Page 45 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

All this time, he had been told he should be frightened of whatever lay beyond the protective wards of these familiar walls. All this time, he’d believed the danger was external.

But perhaps the greatest threat had always been inside.

Without meaning to, he found his fingers tightening on the pages of the spell to which he’d unwittingly sacrificed his eye. It was object-linked, which meant it was technically still active, and only a Scribe could destroy an active spell. If Nicholas followed his instincts and tore this book to shreds, Richard would know without a doubt it had been him. But he was so furious he didn’t care. He grabbed the page he was holding and pulled as hard as he could, expecting to feel the satisfying rip as it tore from the binding.

Nothing happened.

The page did not even wrinkle beneath his fingers. He tried again with another page, and another, and another. None of them showed the barest sign of being touched, much less torn. He scratched at the cover and clawed at the thread of the binding, desperate and furious, and might even have started using his teeth if Collins hadn’t reached out to grab him.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Collins said, “it’s not working, it’s not gonna work, breathe for a second, c’mon.” He’d taken ahold of Nicholas’s shoulders and spun him around to face him, his big palms warm and weighted. “Breathe,” he said again. “You’re freaking me out.”

Nicholas breathed, or tried to. He knew later he’d be embarrassed that Collins had seen this loss of control, but right now he was too appreciative of his steady presence to care. After a few long moments, Nicholas had himself more or less together and was thinking clearly.

It made sense that he couldn’t destroy the book, he realized. Two Scribes had written it; two Scribes would be needed to ruin it.

“We need to get out of here,” Nicholas said.

“Agreed,” said Collins. He dropped his hands from Nicholas’s shoulders and Nicholas moved away to look back at the book that lay crouched, unscathed, on the desk. Next to it, the leather binder looked businesslike and innocent.

Did Nicholas even want to know what other secrets Richard was keeping? Nothing could be worse than being stared at by his own eye.His hands were shaky, but sick curiosity was creeping in on the tail end of his frenzy and he opened the cover of the binder again to look at the yellowed linen paper within.

He read the first ten or so pages, then started at the beginning again, unable or unwilling to make sense of the spell being suggested.

“What is that?” Collins said.

“That’s what I’m trying to work out,” said Nicholas.

“We really should leave.”

“I know,” but Nicholas kept reading.

As he’d subconsciously known it would, this drafted book, too, demanded two Scribes. But it was not only blood it seemed to be looking for.Bind with the body. Sew with the sinew. Bond with the bones.The entire book was to be made of the unlucky Scribe who gave their blood—as well as their skin. Their tendons. Their hair. Everything.

“This isn’t possible,” Nicholas said.

Collins, who’d been pacing back and forth from desk to door as Nicholas read, paced back to the desk. For someone who claimed to hate books and magic, he looked very interested. “What isn’t?”

Nicholas read another few sentences to be sure. “These are notes on another spell that uses part of a Scribe’s body as an object-anchor... but the object connects to alife.So you could connect your life to, I don’t know, a Scribe’s tooth, for example—and so long as the tooth exists, so do you.”

Collins furrowed his brow and Nicholas readied himself to try to explain, but Collins said, “Immortality. That’s what you’re saying.”

“In essence, yes.”

“But it’s not a book. Not written, I mean.”

“No,” Nicholas said, staring down at the first page.Flesh of my flesh...“It’s only a draft.”

“And it would take two of you,” said Collins.

“Yes,” said Nicholas.

Collins’s voice was hard. “Is this why your uncle’s looking for another Scribe?”

Another Scribe. So Richard could melt their bones for glue, shear their hair for thread, skin them to make leather. Carve a pen from their fingers. Drain them of their blood. Then force Nicholas to use the gory remains to write a spell that would keep someone alive forever.

14

For weeks after it was written, Nicholas’s flying carpet spell had languished in the lowest drawer of his desk. He’d covered it with a mess of papers and even an old T-shirt, not wanting to think about it, but as the weeks passed, he felt strangely like he’d shut a part of himself away in that drawer, too, muffled beneath a layer of paper and cloth. It felt like the volume and color of the world had been turned down, everything quiet and beige, dull and exhausting. He couldn’t even muster enthusiasm when Maram proposed an outing to London to pick up the pair of new Adidas trainers he’d been begging for, prompting her to frown at him and press a hand to his forehead.

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