A character page from the Reliquary Duet. Spoilers for Bone Covenant; safe for Bone Sacrament.
Carries. A leather-wrapped roll of pens, one with the nib worn down nearly to nothing because he keeps using it past where any sensible scribe would. A small wooden box whose contents he has never named to anyone in the village. A copy of Augustine's Confessions with the margins inked half-to-death and the spine soft as a hand. The Bone Codex, half-finished. A flint and steel he has not used in years and does not throw away.
Voice tells. Slow to speak. The pause before he answers a question is not hesitation — it is the work of reading the question first. When he is arguing, he drops into Latin without noticing he has done it. Will not interrupt. Will wait. Will say the thing once, plainly, and let it sit. When he is moved he goes very still and very quiet, and the quiet is the giveaway.
Will not. Leave the room when Else is healing. Lie about what he knows. Use the word subject of anyone he loves (she taught him this; he learned). Pretend the Church does not still ache in him. Tell a story he has not verified.
What he smells like. Oak-gall ink, oat porridge, the wax of chapel candles. In summer, the dust of old paper warmed by sun. After a long day at the Codex, a faint sweetness from the gum arabic. Never incense. Not anymore.
Body in a room. Kneels when others stand. Hands clasped or holding a book. Reads with his right palm flat to the page when something has caught him. Sits at the corners of tables, not the centers. Stands behind Else when there is a stranger in the room, never in front of her — protective, not proprietary.
Sleeps. On his left side, facing her. Has done so since the night she let him.
One line he never says aloud. I would have come to you sooner if I had known I was allowed.
Callum's full story continues in Bone Sacrament, available June 15.