Pearl didn't wait for me to close the door before she started pulling the oilcloth bundle out from under my pillow, where I'd shoved it the night before like a kid hiding contraband.
"If we're doing the whole watch-her-carefully thing," she said, "we might as well use the time productively. Show me what Tobin gave you again. All of it."
Malachi shut the door behind him and dropped the latch, which told me more about how seriously he was taking this than anything he'd said in the hallway.
I laid it all out on the bed. The chisel first, its handle worn into a shape that didn't quite match anyone's hand anymore, just the memory of one. The guild token, faded past recognition. The torn pages, brittle at the edges. And the seal, small and warm, even though it had stayed for sometime in this cold room.
"Start with the pages," Malachi said. "Words first. We'll handle the magic part second."
