Altaïr is right to doubt Paul’s faith being fully restored, but also right to mark it as a closed subject for now. Paul doesn’t want to linger on his mistakes so completely in front of a near-stranger, even if he grows less strange seeming by the minute.

Paul takes up the book with still gentle fingers, not done making up for his disrespect to them or to their Pthumerian master. He is getting good at making things up to Pthumerians, he thinks. Perhaps that’s what he can do to earn his keep - teach lessons in the art of fucking up, over and over, until you have mastered the form of the apology.

“They will. But here -” Paul fishes a pencil of his own from his pocket and slides it across to Altaïr in exchange. It's a battered, fingernail marked thing, halfway whittled down already, but it will serve.

"The pink part at the end is an eraser. You can use it to scrub out mistakes. It's helpful for sketching." He doesn't know what Altaïr intends, but it's something he didn't know about them at first either. Small niceties for a new world.

"I'll be back shortly." If there's nothing else, Paul is going to take a walk, and perhaps the musty library air will have a beneficial effect on him anyway.