Langdon hurries down from the balcony and tells Katherine they need fire to create smoke and draw help into the sealed Baroque Library. He explains they have only minutes before a gunman reaches them, so Katherine races to retrieve her shoulder bag from below.

Katherine searches the bag for matches or a lighter and comes up empty, but she does have a granola bar and a built-in purse phone charger (“Clutch”). Langdon takes the bag and sends Katherine to wait below while he works halfway up the spiral staircase.

Using his teeth, Langdon snaps off the charger connector, strips the wires, and creates sparks. He fashions a thin filament from the granola bar’s foil wrapper to heat and ignite, but realizes the brief flame will not sustain itself without highly flammable fuel. He starts a larger fire on the grated landing, taking advantage of airflow up the stairwell.

Katherine sees the growing flames and then realizes what is burning when charred text drifts down: Langdon is feeding her printed manuscript into the fire. She rushes up, protesting that it is their only copy, but Langdon insists it will be confiscated as soon as they leave hiding and that the manuscript itself is making them targets.

To justify the sacrifice, Langdon tells Katherine that people have been killed over the book: Brigita Gessner was tortured and killed after requesting an advance copy, and Jonas appears to be missing. As Langdon continues burning the remaining pages, Lieutenant Pavel finishes dragging the Codex Gigas display case beneath the balcony to reach them, notices black smoke rising toward the fresco, and moments later the fire alarms begin blaring.