Page 56 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

Livira descended the stairs to the main complex having no idea whether it was day or night. Tiredness washed such thoughts through her head as she limped along the mostly deserted corridors. Night then.

Master Logaris had given no instructions about the handing over of the book. Presumably he intended that they bring it to class. In any event, Livira had no idea where Logaris slept, which was probably a good thing given the temptation to sneak into his bedchamber and leave Reflections on Solitude on the pillow, beside his head. Instead, she went to the sleeping quarters, half-drunk with tiredness. Wading through her exhaustion, she reached the rooms at the far end, leaned on a door, and lunged for the bed like a drowning man straining for solid ground. Consciousness abandoned her with a swiftness that seemed no less than when she had hit the floor after falling twenty yards.

—

Livira found that for the second time in a row she’d woken somewhere unexpected. The room looked just like hers, but it belonged to someone else. She rolled from the bed and almost ended up sprawled across the sheepskin rug, so unwilling were her legs to support her weight. She felt as if she were eighty rather than just turned eleven. And she didn’t own a rug of any sort, certainly not one so thick and luxuriously white as the one beneath her feet. She noticed that she was still wearing the shoes from Yute’s house, having failed to undress to any degree before plunging into the bed. She wanted the shoes off so she could wriggle her bare toes in the rug’s softness.

She looked around the room, a huge yawn cracking her jaw. She still felt as if she could sleep another whole day, so why was she awake? Had there been a noise? She looked at the desk, far more orderly than hers and with the books stacked higher around it. Street clothes hung at the far end, not peasant rags but plain and patched. Not the clothes of someone who could afford so fine a rug. Crossing to the desk she picked up the topmost piece of paper. She couldn’t read the language, but the quill work spoke clearly enough.

“Arpix.” She’d spent the night in Arpix’s room. But where was he?

Suddenly she remembered the book. For a heart-stopping moment, as her fingers quested inside the emptiness of her inner pocket, she was convinced that she’d lost it. But a desperate search of the bed found Reflections on Solitude resting under the pillow. “I’ve got to go!”

Livira ran out into the corridor, finding it empty. She glanced into her own room and then hurried to the refectory hall, cursing her stiff and aching legs. By the time she got there only a few librarians and a scattering of support staff were still lingering over their breakfast. The bell hadn’t woken her but perhaps the commotion of students outside her door getting ready for lessons had finally dragged Livira from her pit of sleep. She turned on a heel and headed off towards class.

Livira couldn’t understand why Arpix hadn’t returned to his room. If they’d become lost among the aisles who knew what trouble they might be in? Her mind told her it wasn’t her fault if they were lost, but her heart had other opinions. She turned the corner to see the last of Master Logaris’s students going through the classroom doorway. The door had closed by the time she got there. Livira barged through into a room that seemed shockingly normal after the strangeness in which she’d spent the past days.

The oldest students, still standing around their desks unloading books, didn’t notice her arrival at all. The ones behind them, middle ranking in the hierarchy of Master Logaris’s class, pretended not to notice her. Only when the cluster of older children parted to allow her through did Livira find herself greeted by the astonished stares of her four companions at the lowest table.

Arpix and the others looked even worse than she felt. Black circles around their eyes spoke of days without sleep. All of them stood at her arrival, except Jella who slumped across the table as if some burden had been suddenly taken from her.

The door opened again, and Master Logaris filled the doorway.

“Where in the hells were you?” Arpix hissed, pitching his demand beneath the rapidly quieting chatter.

“I’ll tell you later,” Livira whispered, taking the chair next to him.

“We spent half our time searching for you,” Arpix muttered through clenched teeth. “It’s no wonder we didn’t find the book!”

“I’m sorry.” Livira was rarely properly sorry, but she regretted what the others had gone through.

“What were you thinking?” Arpix hissed. “If you’d stayed, we might—”

Master Logaris loomed over them, his blunt features gathered into an unhappy scowl. “Well, first-years. You’ve had two full days. Where’s my book?”

Jella sat up at that. Carlotte and Meelan studied the table. Arpix began to stutter. “W-we searched the philosophy section in the Rifflean Ordering and the corresponding sections by the west wall and in the Orthodoxy.” Livira, waited, expecting him to lay the blame at her feet, as he was perfectly entitled to do. “We wasted a lot of time in the Binary Aisles,” Arpix continued. “That was my fault. All of it was my fault really. The rest were following my lead.” Livira blinked at him, amazed, still waiting for the hammer to fall. “Then we moved on—”

“It was Arpix who finally thought it might be in the hidden index and got us to start pulling out the books to look behind them.” Under the table Livira worked the book out from her robe pocket and thrust it into Arpix’s lap. “I’d given up ages before that.”

Arpix looked at her in amazement and then glanced down at his lap. He brought the book up to the table in trembling hands. “It’s here...”

Logaris’s laugh was the big and booming thing that Livira had imagined it might be though she had never thought to hear it. He took Reflections on Solitude from Arpix’s hand and studied it from several angles as if it were something he were considering making an offer on. “Well... well... well.” He shook his head. “The Lost Seam? He sent children to retrieve something from the Lost Seam?” He closed his mouth with a snap, seeming to remember where he was. “You must tell me all about it when you’re better rested.” He walked to his desk at the front with all eyes on him and locked the book in a top drawer. “But well done. Very well done indeed. All of you”—his eyes found Livira—“have a place in my class for as long as you continue to apply yourselves.”

Loss is often remembered in the hands. Fingers recall the feel of a baby’s hair. Touch explores the places where they have lain, still hoping to rediscover a child long after the mind and even the heart have surrendered.

A Study of Infant Mortality, by Tyler Dickerson

CHAPTER 26

Evar

The girl had vanished into the pool too fast to save, and when he tried to reach in after her the black waters resisted him so that he could barely wet his palm. Snarling with frustration, Evar got up and attempted to push a foot into the water but with similar results. He applied his whole weight and realised that the pool would let him walk across it before it admitted him. The blackness vanished as he was testing his weight, startling him back for a moment, but the change made no difference. He was locked out. Or in.

He circled the pool, staring at the fading ripples that, along with the mark she’d carved into the grass, were the only record he had of the child. Of Livira—that had been her name. He rediscovered the corner of parchment on his first circuit. It was written in a Crunian dialect and seemed to be an account of a battle in the poetic form favoured by Crunian scholars of the fifth Bronze Age. It bore the girl’s scent. With a shrug he pushed it into an inner pocket.

After ten more circuits of the pool Evar decided it was time to go. After another ten he said it out loud. After twenty more he finally walked away with muttered apologies. The child had had a certain fire to her, and he was unwilling to abandon the first stranger he’d ever met, even after so brief an acquaintance.

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