The Page and the Light

Fennel had cleared half her worktable by the time I arrived. The other half held a book with its spine opened like a small, patient wound.

I stopped just inside the bindery, careful to keep my hooves clear of a tray of cut thread. “I brought my best work gloves.”

Fennel glanced at my bare hooves. “You forgot them.”

“I brought my best work-glove attitude.”

She moved a stack of paper scraps away from the table’s edge. “That’ll do. We’re starting with the scraps.”

The bindery smelled of paste, paper, and the faint sharpness of leather. The smells were ordinary enough to feel like a gift. In Ponyville, my days had started to collect places like this: rooms where I could be an unfamiliar creature and still have a job to do.

Fennel set down a single sheet and a thread-thin strip of paper. “Hold this flat. Keep the light on the cut edge. We’ll see if you can do both without pressing the page into the table.”

My horn gave a cautious tingle. “And if I can’t?”

“Then you stop and try again.” She nudged a scrap into position with one hoof. “Paper’s cheap.”

“That’s the kind of safety briefing I appreciate.”

I focused on the paper. The low-force hold had started to make sense last time: I didn’t need to pin the sheet down so much as persuade it to stay where it was. My magic settled over it, a faint pressure I could feel more than see. The page stopped fluttering in the draft from the window.

Fennel pointed to the cut edge. “Light there. Small.”

I turned my attention to my horn. A pale glow gathered at its tip. It reached the paper, though the first angle lit the whole sheet instead of the edge.

“Too wide,” Fennel said. She tilted her head toward the paper. “Bring it closer. Let the light do less.”

I shifted my aim. The glow narrowed, weak but steady, and picked out the ragged fibers along the cut. For a moment, the paper stayed flat and the light held.

Then I noticed the light.

The page lifted at one corner. I tightened my grip, and it bowed against the tabletop. The glow sputtered.

I dropped both spells before the paper could crumple. My horn warmed with a dull, familiar warning. Not pain, not yet. A reminder from the part of me that had learned the hard way that “one more minute” could be a terrible medical plan.

Fennel lifted the paper by its corner and inspected it. “Still usable.”

“Good. I was worried I’d ruined the priceless artifact.”