The Book That Wouldn't Burn

Evar Evantari is the other protagonist and point-of-view character in the story. He is one of the canith, a wolf-like people who are historically the enemies of the novel’s human populations. His people were trapped within a single, two-mile-by-two-mile chamber within the library, along with the device known as the Mechanism. Evar is one of five children who entered and became “lost” to time, only emerging after everyone else was already dead. While the other children emerged from the Mechanism with skills learned from the books they took in with them, Evar has no memory of his book’s contents. Without any skills to shape him, Evar instead becomes defined by his compassion: a trait that his four adoptive siblings lack. As Starval says to him, “You actually like people, or would if you had the chance” (109). Evar is reflective and curious, but he is also painfully aware of his limited experience. With only his siblings, along with the cold Assistant and Soldier as his guardians, Evar spends his life without real purpose. His one drive in this otherwise isolated existence is finding the woman he faintly remembers from his book: a woman who is later revealed to be Livira. Once he finds the book again, he follows the instructions that she left him, which take him to the Exchange. He perceives this liminal space as an endless forest full of pools.

Unlike Livira, who spends the story mainly in the library over several years, Evar spends what he feels is only a few days exploring the Exchange. He explores the past through several of the portals. In a ghostly form, he witnesses the massacre of his people and Clovis’s escape into the Mechanism, and he also sees the massacre of the canith in the city at human hands. Despite seeing these atrocities, he remains the story’s compassionate heart and is willing to reach out when others aren’t. For example, once he and Livira perceive each other’s true forms, she is angry at his “betrayal.” Evar, however, continues to support her. He fights off Clovis and leaves the Assistant behind with the skeer to return to the Exchange for her sake. The irony, which he realizes too late, is that Livira was always the Assistant. By the time he returns, the Assistant has already been destroyed. The novel closes with Evar searching for a way to get her back.

Master Davris Yute is one of the library’s deputy librarians and a mentor figure to Livira, albeit a distant one. He appears at first to be an ordinary human man with albinism, but it is later revealed that he used to be an assistant—one of the constructs that Irad designed to maintain order, preserve knowledge, and uphold the library. Rigid rules bind their existence, and their interactions with the flow of time are limited, which separates them from the emotions of mortal life. Yute, however, is one of two assistants who gave up their timeless existences to help the world break its cycle of destruction; this decision was inspired by the destruction of the city that was shared by humans and canith. The other such assistant was Yamala, who is now the current head librarian and Yute’s wife. However, their union is far from harmonious. Yute’s relationship with Yamala mirrors the broader tensions between the ideals of preservation and destruction, as represented by Irad and Jaspeth. While Yamala remains steadfast in her dedication to the library’s mission, Yute questions its authority and purpose.

His questioning leads him to bring Livira into the library despite resistance from the king and the other librarians. In her curiosity and tenacity, he sees the potential for an end to the cycle. In their infrequent meetings, Yute provides Livira with cryptic guidance or encouragement to explore forbidden ideas. For example, he is the one who explains the importance of fiction as a form of understanding. While their relationship is never particularly warm, it significantly shapes Livira’s journey because Yute challenges her to think critically. This early training allows her to uncover the truth about the library and its history.

At the end of the novel, Yute is one of those who escapes the invasion of Crath City and the burning of the library by passing into the Exchange. He temporarily halts the fighting between the humans and canith by reasoning with them, but he cannot stop Mayland from killing Yamala and summoning the Escapes.

Malar is a supporting character in the novel who becomes an unlikely guardian and friend to Livira over the course of the story. He is a soldier hardened by a lifetime of experience in a harsh and violent world. Initially introduced as part of the group that frees Livira and the other children from the canith, Malar is rough around the edges and prone to heavy swearing, and he shows little regard for formality or sentimentality. However, he is driven by a strict, albeit personal, code of ethics. Beneath his hardened exterior, there are glimpses of a more vulnerable side when he shows a protective and almost paternal instinct toward Livira: a quality that surprises even himself at times. Though he outwardly dislikes Livira when he first brings her to Crath, he goes out of his way to get her into a better position at the allocation hall. 

In the years that follow, Master Yute hires him to act as her bodyguard during her infrequent forays into the city. Malar often reminds Livira that his motivation to help her is rooted in obligation, either to pay off his debt to her for saving him from the dust-bear or because he is literally being paid to do so. However, even once he becomes the Soldier and loses most of himself to the automaton, his loyalty to Livira remains. As he tells Evar, “If you hurt her, no army will save you from me” (124). When the canith attack the city at the end of the book, Malar helps survivors make their way through the library to the exchange. However, in the Exchange, he is mortally injured by Clovis, which requires Evar and Livira to take him to Evar’s version of the library in order to be healed. Like Livira, Malar also possesses one of the assistants to become the Soldier and is likewise destroyed by the skeer.