Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Clay’s attempt to leave unnoticed is made difficult by the fact that a large number of people have gathered at the top of the Reading Room to watch a binding ceremony. This is the process by which an unbound member of the fellowship has their codex vitae accepted and copies of it are added to the fellowship’s libraries. Corvina uses this occasion to publicly condemn Penumbra and to announce that if he makes another mistake, his book will be burned. Clay manages to leave unseen and makes it back to the hotel still wearing the black robe Deckle gave him. He gives Kat the digital version of Manutius’s book for her to start working on, but not Penumbra’s. Clay then asks Penumbra if the Moffat he saw on the shelves of the Reading Room was the same person as his favorite author, and Penumbra confirms that it was. He explains that Moffat’s book was burned because he couldn’t make the ultimate sacrifice—to leave the book unread until his death—and he published it as the third and final volume of The Dragon-Song Chronicles.