Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Penumbra has vanished; Clay can’t find him anywhere, so he has taken to listening to The Dragon-Song Chronicles on audio-book in his living room, which is being taken over by Matropolis. Kat is throwing herself into the PM after the disappointment of the decoding project and seems to be ignoring Clay. Clay considers trying to decode Penumbra’s book to try to find him but decides against it. He feels responsible for everything that’s happened and doesn’t want to make things worse. While listening to the audio-book, Clay notices that there is a new line, one not present in the book. It is a reference to Aldrag the Wyrm-Father and Clay can think of only three people who might be able to figure out the reference: Penumbra, Corvina, and Edgar Deckle. He writes Deckle a letter asking for help and is slightly disappointed when Deckle emails an invitation to video-chat. Deckle reveals that, despite the fact that Manutius’s codex vitae had not been deciphered, but members of the Unbroken Spine were angry with Corvina that such digital methods had not been attempted before. Clay asks Deckle if he knows where Penumbra lives: he does, but he will only give Clay the address if he can find the original Gerritszoon punches that were stolen from the