[b]Hours later...[/b] 

I was glad to be sitting down, again. My abdomen felt like it was close to splitting apart, though Selencia assured me that was merely the pain of healing, but it did little to assuage my uneasiness. A part of me selfishly wished that the document Emmaline found would lead us elsewhere, so I may heal in peace for the weeks or months it would take the travel through the warp in order to find our next clue in this increasingly complex web. Of course, if we could solve the entirety of this case over the next few days on this forsaken hiveworld, so much the better. 

I sat in a room with Emmaline, Ortega, and Lazarus. There was a large table at the center of the office where the two strips of paper Emmaline had acquired lay. Around them were pentagrams I had inlaid, bolstered by protective prayers to the Emperor of Mankind. Initially I had sought to reconnect the parchment to make it whole again with some adhesive, but I thought against it. No telling what that could turn the scroll into, as paranoid as that may seem. One could never be too careful dealing with items of the ruinous powers. 

"The paper is not recycled." Lazarus declared, having analyzed one half of the parchments. "It's old, perhaps decades old, but well preserved. This came from either the upper spire or off world." 

"Off world. The upper spire's papers are lighter in color and thinner in texture, unless someone made a special order." Ortega said. "I see no stains on it beyond a bit of moisture from your woman's sweat. Your man from mars is right, it wasn't made from within the underhive." 

"Written in high gothic, but the style is archaic," Emmaline pointed out. I nodded. 

"Only a few use such a manner of script today. I've only seen one other like it," I said. "A text written by a cardinal of the Ecclesiarchy." 

That brought a few stares.

"Are we going to put this together and read it?" Ortega asked, and all eyes moved to myself. I knew we would need to at some point, but only under careful scrutiny. Perhaps there was no taint of the warp on it, and it was a mere propaganda piece, but I would not leave that to chance. I shook my head. 

"Soon, but not yet. And Ortega, would you and Lazarus be kind enough to vacate the room for a moment?" I asked, though it was obviously an order. The arbites hesitated, but reluctantly followed Lazarus out, who had moved as soon as I had spoken as if he were a cog in a wheel. The door closed behind them, audibly. I used what little psychic talents I had to lock the door in place, before regarding Emmaline. 

"Are you alright?" I asked her. 

She nodded, her pride wounded but otherwise she seemed fine. "Yes, thanks for saving me." 

I allowed myself a small smile. "And thanks for saving me," I said, which caused her lips to broaden in a smile as well. As much as I wished to make up then and there, I knew time was likely of the essence. "I want you to read this document." 

Emmaline blinked rapidly. "After... after what I did?" 

"The papers are well warded, and I'm here with you. But I need someone to read it who knows what the power of the warp in both its purified form and it's less so- form feels like. Don't worry. If you don't want to, then I will do it. But we need to see what is on it in order to understand it. However, you cannot read it aloud. That is what they wished of you, yes?" 

"Yes," she said quickly. 

"Then let's begin." I said, and silently, secretly placed my gun in my lap below the table. I was not planning on using it, but if something took hold of her, I would rather both of us die than have some daemon take control of her body and wreak havoc. 

[i]That's not going to happen[/i], I told myself.