The boy only winced against the pain and shook his head.

“Will you leave me with him?” said Taleswapper. “Just for a few minutes, so I can talk to him?”

Miller was rushing Faith out the door of the room before Taleswapper even finished his sentence.

“Alvin,” said Taleswapper. “You must listen to me, listen carefully. You know I won’t lie to you. An oath is a terrible thing, and I’d never counsel a man to break his word, even to save his own life. So I won’t tell you to use your power for your own good. Do you hear me?”

Alvin nodded.

“Just think, though. Think of the Unmaker going through the world. Nobody sees him as he does his work, as he tears down and destroys things. Nobody but one solitary boy. Who is that boy, Alvin?”

Alvin’s lips formed the word, though no sound came out. Me.

“And that boy has been given a power that he can’t even begin to understand. The power to build against the enemy’s unbuilding. And more than that, Alvin, the desire to build as well. A boy who answers every glimpse of the Unmaker with a bit of making. Now, tell me, Alvin, those who help the Unmaker, are they the friend or the enemy of mankind?”

Enemy, said Alvin’s lips.

“So if you help the Unmaker destroy his most dangerous foe, you’re an enemy of mankind, aren’t you?”

Anguish wrung sound from the boy. “You’re twisting it,” he said.

“I’m straightening it,” said Taleswapper. “Your oath was never to use your power for your own benefit. But if you die, only the Unmaker benefits, and if you live, if that leg is healed, then that’s for the good of all mankind. No, Alvin, it’s for the good of the world and all that’s in it.”

Alvin whimpered, more against the pain in his mind than the pain in his body.

“But your oath was clear, wasn’t it? Never to your own benefit. So why not satisfy one oath with another, Alvin? Take an oath now, that you will devote your whole life to building up against the Unmaker. If you keep that oath—and you will, Alvin, you’re a boy who keeps his word—if you keep that oath, then saving your own life is truly for the benefit of others, and not for your private good at all.”

Taleswapper waited, waited, until at last Alvin nodded slightly.

“Do you take an oath, Alvin Junior, that you will live your life to defeat the Unmaker, to make things whole and good and right?”

“Yes,” whispered the boy.

“Then I tell you, by the terms of your own promise, you must heal yourself.”

Alvin gripped Taleswapper’s arm. “How,” he whispered.