Half Claimed novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Glued Page

I ran to the Archive with the red book against my chest and both Alphas at my heels.

The twelve copyists looked up from their desks, saw our faces, and said nothing at all.

Silverpine's copy of the Compact lives in a glass case at the end of the long room, on a stand of black oak.

It's a brown leather book as thick as my forearm.

I have turned every page of it a hundred times, and I have never once counted them.

I counted them now.

Clause eight ended on page forty-one.

Clause ten began on page forty-two.

The red book had a clause nine between them, a whole page.

"There's nothing here," I said. "Our book goes straight from eight to ten."

"I know it does," Lorne said. "I read the cover list before I came."

I laid my hand on the inside of the back board.

It was thicker than the front one by a finger's width.

I had always thought that was the binder's mistake.

I got the bone folder and the short paring knife out of my apron.

I knelt on the floor with the book across my knees.

"Hold the lamp," I said, and Idris took it.

The endpaper was marbled blue, very old, pasted down hard.

I slid the knife under the edge and began to lift it, a hair at a time.

The glue was dry and brittle and smelled faintly of horse.

Under the endpaper lay a second sheet, stuck flat to the board.

I eased the blade under it, and it peeled away with a long dry sigh.

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