One evening, when Alba had grown tired of copying, she tried to write words for which she had no model.

ALBA, she wrote, sounding it out. ALBA.

“What’s that?” the boy asked, watching her progress.

“My name.” ALBA ALBA ALBA, she wrote in large, dark strokes: A whole colony of ants carried her personhood over the page. ALBA. The insects marched with the truth: Alba, not Oracle-Apprentice. Alba.

“Maurus,” said the boy-priest softly.

“Maurus?” Alba paused.

“My name. Before I became apprenticed to the priests.”

“Maurus,” she said, and touched the tip of the reed to the parchment. Maurus.

ONCE I LIVED IN A HOME WITH MY MOTHER AND FATHER AND BROTHERS, she wrote slowly. WHEN I WAS STILL A GIRL, THE PRIESTS CAME TO OUR VILLAGE AND TOOK ME AWAY FROM MY FAMILY. NO ONE PROTESTED. NO ONE TRIED TO STOP THEM.

“My mother tried to stop them when they came to my village,” the boy said quietly. “She tried to say I was needed. I remember, she pleaded with my father—He helps with the children. I did—I was the oldest of six. I helped keep them fed and bathed. I cooked for them and mended their clothes and saw that their faces were washed. When my mother’s hands were full, I rocked the littlest ones to sleep. But my father called me another mouth to feed, and said it was good fortune the priests had come. They were not even seeking novitiates, but my father convinced them to take me.”

MAURUS, wrote Alba, WAS SENT TO THE PRIESTS BY HIS FATH—

“No.” Maurus stopped her hand. “Write instead that Maurus cared for his brothers and sisters.”

MAURUS CARED FOR HIS BROTHERS AND SISTERS, Alba wrote. HE BATHED THEM AND COOKED FOR THEM AND MENDED THEIR CLOTHES AND ROCKED THEM TO SLEEP. She thought for a minute, remembering, and then added, HIS MOTHER TAUGHT HIM TO MAKE A STEW WITH CHICKPEAS.

“Write that I miss them.”

HE MISSES THEM STILL, she wrote. HE LOVED THEM.

The two stared at the parchment now nearly covered with Alba’s uncertain markings. Under the flickering lantern, the little insect-legs seemed set in motion, skittering eagerly over the page. Alba felt a sense of satisfaction to see these cicadas and beetles and spiders scurrying out with their hard, shiny bodies of truth.

“I cried,” Maurus added. “I cried for days. Even years later, often, in hours I was alone.”

Alba nodded. “I was too angry to cry,” she said finally. “But still…” She shook her head.

They sat for a time in silence, watching the sky begin to grow gray around them.

“You remind me of my little sister,” Maurus said at last. “She was stubborn, like you. She’d have wanted to learn to write as well.”

Not exactly younger, Alba thought, but she did not see how she could even begin to explain. Maurus now appeared nearly grown, while she still looked like a child. Besides, she liked feeling like his younger sister. “What will you do with this writing?” she asked instead. “If the priests see it, they will know you have been teaching me.”