“It’s not right,” she said, as he tore another page from the book and began folding it into the tiny square that would make it easiest to swallow.
“Of course it isn’t,” he said. “If it was right, we wouldn’t have to do this.”
“I don’t mean that,” she clarified, tossing her head dismissively at the window with its wooden shutters sealed and heavy iron grate pulled down, locked for good measure. “Of course the sack isn’t right. Burning and killing isn’t right. But this?”
He shrugged. The pages went down strangely sour, a taste like spoiled honey left on his tongue.
“It’s the only way,” he pointed out. “If they burn it, it’s gone for good. If someone takes it as a vessel, though…”
“It should be one of the senior magi, then. They’re trained for it. They’ve taken the vows.”
“It’s not like it would turn out any different for them in the end.” Another page. His stomach was trying to turn sour as well, but he wouldn’t let it squeeze up what he had already swallowed. What sort of sacrilege would that be?
“So why should it be you?” she argued. “Why should you have to do it? You barely got your robes last summer.”
“And you just this summer,” he shot back. “You don’t see any of the senior magi around, do you? Either they’re dead, or they fled already and left it behind.”
“Meaning it isn’t that important.”
“Of course it is. Those who bear the weight of the tome reborn, whether by hand or fire, must-”
He clapped a hand over his own mouth to stop the words coming up. Like the start of heaving up what he’d eaten, they hadn’t wanted to stop otherwise – using his tongue and breath without any say-so from his aching head.
“Really?” she frowned. “If you’re quoting it without meaning to already, it’s no good. You need to stop. Leave the rest of it be, and maybe this will be as bad as it gets. There are worse things than coming up with quotes from the tome once in a while.”
“Then everyone would know what I tried. They’d know I gave up.”
“And that’s worse than burning yourself to reform it later? For gods’ sake, think,” she snapped. “If the magi are all gone, and this place will be, too, soon, who are you even doing it for? Who will study it? Who will care?”
He blinked obstinately. Began folding another page.
“You, I hope,” he said.
She scoffed. “You think I’ll carry it around after you’re gone? Just an ashy book? You think I’d forgive it? Or you?”
Those last two words, spoken softly, brought her eyes back to his from where they had traced the dusty mosaic floor. In the deserted halls beyond, and outside the barred window, riot and battle boomed and raged.
He smiled, slow and only slightly ink-stained. Tore out another page.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to carry it until I find someone who will,” he said. “You’ll stay with me that long at least, won’t you?”
She stared at him, straight, without flinching, even as the window shutters trembled.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll stay until we’re out of the city, at least. But if you talk even once about burning yourself, I’ll leave.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Pilgrimage is only holy when undertaken for-” And pressed a hand to his mouth again, smothering the quote back down his throat.
“I feel a little sick,” he admitted once it had passed.
“Then stop,” she no longer seemed to have any hope in saying. “Or else hurry up.”
He did the second. Two pages folded together – more than halfway there. The book’s heavy old bindings slumped apart with so few pages left to fill them.
He would be a much worse place for that knowledge to be stored. No one would be able to study it as long as his guts were its binding. But at least he didn’t look like a book, and that was what they’d be looking for. And once they were safe…
Once it was safe, he would put it back in better hands. In a better form. It was more service than a mere apprentice could ever have hoped to do for the magi – perhaps, if he focused on that, it wouldn’t even hurt too much when the time came.
