“That’s because I’m trying to look like one. But–see here?” He pulled back his hair to show Garland his earlobe. Across the dimming kitchen, Garland could see nothing unusual, but J’han explained, “A scar. From the earring. I trained at Kisha University.”

The university was gone now, long since burned to the ground by Sainnites. Karis spit out her nails to say, “You’d have three earrings now, if history had been different.”

Garland knew enough to know it was a compliment. It also was the kindest thing Karis had said to anyone since Garland met her. He felt obliged to stammer out an apology for the Sainnite destruction of the university, but J’han hushed him. “We’re more interested in how to flesh out a new future on the bones of the past,” he said. “There it is,” he added, and took one last box out of his pack.

“What’s that?” Leeba leapt up. “A present?”

“Not a present for you. It’s a book for Karis, from Medric.”

With her mouth in a thin line, Karis finished tacking down the twig, and told Garland to take a rest. He went to the hearth to stir his pot and add more wood to the fire, then rather hesitantly asked J’han if he would pull the tooth that ached so it kept him awake at night.

“Of course,” said J’han. “Or maybe I could repair it.”

“Can I watch?” asked Leeba.

But Garland felt Karis’s hand on his shoulder, and turned, and she quietly said, “Hold still,” and cupped his jaw in her coarse, gentle hand. Just like that, Garland’s tooth stopped hurting.

“You’re taking my business,” J’han complained mildly.

Karis turned away from Garland. “What did Medric say?”

Garland tentatively rubbed his jaw, then surreptitiously stuck a finger into his mouth to probe his sore tooth. It gave him not a twinge.

“To read the book,” J’han said.

Karis made a sound, halfway between a snort and a sigh. “Let’s finish that chair.”

But Leeba protested, “I want to know what’s in the box! Show me!”

“It’s Karis’s present.”

“Can I look at it, Karis?”

“I don’t care.” Karis knelt again beside the chair.

Garland went back to help her, still probing his tooth with his tongue, and thinking rather dazedly that he had yet to discover one thing that Karis could not do.

Assaulted now by Leeba’s shrill impatience, J’han cut the box’s bindings, and then spelled out for Leeba the letters written on the cover. “It says, ‘Be Very Careful.’ But I haven’t been at all careful, I’m afraid.” He opened the box, and Leeba said in disgust, “It’s a box of ashes!”

“Oh, dear. Karis, I’m afraid even you can’t fix this. Bring it to her, Leeba.”

Being very careful, Leeba brought the open box to Karis, who took it from her, glanced at the bits of burned paper that filled it to the rim, and dropped it on the floor without ever taking the nails from her mouth. Leeba, apparently impervious to Karis’s ill temper, got down on her knees, crying in excitement, “Look, it’s not all ashes!” She began blowing enthusiastically into the box. The frail remains of the printed pages floated upward on her breath, then, as they landed on the floor, disintegrated into dust. Leeba’s puffing uncovered the solid remains of the book. With the bound edge still intact, and the other edges burned into a curve, it looked like a half moon. On the charred, curling edges of the leather cover, the title, stamped into the leather and once burnished with gold, was faintly visible. Once, the book had been quite large, for even in its drastically reduced state it was big enough, and must have been a heavy weight on J’han’s back.

“Can I open it?” Leeba asked, already reaching for the cover.

Karis, bending a twig, did not even glance at her. J’han said, “Be very careful.”

“I am.”

As Leeba opened the book and turned the pages, Garland glimpsed a densely printed page, and a carefully rendered etching of a pig with all the cuts of meat marked. It was reassuringly commonplace. Leeba turned the pages: more pigs, cows, sheep, oxen, horses. The fragile paper shattered as Leeba turned the pages.

Karis bent, trimmed, and began to secure the twig that finished the chair. Soon, they all could sit down, though it appeared they would have nothing to sleep on for another night, not even Leeba’s lizard, who had been promised a lizard‑sized bed.

“The other book isn’t burned at all,” said Leeba. “The baby book.”

“What?” J’han came over to look. “Well. How about that!”

Garland, his hands still holding the last twig, looked over and saw that a hole had been carved out inside the massive volume. Tucked inside it lay a book so small that, despite the big book’s burning, its own edges remained unscathed. Its red cover shone brightly, unfaded, as though it had never seen the light.

“Can I take it out?” Leeba plucked the child out of its womb. “I can’t open it! Daddy, you try.”

J’han took it from her. “Maybe its pages are pasted shut. Why would someone go through so much trouble … ?”

“Karis!” Leeba said. “Fix it!”

Karis spat out her nails into the nail bag, and set her hammer on the floor. “We’re done,” she said to Garland. “Did Medric tell you the little book was there?” she asked J’han.

“No.”

“He’s a sneaky little rat of a man,” she said.

Leeba giggled.

Karis held out her hand for the baby book.

Silence descended. Even Leeba, who was quiet only when she slept, stared at Karis, open‑mouthed, as Karis pressed the book between her palms. Her hands were so big, and the book so small, that only its red edges could be seen. The fire uttered a sudden pop, and spit embers across the stone hearth. Karis opened her palms as though they were the book’s covers, and the book opened with them: sweetly, obediently, its pages rustling like starched sheets being unfolded.

“Oh!” sighed Leeba.

The way I am with cooking,thought Garland, Karis is with the whole world.

He glanced at J’han, who sat down in one of the chairs.

Karis said in a low voice, “Earth magic had sealed this book.” She bent her head over the handwritten page, seemed to read a few words, and then, abruptly, slapped the book shut. Her face looked rather pale.

Leeba came out of her fascinated paralysis. “What is it? I want to see!”

“I think it is a letter.”

“A letter in a book?” Leeba paused, her lively mind apparently stalled for a moment by the challenge of deciding which of many questions to ask. “Who wrote it?”

“Harald G’deon.”

“Of course,” said J’han. “Who else?” He wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

“Who’s that?” asked Leeba.

“He was an important man, who created me and then abandoned me. Just like my father did, actually. I never knew him.”

Leeba crawled into her own father’s embrace. She had not let him out of her sight for a moment since his abrupt appearance the other day. Secure now, she asked, “Is the letter written to you?”

“I’m the only one who could have opened it.” Karis looked down at her closed palms. “But he must have written it before he got sick–before he sent Dinal to find me in Lalali.”

Garland had been slow to understand. Hearing the names of the last leaders of Shaftal spoken casually as part of a fragmented account of Karis’s history, he thought at first that the discussion was a joke, and then that Karis and J’han were both just a little mad.

Then he remembered the fanatics he had served dinner to last winter, and their leader, Willis, who believed in a story and a vision of a lost G’deon.

Karis had put the little book inside her vest and was packing up her tools. In the book was a letter written to her by the last G’deon of Shaftal, long before his wife Dinal set out to find Karis in Lalali and Harald G’deon lay hands on Karis and vested her with the power of Shaftal.

Karis glanced at Garland, and seemed to find the expression on his face too strange to endure. She took up one of the chairs and carried it with her into the adjoining parlor, which did not even have a fire in its fireplace yet. She returned for a candle and left again, and shut the parlor door. J’han said to Leeba, “Leave Karis alone.”