Page 41 of The Book that Broke the World

“But why?”

“Because he deserved to die. Both of them did. Heflin Hosten and General Rodcar Charant were scum of the worst kind. Hosten pays Charant to take rich idiots on as colonels and majors.”

“Paid,” Livira corrected. “They’re all dead now, I expect. The canith overran the walls.”

“Well, they might not have if Heflin fucking Hosten hadn’t replaced good officers with morons. And that’s not the half of it. Both of them were elbow-deep in keeping the settlers outside the walls as a buffer zone, and squandering soldiers’ lives in a dozen ways to line their own pockets.” Malar drew his lips back in a snarl, looking every bit as dangerous as the day Livira met him. “There I was, in a place I’d never been before, with this human turd Hosten telling me I was his friend, and all this stuff—all the details about what he’d been doing to our soldiers—flooding into my head. So, I killed him. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

“Yes, but...” Livira squeezed the bridge of her nose between finger and thumb, trying to trap the understanding that was drifting through her brain like a cobweb. “When you killed him, that’s when the story kicked us out. You went too far... stepped away from what the story was doing. The general wouldn’t have killed Heflin, at least not like that, not without there being something in it for him.”

“You’re saying I should have played along?” Malar frowned. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because...” Livira screwed her eyes shut, visualising the table scene. She had felt something—something other than confusion—when she sat there wearing Serra Leetar’s finery. “Because maybe that’s how to take hold of the story. And taking hold of the story could mean we’re taking hold of the book. And that’s what we’re here for—to take the book forward to when we came from.” She looked up, coming to a decision. “I’m going to try again.”

“I’ll come too.”

“You don’t have—”

“I’m coming too,” Malar said.

Livira sidled up to Evar, watching him with fascination. She’d watched him unobserved back in the library of course, but that was when he’d been burdened with the grief of her “death.” This was Evar before even their first meeting when she’d been a child, still with dust behind her ears.

“He can’t see you, you know.” Malar strode up boldly and touched the book. The way he vanished wasn’t something she could describe visually. It was closer to forgetting.

Livira darted after him and set her hand to the book.

A moment’s confusion followed, a moment of lights and colours coalescing into the dining-room scene that had so amazed Livira the first time. She was surprised—both to see Serra Leetar sitting to her left, and to see that the look of astonishment on the girl’s face matched her own. It was the looming presence on her right that commanded her attention though. The first thing she saw when she turned her head was that her neighbour wore a fine double-breasted jacket with a napkin strategically draped over the most vulnerable bits of the elaborate gold piping decorating it. She had to look up to see his face.

“Evar!” She set her hand to his shoulder, unable to resist seeing if she could touch him. Her hand was broader and larger knuckled than the ones she was used to owning, but none of that mattered once she discovered he was as solid as the chair she was sitting on. “Evar!”

Evar turned his head, frowning. “Sirrar Meelan?”

“I—”

“Oh, fuck no. I’m not having this shit.” This low-voiced, slightly horrified announcement from Leetar cut off Livira’s reply to Evar.

Reluctantly, Livira turned around just in time to see Leetar take one of the sharper knives from beside her plate and hold it in her fist, base against the table, point upwards.

“What are you doing?”

“No, no, and fucking no!” Leetar slammed her face down onto the knife point and a moment later the dining room and everyone in it melted away.

“Ow! Ow! Ow!” Malar was bent double beside her in the crop circle, holding his eye and dancing from foot to foot.

“It wasn’t real.” Livira put her hand on his shoulder.

“Bloody felt real...” Malar straightened slowly, taking his hand from his eye and examining it for blood. “Damn, that was unpleasant.”

“You couldn’t just have been Serra Leetar so we could get on with this?”

Malar scowled at her. “Like you weren’t just going to have Meelan drape himself all over your boyfriend?”

Livira bit her lip. “I wouldn’t have gone that far.” She studied the book stacks rather than witness Malar’s reaction. “Look, he’s going.”

Evar had finished speaking with the Soldier and was already halfway to the corridor that led to the reading room and the Mechanism. Livira hurried after him.

“Look,” she said to Malar as he caught up, “it’s not dangerous in the story. You just killed yourself and you’re fine. The worst that can happen is you get kicked out of the book. I should go in by myself. I’m better cut out for playing along than you are. You’ll just end up drowning a guest in the soup tureen or something. And every time we veer too far out of character we’re back here again.”

Malar scowled. “I’ll follow Evar. If you take too long, I’m coming in after you.”

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