I laid her many intended purchases on the counter, half-convinced the shopkeeper was about to adopt her.
Quinn insisted on carrying her bundle of purchases, but could hardly see around them, leaving me the honor of becoming her pack mule. I hadn’t considered adding ‘beast of burden’ to my short list of mediocre accomplishments, but now I truly didn’t mind. We drifted past fruit carts and fortune-tellers, a trio of aspiring musicians mangling a jig at the corner.
She glanced sideways at me, thoughtful. “That book Branrir showed us, it did not appear to be handwritten.”
“It wasn’t.”
Quinn stared at me as if I’d claimed the sky was purple.
I jerked my chin toward a red-brick shop wedged between a bakery and a candle stall.
“Come on,” I said. “Time for a different sort of magic.”
A brass plaque hung askew over the door, engraved with curling script:The Ink Press.The windows were fogged with steam and lined with stacks of parchment.
She followed, hesitant at first but quickening as we neared thedoor. The moment I opened it, a cacophony rushed out to meet us—mechanical clanks, rhythmic stamping, and the hiss of boiling water. The heated air was laden with ink and the acrid bite of heated metal. Inside, the room pulsed with clatter and motion. At its heart, a massive machine ruled the space: a cast-iron beast of pistons, levers, and gears moving in perfect symphony as two apprentices worked the plates with choreographed grace.
Her eyes went wide. Awe, real awe, spread across her face like sunlight.
Saints help me.I knew in that moment I would give anything to see that look again.
“What is this place?”
“A printing press,” I said. “You’ll like it, princess.”
“Still not a princess,” Quinn rebuffed, clearly expecting the smug reply already half-formed on my tongue. She stepped closer, feather-light, and watched the printer set type into a metal tray. “Letters?”
“Movable ones,” I said. “They coat them in ink and press them into the paper. Whole books can be printed in days instead of years. No scribes. No monks. Just craft and ingenuity.”
She let out a rush of breath as if she’d been holding it for a hundred years. Maybe she had.
One of the apprentices looked up at her, and his mouth fell open, likely stunned by the walking contradiction in front of him.
“Would they mind if I…” She trailed off, motioning toward the press.
The man glanced at me. I shrugged. “She won’t break anything.”
Quinn added softly, “Please.”
It was the “please”that did it—the small, reverent note in her voice transformed the shop into a chapel and the press a reliquary. Who were they to deny her this miracle of discovery?
“Sure,” he said, guiding her around the side. “Careful! Watch your hands near the gears.”
She nodded and joined him. I stood back, arms folded, trying not to look like I was staring too hard. She watched him ink the letters, observed the whole process from tray to lever. Then he handed her the inking roller. Her whole face lit up. She worked the press as if it might vanish if she blinked, careful but delighted. When the page came out clean and sharp, bearing the raised imprint of words, she looked at it like it held a secret only she could read.
And I?—
I didn’t know how to explain the ache that hit my chest right then.
Because it wasn’t the press. It wasn’t the page. It was her—Quinn—smiling like she’d cracked open a new universe. Ink stained her fingers and smudged her cheekbone. She turned to me and held up the page she’d made, presenting her treasure.
“Is it not the most marvelous creation? Can they make these all the time?”
“Thousands,” I said. “Every week.”
Her smile could’ve split stone. “It is truly magic.”
I found myself smiling back. Couldn’t stop. “Told you you’d like it.”
