. Several moments later she tore free clutching a squalling baby. “Run!” she screeched and took to her heels after the distant Yute and Salamonda.

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