He feels a slight vigilance when Paul reaches into his pocket, but Altaïr only knows it is habit, a watchfulness as familiar and ever-present as his Hidden Blade. He accepts the apparently well-loved pencil. He curiously presses the eraser with his own fingernail.

"Thank you. I would have thought it was another way to write instead of the opposite."

By the time Paul returns, Altaïr has experimented with it on a clean sheet of paper (it gives him a little thrill to see paper as something more plentiful here), drawing a simple map of the nearest city square from memory. He doesn't have the benefit of a rule, but the improvised use of the spine of the journal found in his Welcoming bag does passably enough.

"You did not encounter any more illusions on your way, I hope?"

He says this in the serious way he's spoken thus far, but it can't be anything other than something approaching... humor.