CHAPTER SEVEN

Three more days passed. Their compatriots received commissions and were folded into High Garda companies, but no word of any future for Glain and Jess. It was worrying for a day, and quietly terrifying after that. Glain constantly asked what it could mean, and Jess had no answers, only fears he refused to speak aloud and tried to bury under other concerns. Surely, Glain would find a good home in one of the elite companies.

He was not so confident of his own prospects.

While they waited, the two of them were rarely out of each other’s company. To fill the time, they researched the Library’s secret prisons and met with Dario and Khalila to discuss their findings.

The problem was, proof was thin on the ground. Thomas might be in one of three different places where secret prisons were strongly rumored to be hidden: Rome, Paris, Moscow. If Jess had to place a bet, he’d have put his money on Paris—the country of France was, after all, a Library territory, fully owned after the rebellion against the Library that failed in the late 1700s. What few of the French people were allowed to live in Paris were required by law to perform in the historical reenactments—the rebellion, the Library’s conquest, the executions. It was a perfect place, in Jess’s opinion, to hide prisoners. Who’d dare to even go look?

Trouble was, every new location led to impassioned speculation but no definitive answers to tip the scales toward one of the choices.

“Well,” Glain said over strong coffee in their usual café, “we can’t go looking for him blind. We need more information than we have. Much more. Somehow we have to find it.”

“I agree,” Jess said, and to his surprise, Dario was saying the same thing at the same time. They exchanged looks, and Jess let Dario continue.

“We need someone with more access than we can have. What about Morgan?”

“What about her?” Jess shot back, suddenly on his guard.

“She can access hidden information, can’t she? It’s the whole reason they’re called Obscurists.”

“I can’t contact Morgan. I have to wait for her to write to me.”

“And she hasn’t? Maybe your charm’s finally wearing off,” Dario observed. “Maybe she’s found some lucky man to fill her days inside the Iron Tower.”

Jess’s hand tightened on his fork, and for a brief, bloody moment he imagined that—or worse, that she hadn’t found someone else, that someone else had been found for her. He didn’t want to talk about that. At all. “Morgan can’t help us,” he snapped. “Move on, Dario.”

“I have, actually. I think we should involve someone else who can—”

“No,” Khalila said. Her tone sounded flat and a little angry. “Dario. We discussed this. You can’t involve anyone else inside the Library!”

“And anyone outside it is of no use—Jess has proved that. All his fancy criminal connections can’t get us what we need, and every day, every day we wait, Thomas suffers.” Dario glared at Khalila, a thing Jess had never seen him do, and Khalila held the stare firmly. She might be a quiet girl, but shy? No. She didn’t back away from a fight. “It’s three cities—we’ve narrowed it to that. We just need confirmation. If it’s someone we can trust—”

Sickly, Jess thought of his brother and Neksa. He could ask Brendan to use Neksa to verify the information. If she really did work for the Archivist, she might not have to do anything but look in a book and say yes or no. Easy. But that would make him complicit in ruining the girl, and that . . . that was a bridge he couldn’t cross.

He didn’t have to, because Dario said, “I didn’t wait to get your approval. I told Scholar Prakesh everything we know about Thomas. I asked for her help.”

There was a breathless silence, and Khalila’s eyes widened. She tried to speak, failed, and finally managed to say, “You what?”

“Without asking us?” Glain jumped in.

“I’m tired of waiting for someone to drop an answer into our laps,” Dario said. His cheeks had an angry red tinge now, and he met Jess’s eyes. “Well? Aren’t you going to join the outrage?”

“No,” Jess said. “You know Scholar Prakesh; I don’t. I know she’s highly placed and very well respected. She’ll be hard for the Archivist to dismiss and harder to make disappear. It might well be the best choice we have.”

Glain kicked him under the table for breaking ranks, but the fact was, Dario was right. Except for that one guilty thought about Neksa, which Jess knew he had to hold as a last resort, he’d pulled every lever available to him.

“I don’t like this,” Khalila said. “What if she’s discovered? She’s a Scholar, not a spy!”

“She’s been close friends with the Archivist since he was a postulant, and she was once the Artifex’s lover,” Dario said, and refilled his coffee cup from the small pot on the table. At Jess’s gesture, he filled his cup, too. “She knows the Library in and out. Even better, she knows the people we need to investigate. Who better to find out what we need to know?”

“She’s an old woman, and you put her at risk,” Khalila insisted. “What if something happens to her? Our duty is to—”

“Our duty is to our friend,” Jess said. “If you don’t believe that, Khalila—”

“I never said that! Of course I want to save him!”

“Doesn’t sound like it. Are you having doubts?” Glain gave her a stony look and sat back in her chair. “Thinking of your own future inside the Library, are you?”

Khalila stood up, color high in her own cheeks now, and yanked her silken Scholar’s robe on over her long dress. “I’m thinking that you have put an innocent old woman at risk. I’ll be late for prayers. And I’d better say a prayer for all of us.” She walked away quickly in the direction of the neighborhood’s mosque, and though Dario leaned back in his chair and watched her, he didn’t rise to escort her.

Jess started to get up, and Dario said, “Let her go.” His face was set and unreadable. “She’ll feel better after she prays.”

“Well, wouldn’t we all?” Glain said. “So there’s no point in protesting—you’ve already done this without us. Right?”

“Right,” Dario said. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He was still watching Khalila as she moved down the street, and Jess could sense the desire in him to follow. “Scholar Prakesh is careful and she’s good. She’s willing to help. There’s no reason not to accept that. We’ve done our best and gotten as far as we can on our own, haven’t we? Sooner or later, we have to admit we need assistance. You idiots weren’t going to do it. Someone had to.”

He isn’t wrong, Jess thought, but he still had a terrible, sick feeling. This was moving beyond their control, quickly. Too many people, too many emotions. But if it gets Thomas back . . .

“Next time you want to run off on your own, count to ten and come talk to me,” Glain said. “You’re a hothead, Dario. At least let someone else give you a chance to convince you it’s not a good idea.”

“I did,” he said, still staring after Khalila. “She didn’t.” When Jess checked over his shoulder, he saw that the girl had disappeared around the corner.

Glain drank her coffee without another word, threw money on the table, and nodded to Jess. He stood up with her. “We’d best get back,” he told Dario. “You’ll be all right?”

Dario gave them a bright, entirely shallow smile. “Aren’t I always?”

When Jess looked back at the end of the street, he saw Dario still sitting at the table, toying with his coffee cup, staring off toward the corner where Khalila had disappeared.

Just one day later, Jess read the terrible news in the Alexandrian Times. He always kept a copy of the thin sheet in his quarters and checked it twice a day for the updated news as the articles changed and were written in fresh. It was the evening edition that carried the bold headline PROMINENT SCHOLAR DEAD IN CARRIAGE ACCIDENT. The hand-drawn illustration showed an old woman in Scholar’s robes stepping off the curb in front of a steam carriage, utterly unaware of the death hurtling toward her.

Scholar Prakesh was dead. He read the news over twice, letting the details sink in slowly; she had been walking to the Lighthouse late in the evening and evidently had not seen the carriage approaching before she stepped out into its path. She couldn’t have heard it coming, Jess realized, since she was deaf. But she’s walked this city all her life, he thought. She’d know by instinct to constantly check around her. He felt a horrible, sinking sense of guilt and anger. This hadn’t been a random street accident; Scholar Prakesh had been out asking questions, trying to help them.

He carried the paper with him on the way to Glain’s room, but she wasn’t there. Not in the common rooms or the gymnasium or the Serapeum or the target range. He sent her a Codex message and got no reply.

So he set out for the Lighthouse.

Scholar Prakesh’s office lights were on, and Jess pressed the button that would have alerted someone inside, but there was no answer. He knocked. Still nothing. When he tried the door handle, it opened, and he stepped inside. Prakesh’s office was just as he remembered: a warm combination of clutter and organization. Her handwritten notes were still on the chalkboards that lined the room.

He walked to the left, to Dario’s office.

Dario sat behind the desk. He had a glass in front of him full of a dark red liquid, and a bottle beside it. He looked up when Jess appeared in the doorway, lifted the glass, and downed half of it in a gulp. “Sit down,” he said. “Join me.” He put out another glass from a desk drawer and unsteadily poured it full. Jess took it and sniffed. Not wine. It had an interesting herbal, fruity smell. “It’s Pacharán, from Spain. Gift from my father.”

“What is it?”

“Alcoholic,” Dario said. “Come on. We’re drinking to my vast stupidity. Where’s Glain? Surely she wouldn’t miss the chance to rub it in.”

Jess said nothing. He sipped the liquid. Strong, all right, with a deceptively fruity taste. Dario had been crying; that was clear from the red, swollen state of his eyes. He’d also had a fit of temper. Papers littered the floor, no doubt brushed off the desk to make room for the drink.

“I was wrong,” Dario said. “Say it.”

“You took a chance,” Jess replied. “We’ve all taken them. I’m sorry it came out this way. She was—”

“She was brilliant. Brilliant.” Dario’s voice broke, and tears beaded in his eyes. He tried to blink them away, but they broke free and he had to angrily wipe them away. “She liked me. She trusted me. I got her killed.”

“It might have been an accident,” Jess said, but it sounded hollow even to his own ears.

Dario tossed off the rest of his drink and refilled the glass. “Shut up and drink.”

It took some time, but Jess finished what he’d been served, and before he was halfway through he was feeling the effects. Dario had two glasses to his one, and no doubt more before that. He tried to pour another out for Jess, but Jess quickly pulled the glass back. “That’s enough,” he said, and reached over to stopper the bottle. “You’ve had enough, believe me.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” Dario blurted, and drained the last of his drink. “She never walked in front of a carriage in her life. It was murder, and it was because of what I did. Her blood is on my hands—don’t try to tell me anything else.”

Jess didn’t. He let silence set for a moment, then said, “We all knew this would cost lives. Ours, our friends’, maybe our families’. Going against the Archivist is a blood sport.”

“He killed a Scholar,” Dario said. It was almost a whisper, and his voice shook and nearly broke again. “Me cago en todos los santos, he killed one of the best of us, and for what? To hide his dirty secrets? No. Khalila’s right. This has to stop.”

“I never said to give up.” Khalila’s voice came from behind Jess in the open doorway. “I never will. Dario, I’m so sorry.” The gentle sadness in her voice made Jess take in a breath, and as he turned his head, she moved past him, around the desk to open her arms. Dario lunged up and into them, and put his head on her shoulder to cry in quiet, wrenching sobs. It lasted only a moment, and he murmured a quiet apology as he pulled back.

She kissed him. It was a sweet, gentle kiss, and Jess found himself looking away to give them some privacy. She stepped away first and took in a slow breath as Dario sank down again in the chair. “What have you been drinking? I think I might be intoxicated on the fumes.”

“It’s not haram for me,” Dario said, and reached for the bottle. She moved it out of his reach. “Khalila. Please.”

“You’re beyond drunk enough,” she said. “And this is the end of your mourning. If they’ve killed a Scholar, we are all in danger, and you need to be alert. I need you at your best. We all do.”

He leaned back in his chair, staring at her, and then nodded. “You’re right. From now on, we stay together.”

Khalila turned to Jess. “The same for you. Stay with Glain. Watch your backs.”

“Thomas—”

“There’s nothing we can do for Thomas if we’re dead,” she said. “Stop asking about him, about secret prisons, about the Black Archives, about all of it. In a month, we may be able to start again, but they are watching. It will take only a stroke of the Archivist’s pen to kill us all. You know that.”

He did. He hated it with a cold, aching fury, but Khalila’s words were wise. Any sane person would pull in their head and proceed with caution.

Jess stood up. The Pacharán had worked all too well, and he felt his head spin a little. The Archivist won’t have to push me in front of a carriage, he thought. I’m liable to stumble in front of one all on my own.

“Stay safe,” he told them, and embraced Khalila first, then Dario.

Then he left the Lighthouse.

He’d lied. He didn’t intend to proceed with caution. It was far too late for that.

He intended to make sure Scholar Prakesh hadn’t died in vain. If that meant selling his soul to his brother, then he’d pay the price. However high it was.

When he knocked on Brendan’s door, it was late for most in the area, but hardly too late for a Brightwell. Still, he got no answer. Jess stepped back and studied the high windows. All dark. He didn’t believe that his twin, of all people, would be so early to bed, whether Neksa was in it or not.

Calling out for him was a stupid idea. Jess moved down to the far end of the wall, which surrounded a garden, and effortlessly swarmed over it and dropped down on the other side. Darker there, though a fountain whispered in the corner, and lotus flowers drifted on the surface of a pond.

He found the side door, quickly touched his fingers to the household god next to it, and got out his tools. Not a bad lock, but, then, thieves always bought the best. It took him more than a minute to open it, and then he stepped inside, into the soft shadows and the smell of sandalwood incense. Quiet.

Too quiet, he thought, for Neksa and Brendan to be here. And then he sensed movement and ducked instinctively into a crouch. Just in time for the club to crash into the wall behind where his head would have been. Jess lunged forward in the next second and found himself pushing a strong, lithe, curved body back against the wall.

He immediately moved his hands to more neutral territory and said, “Neksa? Neksa, it’s Jess! Jess! I’m not going to hurt you!”

She went still for a few seconds, and then he heard the sound of the club hitting the tiled floor and a trembling intake of breath. “Jess?” Then he actually felt her steady herself and her voice grew firm. “Let me go!”

“All right,” he said, and made sure to kick the club away into the dark before he did let her loose. That had been a very respectable attempt to kill him. “I’m looking for my brother.”

“By sneaking in the side door?”

“You didn’t answer the front.”

“He’s not here,” she said, and turned a switch on the wall at her back. Lights hissed on, gradually brightening. She left them low, for which Jess was thankful, and he saw the swollen redness of her eyes and nose. For all her bravado, she looked devastated. “He left this morning.”

“Left,” Jess repeated. “Are you sure?”

“I found this when I got up this morning.” She silently reached into a pocket of her dress and handed him a folded sheet of paper. Jess took it and held it up to the light. He recognized his brother’s hand, the jagged points and long loops. It was a terse message, saying he’d had enough, he was going home, and that he’d send for the rest of his things soon. No affection. Only the vaguest of good-byes. Even for Brendan, it seemed abrupt and cold.

“It’s from him, isn’t it?” she asked, and he slowly nodded. “Why? Why would he leave so suddenly? Why would he not talk to me first? I would have gone with him. I love him! He knows that!”

He doesn’t love you, Jess wanted to tell her, but that seemed cruel. He wanted to be relieved, but the timing couldn’t have been worse; he needed Brendan. No, you don’t, the old cold part of him told him. You need her. And you can still use her. His father wouldn’t have hesitated. He’d have threatened exposure, pushed past Neksa’s shock and anger and tears, and made her into a tool to be used as needed. That was what Brendan had been intent on doing. That was the Brightwell way.

She can help you get to Thomas! Scholar Prakesh died for this. The least you can do is do what has to be done.

He stood there for a long moment, the note in his hand, and just looked at her. At the undeniable heartbreak in her, and the dignity and the vulnerability.

Then he pressed the note into Neksa’s hand and said, “Lesson learned. You shouldn’t trust either of us.”

He was gone before she spoke again.

Captain Niccolo Santi answered his door on the third volley of knocks with an expression Jess could only identify as irritated. Out of uniform, he still looked tall and imposing. “Are you insane? Go home.”

“No. I need to talk to you.” Jess heard the hard, bitter edge in his voice and the determination, and the captain must have, too. He stepped back and swung the door wider as he turned away.

“Close it behind you,” Santi said over his shoulder. “And lock it.” Which Jess would have done, anyway. “What happened? You look like something hell spit out.”

Hard to choose what to give him for an answer. My brother’s fled town without a word to me. Or, We caused the death of a Scholar. He couldn’t quite bring himself to say any of it.

Inside, the small house was clean, orderly, and comfortable. The main feature of the room was a table, with four chairs and bare of plates or glasses but loaded with a stack of Blank books, all open. Christopher Wolfe sat at that table in a dark red silk dressing gown with small reading glasses perched on the end of his nose as he compared one book to another. “Good evening. It is evening, isn’t it?”

“It’s the black middle of the night,” Santi said. “But close, I suppose.”

Wolfe folded the glasses, slotted them into the centerfold of an open book, and said, “You were told to stay away from us, I believe, Brightwell. It was very good advice.”

Santi sat down at the table beside Wolfe and put his head in his hands. “He’s as bad as you. Tell him to stay away, and he’ll do just the opposite. I don’t know why you pretend to be surprised. You should know them all better by now.”

When Wolfe didn’t answer, Jess did. “Captain, you heard about Scholar Prakesh?”

“Yes,” Santi said, and looked aside at Wolfe. “I meant to tell you, but you were busy, and—”

“What about Prakesh?”

“She’s dead,” Jess said, before Santi could reply. “It’s our fault. We asked her for information that could have led us to Thomas.”

Paralysis lasted for a few heartbeats, and then Wolfe angrily shoved the books in front of him off the table, onto the floor. Santi winced, and Jess quickly bent and rescued the volumes. He found Wolfe’s glasses and put them on the top of the stack.

By the time he’d finished, Wolfe had gotten to his feet and turned away to pace the end of the room. “I hope you realize what you’ve done. You’ve not just sacrificed Aadhya Prakesh, but yourselves as well. Every one of you will be picked off before you know what’s coming. What were you thinking?”

“We were thinking about Thomas!” Jess shouted back. “The longer we hide from this, the more he’ll be hurt! Broken! You—of all people, you know that!”

Santi looked at Wolfe with a stilled expression. His long fingers curled too tightly around the edge of the table, and then he nodded. “I know, too,” he said. “I was there when Wolfe crawled bloody to this door. I’m the one who saw what was done to him. And we are not taking this risk blindly.”

“That’s the point, sir. That’s why I’m here. We’re all going to die if we don’t take action now. We need to get Thomas and get out!”

“Not without more definitive information.”

Jess swallowed, and said, “I think part of that answer is locked up in your memories, Scholar. You were taken, just like Thomas. You were even taken for the same reasons. Maybe they took you to the same place.” He spread his hands. “We’ve tried everything else.”

“No,” Santi said.

Wolfe ignored that. “There’s no guarantee that anything I recall will help,” he said. “Still less will it be real proof that’s where they’re holding Thomas.”

“It’s more than what we’ve got right now, isn’t it?”

Wolfe looked at him for a moment without any expression, and then shook his head. “I can’t recall any useful details. What they did to me was very effective.”

“Leave it, Jess,” Santi said. “I’m sorry, but this has gone far enough. I have to look after Christopher’s safety now.”

“There is no safety—you said so yourself.”

“I told you, leave it alone. This isn’t some adventure; it’s a bloody war. They pay me to be a tactician, and I can tell you this: we can’t win. We don’t have the numbers or the weapons or the knowledge. We’re defeated before we start, and, yes, I will look after the one I love before all else, and devil take the rest of you if it comes to that!”

Wolfe didn’t seem to hear any of that as he paced, but suddenly he said, “Brightwell. Can you secure a Mesmer who knows his business and can be trusted?”

Mesmers weren’t common in Alexandria, but there were a few, and some who plied a trade more in the shadows than in the light. The entertainers—the ones who made volunteers dance like chickens or pretend to fly—those had been certified by the Library. There were others whose motives were more purely profit driven. “I think so,” Jess said.

Santi said, “No. Under no circumstances will I allow it.”

Wolfe said, in the same mild tone, “Ignore that. He doesn’t want me to remember more, of course. He thinks I’ll shatter like a dropped vase if I do.”

“Will you?” Jess asked.

“Yes!” Santi said, and it was a shout compressed beneath an artificial calm. “He’ll destroy himself. And you’ve got a target on your back, Jess. Don’t forget it.”

Jess shrugged. “I grew up with the Garda chewing at my heels. Business as usual.”

“The Archivist’s assassins aren’t bound by the same laws as the London Garda or even my own soldiers. You should be afraid. He’s killed far better than you.”

“Stop, Nic. Jess is right.” Wolfe stopped pacing and looked at Santi. The two men faced each other, and Wolfe seemed quiet, clear-eyed, and steady. He didn’t look like the fragile, shaking man Jess had seen at the High Garda compound after the ambush. Nor did he look like the driven, angry man who’d taken on the role of teacher for Jess’s class. The man had too many secrets, buried too deep, for Jess’s comfort. Ironic, some sliver of Jess’s mind whispered, considering how much you keep from him. From everyone.

They were alike, Jess realized: both mistrustful, prone to hide emotions from others. Both with scars they hated to show. The difference was that Wolfe had Niccolo Santi. They’d braided their lives tightly together, and it would take a sharp sword to cut that tie.

He envied them that love. He might have hoped for it once.

But she was gone.

“Don’t do this,” Santi said. “I’m begging you, Chris, don’t. You’ll kill yourself.”

“Better I kill myself in a good cause than let the Library simply erase me. The Archivist has already destroyed my work. We both know he won’t allow me to live on much longer. If dying is my fate, at least I can try to change Thomas Schreiber’s before it comes.” He reached out for Santi’s hand. “I will happily remember every cut, every burn, every blow if it helps set that boy free. Please don’t stand in my way.”

Santi bowed his head for a moment, stepped forward, and rested his forehead against Wolfe’s. “You fool,” he said, and kissed him, sweet and slow. “Don’t ask me to watch you tear yourself to pieces.”

He let go of Wolfe, went into the bedroom, and closed the door behind him.

Wolfe said, “I can’t blame him for that; he remembers how I was after. But I’m stronger now. I will manage.”

“Sir—” Jess’s voice went cold in his throat, and he couldn’t finish for a long, struggling moment. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” The look in his dark eyes was chilling now, lightless, the same as when he’d been the unwilling proctor for their class of innocent postulants, knowing so many would fail or die. “I’m not your hero. It was my doing that made you all targets in the first place. If you’d never met me, your life would have been happier. It surely would be longer.” His smile was awful—full of bitterness and heartbreak. “Now go find me a suitable Mesmer, and let’s get this over with before Nic comes to his senses.”

Finding a Mesmer wasn’t hard; finding one who didn’t have ties to the Library was much more difficult, and, in the end, Jess had to settle for one, on the advice of smuggler friends, who was known for conducting under-the-table thefts from wealthy clients, some of whom he convinced to rob themselves and forget they’d done it. A gifted man, no doubt about it.

Just not a very nice one.

In person, Elsinore Quest was a rabbity little fellow who hunched his shoulders and ducked his head and almost never met Jess’s eyes. But when he did, Jess realized why. There was a certain steeliness to his gaze that would certainly have put some of his victims off too soon. Better to seem inoffensive and incapable of violence, particularly if someone wanted to entrust mind and will to you.

Quest kept up a steady stream of chatter on the carriage ride back, which was unbearably annoying, since all he talked about was the weather. It was typical for the time of year—warm and humid—and Quest seemed to think that it would be the death of him.

If only it were true, at least it would stop his endless droning.

“You understand what I’m paying you to do?” Jess interrupted, when he recognized the streets they were crossing. They were close to Wolfe’s house. “And what I’m paying you to forget?”

Quest’s flow of complaints shut off as if someone had closed a valve inside him, and he raised his gaze to meet Jess’s. The man was in his forties, most likely, with weathered, ill-kept, dry skin and graying, thinning hair, but his eyes—blue as the faded Alexandrian sky—were still vital and powerful. “Don’t worry about me, young master,” he said, and smiled. “I’ve forgotten more deadly secrets than you can ever imagine existed. One more is no bother, especially at the price you’re paying. Though I should point out—just for business purposes—that I sent a message off to a colleague about where I’d be and who you are. In case some . . . mishap occurs.”

In other words, he wasn’t a fool and he knew the risks. Jess nodded. He didn’t take offense. Everyone in the shadow trades had to watch his own back.

“Half now,” Jess said. “Half when you’re done.”

“Reasonable,” Quest said, and turned to look out the carriage window. The steam powering it puffed white and wispy behind them on the still, quiet night air; the streets were deserted, which Jess thought was a good thing. The fewer witnesses to Quest’s visit, the better. “Ah. We must be close.”

The carriage slowed, and Jess jumped out to offer the driver the standard fare of five geneih. Quest climbed down slowly, as if he was old and fragile, and shuffled after Jess to Santi’s door.

Wolfe opened it and stood aside. He was fully dressed now in a loose black shirt and trousers and boots. There was no sign of Santi, and the bedroom door was still shut.

“Elsinore Quest, Mesmer,” Jess said. “Scholar Wolfe, who’ll be your subject.”

“Very pleased to meet you,” Quest said, and weakly offered a handshake. Wolfe ignored it until the hand dropped awkwardly back to Quest’s side. “We will need relative quiet. Ah, this corner chair will do. Please sit down, sir. Make yourself quite comfortable. It’s very important that you be quite comfortable and let all your cares fall away, let them blow away like sand on the wind . . .”

There is a certain strange rhythm to the man’s voice, Jess thought, and tried to pinpoint what it was that so unsettled him—and, at the same time, what soothed him. He’d already started his work, then. Odd; Jess recognized that the man had used the same tones in the carriage, during that endless flow of weather observations. Had Quest tried to use his talents on him? Had it worked? No, surely he’d have known if it had. Wouldn’t I? The doubt made his mouth go dry.

Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea.

Wolfe sank down in the chair that Quest indicated, and as the Mesmer pulled another chair close, Jess saw the bedroom door silently open. Santi stepped out. The captain moved to stand beside Jess and said, in a low voice that couldn’t have carried to Wolfe, “If this goes badly, I will stop it.”

“I know,” Jess said. “It might not even work—sometimes it doesn’t . . .” His voice faded because Wolfe had already closed his eyes. Quest’s voice dropped to a low, calm rhythm, and Jess couldn’t catch what he was saying now as he bent close to Wolfe. The Scholar’s head slowly tipped forward.

Wolfe raised one hand—or, at least, the hand rose. There was no corresponding shift of balance from Wolfe’s body, no sign that the movement of that hand and arm had been directed from a conscious mind. The rest of him stayed completely still.

Quest reached out and pushed on the top of the floating hand. It hardly moved at all. He nodded in satisfaction and looked over to Jess. “He’s ready. What do you want me to ask?”

That fast? Jess blinked. “Ask him about his time in the cells—”

“Wait,” Santi said. He sighed. “I hate that you’ve forced him into this, but at least we can spare him some agony. Ask him about being taken to prison, then ask about any time he was taken out of a cell. Nothing about what happened to him—only locations and surroundings. Do you understand?”

“Of course,” Quest said blandly. “You’re looking only for where he was being held. I understand.”

“Good.” Santi’s gaze bored into the man. “You’d better.”

“Trust in me, friend. I know my business.” Quest leaned forward and rested his hand briefly on Wolfe’s shoulder. “Now go back. Go back to the day that you were taken into custody. Do you remember?”

The reaction was immediate and terrible. Wolfe’s whole body tensed, shifted, and seemed to pull inward. His head did not rise, but Jess heard the change in his breathing from across the room. His skin went cold listening to that harsh, painful panting. But they couldn’t stop now. Wolfe had agreed to this.

“Tell me about the day you were taken to the prison,” Quest said. His voice was gentle, rising and falling in those faint, odd rhythms. “There is nothing to fear. You are only seeing, watching a play of light and shadow. You are an outside observer of what occurs. There is no pain. You feel no pain at all.”

The harsh breathing eased, just a little, but when Wolfe’s voice came, it sounded rough and uneven and utterly unlike him. “I was . . . here,” he said. “They came for me here.”

“Here, in this house?”

“Yes.”

“And where did they take you?”

“The Archivist’s office at the Serapeum,” Wolfe said. “He asked questions—”

“Let that go. Where were you taken after he finished with you?”

Wolfe didn’t answer. Beside him, Jess felt Santi’s muscles tensing, as if bracing for a blow.

“Scholar? Where were you taken?”

“Below.”

“Below where?”

“Serapeum. To a cell.”

“Stop,” Santi quickly said. “Skip over that. Ask him where he was taken after that.”

Quest gave Jess another questioning look, and he nodded. Santi was right. Asking Wolfe to recount whatever happened to him in the cells below the Serapeum in Alexandria wouldn’t help them at all. Thomas wasn’t there.

Paris, Jess thought. They’ll have taken him to Paris.

But when Wolfe answered the question, he said, “The Basilica Julia.”

Rome. Jess swallowed hard as he remembered how passionately he’d argued for Paris with his friends; he’d nearly persuaded them it was the only logical choice and to go tearing off in pursuit of Thomas there. Thank you, Khalila. Thank you for holding out for more information. They wouldn’t have more than one chance at this.

And even this information, he cautioned himself, wasn’t true proof. An indicator, certainly. But not proof.

“How were you taken there?” Quest asked.

“By Translation.”

Quest leaned back, frowning, and looked at Captain Santi. “There isn’t a Translation Chamber inside the Basilica Julia proper, is there?”

“No,” Santi said. “It’s in another building altogether, about a mile away. He can’t be recalling it right.”

“Scholar Wolfe, when you came out of the Translation Chamber, where were you? Can you describe it?”

“Hallway,” Wolfe murmured. “Inside the Basilica Julia.”

“How do you know you were in the Basilica Julia?”

“I saw the Forum from the windows. I know Rome.” Of course he did. A traveling Scholar like Wolfe would recognize a great city like that from even the briefest glance. “A long, straight hallway. A door at the end.”

“Tell me what you could see from these windows,” Quest said, and Jess grabbed a piece of paper and a pen that Wolfe had left on the table. He wrote as Wolfe described his view. Jess made a quick, rough sketch, marking exact things he’d seen. “All right. This door at the end of the hallway: was it guarded?”

“Automaton,” Wolfe said dully. “A Roman lion.”

“And was this door locked as well?” Quest asked. That was an excellent question Jess wouldn’t have thought to ask. The Mesmer obviously had some experience at this sort of thing.

“Yes.”

From there, Wolfe spoke of being led down steps, beside a long, sloping corridor of ancient stone, with cells built along one side. Turn after turn. Jess wrote it all down, and Quest continued his steady, passionless questions: how many soldiers did he see? How many Library automata? It was important, even critical, but Wolfe’s distress grew ever more visible the further they delved into this particular piece of the past. He moved back and forth now, a constant rocking motion, and his arms had closed over his stomach. Protecting himself, Jess realized. He felt sick himself, watching. Next to him, Santi was as still as a statue.

“Did anyone ever come to take you out of your cell while you were inside it?”

“Yes.”

“And where did they take you?” Quest asked, which seemed an innocent enough question. He was only trying to map the rest of the prison, which was smart.

Wolfe let out a sound that raised the hair on the back of Jess’s neck, and Santi almost lunged forward, but Quest’s gaze flicked to him and the Mesmer shook his head. “Breathe, Scholar Wolfe. Relax,” Quest said. “You feel no pain, remember? There is no pain now; you are merely watching this from a distance. It isn’t happening to you at all. Step back. Just step away and let it go.”

The terrible keening sound went on and grew sharper, and even the Mesmer seemed taken aback by it now. He reached out and put his hand on Wolfe’s shoulder. “Scholar,” he said. “Scholar. You are now outside of the cell, do you hear me? You are standing outside the cell. There is no pain at all. You feel peaceful. Calm.”

It was no good. Wolfe’s buried scream was growing louder and he wasn’t listening.

“That’s enough,” Santi shouted, and lunged forward. “Bring him out! Now!” He sounded as shaken as Jess felt.

“All right,” Quest said. “Scholar Wolfe! Scholar!” He briskly tapped Wolfe’s forehead, then his shoulder, then the back of his hand. “Exeunt!”

Wolfe’s cry stopped cleanly, and he slumped back in his chair, utterly limp. Santi shoved Quest out of the way and sank down to a crouch beside Wolfe to take his hand. He was checking the other man’s pulse, Jess realized, as much as holding his hand.

Wolfe slowly raised his head. His color was terrible and his eyes looked dull and strange, but they were open, and after a blank moment that seemed to stretch forever, he looked directly at Santi and said, “It must have been terrible if you look so worried.”

Jess saw the intense relief flash over the captain’s face before his expression closed again. “Not so bad,” Santi lied. “And now you’re back.”

Wolfe put his hand over Santi’s, and there it was again: a little flash of gentleness, sorrow, love. Jess looked away, and when he turned back, Santi was rising to his feet and turning to Quest. “You, Mesmer,” Santi said. “Get out. If there’s any whisper about any of this, I’ll kill you.”

“Sir,” Quest said, “I am a professional. There is no need to threaten.” He hesitated for a moment and then said, “And as a professional, I would be wrong not to tell you that something terrible was done to your friend, and that will fester inside if the wound isn’t lanced. I am willing to offer my continued services at a reasonable—”

“It’s none of your business,” Santi said. “Jess. Get rid of him. Now.”

Jess nodded and grabbed Quest’s arm to tow him to the door. He handed over the second, heavier sack of geneih coins—the half Quest was due, plus a hefty bonus. “Leave,” he said. “Forget about this. He’s quite serious about killing you if you don’t.”

“Risk of the trade,” Quest sighed. “But take my advice for your poor Scholar. Find someone who can guide him through that pain. He needs help. I’ve seen it kill stronger men.” He seemed earnest in that moment and not at all trying to make another fee. As if he was actually, genuinely worried.

“Thanks,” Jess said, and meant it. He hailed the little man a carriage. “Don’t make me find you again.”

Quest grinned suddenly. His teeth were surprisingly white. “If I didn’t want to be found, you’d never manage it. One street rat to another, you know that’s truth.”

Then he was gone.

Jess went back inside. “Is he all right?”

“Still here, Brightwell. Thanks for your concern,” Wolfe said. His voice sounded unnaturally low and hoarse as he cradled his head in both hands. “Did you find out what you needed?”

“Yes,” Jess said. “I think so.”

“Then get out.”

“I’m sorry you had to do this—”

“For the love of all the gods, get out!” Wolfe raised his head, and his eyes were wet and streaming with blinding tears of pain and fury. He grabbed for a book and hurled it at Jess with great force. It was only a Blank, but Jess understood just how out of control the man was to fling it.

“Jess,” Santi said. “Go. You have what you wanted. Now I have to help him live through the consequences.”

Jess swallowed hard, nodded, and rolled up the notes he’d made. He closed the door at his back and leaned against it for a long moment with his eyes shut. He tried to forget the awful, tortured sound of Wolfe’s keening.

On the way back to the barracks, he sent coded messages using people he trusted to alert Khalila and Dario to what he’d found out. It was only fair to tell everyone at once. Everyone but Glain, who’d probably deck him hard for what he’d done to Wolfe. Her, he could leave for last.

He was halfway to the barracks when he turned a corner and saw a person lurking ahead, wearing a coat too warm for the weather with the hood raised. His instincts pricked him hard as needles, and he slowed his steps. The shadowy figure melted into an alcove halfway down the block; there weren’t many people out in these dark hours, and the moon was half-hidden behind high, thin clouds. Perfect conditions, he realized, for an assassination, if the Archivist meant to launch one.

Jess moved with deliberate, casual confidence, and eased his knife free of the sheath at his belt as he walked on. He had to use his left hand to keep the knife from view of his would-be killer, who lurked on the right. He wondered whether he should whistle. Might seem too much.

He kept his speed calm and steady as he drew near the alcove, then past it, and when he felt movement behind him, he turned, grabbed hold of the person rushing at him, and jabbed the point of his dagger up under a soft chin.

The hood fell away. The moon whispered out of the clouds overhead and threw a soft, pale light over both of them.

Jess’s lips parted and he let go, because the girl facing him, the girl he’d almost killed, was Morgan Hault.