CHAPTER EIGHT

Morgan seemed too pale, he thought, and at the same time she seemed ethereally beautiful. Her unpinned hair cascaded down over her shoulders in messy, springy curls, and she was dressed in a plain dark dress that reached down to the tops of leather boots. The only jewelry she wore glittered in the moonlight: the gaudy, engraved collar that circled her throat. The golden collar of an Obscurist.

He dropped his knife to his side and wanted badly to put his arms around her; everything in him said it was the right thing to do.

But he knew it was wrong from the tension in her body, the flash in her eyes. Still, for one dizzying instant he imagined holding her and kissing her, and the feeling of her lips under his seemed as real as breath. The smell of her, roses and spices, washed over him in a flood.

Jess took an indrawn breath that seemed to fill him with her presence, her reality.

“You’re here,” he said. “You’re really . . . here.” It seemed impossible. No, it was impossible, by any imagining; she couldn’t leave the Iron Tower. If she could have, surely she’d have run away, not come here.

But then her hand brushed his, and he knew it wasn’t a dream or a trance or anything but real. She was here. Alive. Morgan smiled, and his heart shattered into pieces, because it was a guarded smile, not a happy one. “I won’t be here long,” she said. “I’ve managed to stay out for almost a full day, trying to find you. You do hide yourself well.”

“Then you can stay out longer? Get far from here?”

She was already shaking her head. “No, I’ll never make it out of Alexandria. They’ll find me soon. I haven’t found a way to take this off yet, and until I do, they can track me.” She withdrew her hand and traced fingers over her collar, the symbol of her enslavement to the Library. Some sanity came back to him, and with it, doubt. Maybe they’d turned Morgan. Maybe she was a lure meant to distract him from another, more serious threat. He didn’t see anyone or feel anything, but she was a stunning distraction. He couldn’t take his gaze away from her for long enough to keep a good watch.

So many things he wanted to ask her, but he settled for, “You must have had some great reason to come now. What’s wrong?”

Something clouded her face for a moment, and it almost looked like . . . fear. “There were other reasons, but mostly . . . mostly, it’s about Thomas. Jess, I think he could be held in Rome! I found reference to an ancient, very secret prison—”

“Below the Basilica Julia. I know,” Jess finished. “I’m sorry. I just found that out. But . . . do you have proof that Thomas is actually there?”

Morgan seemed shocked and then a little angry. He didn’t blame her. “Proof? No. But I thought— I thought you’d want to know, that it would give you something more to investigate. And instead I risked my neck to come here to give you information you already had?”

She really does seem pale, he thought. Even in the Iron Tower, there must be sun somewhere for them to enjoy, and she hadn’t gotten enough. She seemed thinner, too. And even discounting the deceptive shadows of the night, he read the weariness on her face. The frustration.

“Did you find records about him? Is he all right?” Jess asked, when all he really wanted to ask about in that moment was her. What she was enduring in the Iron Tower. Whatever it was, he knew it was his fault she was there. They both knew it, and it stood between them like a dark, brooding shadow.

“I know he’s still alive,” she said. “The Artifex seems to believe he has a use for him. Something about the design of the Library automata. From the reports, Thomas had notes in his Codex that might help improve the automata against the Burner attacks. They’ll want to get that from him, at least. If he proves useful, they’ll keep him alive. And if they think they can trust him, they might even . . .”

“Let him go?”

“No. But move him somewhere not as terrible. It must be terrible, Jess. From what I’ve read . . .” Her voice faltered, and it took a heartbeat for it to return. “Wolfe suffered horribly there. They were going to kill him before his mother finally intervened. I didn’t know human beings could be so . . . cold. So cruel. And especially not . . . not in service to the Library.”

Jess did, unfortunately, though it seemed to him there were always more terrible surprises left in the world. “How long before they find you?”

“I’m not sure. They’ll have searched for me inside the Tower first, probably most of the day. If the Obscurist is involved, it won’t be long now.”

“Then we don’t have much time.” His body felt hot and cold at once, and the feeling in his stomach was like that of standing in a very high spot, looking down at the drop. He took her hand and held it. “Morgan, please. I need to know if you can ever forgive me.”

“For sending me to the Tower?” she asked, which was blunt and painful, but he nodded. “Most days I don’t blame you. Some days I do. I tell myself they would have caught me eventually, that you just spared me pain and injury and maybe even death fighting the inevitable. But it still hurts. As long as it does, I can’t . . .”

“Can’t feel the way you used to,” he finished for her, and she slowly nodded. And there it was, the drop he was falling off of, a long spiral down to an inevitable painful impact. “All right. That’s fair enough.” All the nerves in his fingers seemed uncomfortably aware of the feel of her skin, the softness, the warmth. The way her hand curled around his and held on.

“No, it isn’t fair at all,” she said. “I’m sorry, Jess. It isn’t that I don’t care for you—I do. I just—”

“Let me make it up to you. Come with me,” he said. It was an impulse, a wild thing he couldn’t quite control. “I’ll take you away somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Away. Anywhere.”

“Jess, they’ll find me.”

“Then we’ll run.”

“They’ll find me. Until I can get this collar loose, it’s no use even trying!”

“And if you do get it off?”

“Then maybe things will be different,” she said. There were tears glittering sharply in her eyes. “This isn’t easy. I’m sorry.”

Jess stepped closer, and she didn’t back away. He eased hair back from her face and let his fingertips linger. After imagining her for so long, having her here seemed more like a dream, except for the velvet evidence of her skin. Easy. Nothing about how he felt for her was that. He knew he loved her, but it was shot through with dangerous thorns: guilt, jealousy, fear.

It occurred to him in that moment that for all his missing Morgan before, he’d missed nothing but a fantasy. As Glain had said: a challenge, distant and safe. But this girl, standing in front of him now, was far more real, honest, and complicated.

And he wanted her more than he ever had.

They were so close, too close, and Morgan’s eyes widened. She stepped back and brought their conversation back to the practical. “I almost forgot. There’s a Translation Chamber in the Basilica Julia; it’s private, only used for access to the prison, and only to and from the Alexandrian Serapeum.”

“Wolfe remembered a Translation Chamber,” Jess said. “Nic didn’t believe him.”

“It’s very secret. But I think I might be able to change the destination and take us somewhere besides Alexandria. If I can get free of the Iron Tower again and join you.”

“You’re free now.”

“You’re not ready to rescue him yet. Are you?”

“No,” he admitted. “We’re not even completely sure he’s there. We keep looking for proof.”

“I wish I had more to tell you,” she said. “I’ll keep looking. I’m sure I can crack some more of the codes that the Artifex uses—” She broke off with a gasp and touched the collar at her neck. Her gaze met his and held.

“They’re coming,” he said. She nodded.

“I can’t let them see you with me, or you’ll be arrested. If I escaped and ran on my own, that’s one thing, but the penalty for you . . .”

“Maybe they’d put me in the cell beside Thomas. That’s one way to do research.”

“It’s not funny! Jess—” He kissed her. After a second of surprise, she kissed him back, warmth and sweetness and a frantic kind of passion that said more than words. And then she pushed him away. Hard. “Go now. They can’t find you with me. Please, just go!”

He turned and ran. When he looked back, he saw Morgan walking calmly to the opposite end of the block, where a steam carriage glided to a halt and armed High Garda poured out to surround her. She didn’t fight them.

Look back at me. Just look back, Morgan.

She didn’t.

Jess waited all night for a Codex message from Morgan or Khalila or Dario.

No messages came.

By dawn, he was desperate enough to use his Codex to try to send a message himself, despite the fact that he knew it would be monitored. He tried Khalila first, then Dario, but neither replied. Something’s happened, he thought, and the fear climbed his spine as if it were a ladder, to lodge cold in the back of his brain. They’ve been taken away. Or . . . or worse. Would the Archivist risk another tragic accident in a matter of days? Or would he simply have them vanish, and make up whatever story he needed to pacify their loved ones?

Jess imagined how that polite, pretty fiction would sound in his case. The Archivist’s sorrowful letter would arrive in formal calligraphy, and it wouldn’t tell the truth, like, Your son was dismembered by an automaton—so sorry, but talk of some quiet, mundane death. Illness, probably. He morbidly pictured the scene back at home, where his mother and father would receive news of his death with the same quiet stoicism they’d used to greet the death of his older brother, Liam. Maybe Brendan would actually be sorry to lose him.

Just as he was trying to decide whether his father would shed any tears, his Codex flashed a message. His High Garda orders had arrived. This morning, he was to report to Captain Niccolo Santi’s company, which would become his permanent assignment for the next year. He stared at it for a long, strange moment, wondering what in God’s name the Archivist intended by granting him what he’d wanted, and was startled out of his chair when someone knocked loudly on his door.

Glain stood outside, and when he opened up, she thrust her open Codex in his face. “Santi,” she said. He silently held up his own orders. “What does this mean?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Nothing good.” He told her about Dario and Khalila, and Glain paled under the deep tan she’d acquired. “We need to go to the Lighthouse.”

“We can’t,” she said, and pointed to his orders again. He’d stopped reading after seeing Santi’s name, but she was right: there was more. “We’re ordered to report for duty. Now.”

He and Glain made it to the parade ground just in time and were intercepted by someone Jess recognized: the centurion who’d helped them on the exercise ground, when Helva had been hurt and Tariq killed. Centurion Botha.

There was no recognition or even interest on Botha’s face as he stepped into their path. “Orders,” he snapped, and Glain briskly flipped her Codex open to show them. Jess followed a second after. Botha examined them and the imprint of seals embossed under, and shoved the books back into their hands. “Century Two, Blue Squad. Report to your squad leader.”

Over Botha’s shoulder, Jess saw Captain Santi, who was listening to a lieutenant intently. He looked very different now from the man who’d been defending Wolfe; all traces of that emotion had vanished, and he wore command like an invisible crown. No time for mere new recruits.

Glain had already saluted Botha and turned away, and Jess quickly followed suit and moved off at a lope after her. They both knew the standard configurations of a company, and finding Century Two, then Blue Squad, was simple enough. The squad leader there watched the two of them step into formation with cool, judgmental eyes. “Nice new uniforms, recruits,” he said. “Don’t worry. We’ll beat the creases right out of them. Welcome to Blue Squad.”

Around them, the other members of the squad gave a deep-throated bark in unison. The squad leader smiled. “Also known as the Blue Dogs. I’ve looked at your scores. Not bad. We’ll expect better, of course.”

The young man—two or three years ahead of us, Jess thought, but with the air of someone twice his age—turned with that very brief greeting and walked to take his place in the rank, at the far right of their squad. Jess, standing on the end of the line, had a good view of the platform where Santi stood. He was gathered now with his centurions, and at his nod, the centurions jumped down to walk the ranks.

Botha had a voice loud enough to carry halfway to China, and he used it to full effect to shout, “Century Two, report by squad to supply wagon and reform! Fast and orderly!”

Instantly, the first squad in the century peeled off and ran to a supply carrier that was parked not far away; Jess tried to watch them without turning his head, but got little but a headache for his trouble. It took just under five minutes for each squad to run over and return, and he realized that they were picking up weapons and travel packs.

Travel packs.

As they jogged to the supplies, he managed to whisper to Glain, “We’re on the move. Did you know—”

“No,” she snapped. “Shut up.”

“But what about Dario and Khalila—”

“Shut up!”

It was the work of seconds to grab weapons from the hands of the armorers, plus a travel pack; Jess wasn’t used to putting one on quite so quickly, but he managed to get the buckles fastened and be back in the Blue Dog line with only a slight delay. It earned him a lean-out stare from the squad leader. He kept himself at perfect attention until the other young man looked away.

He burned to ask where they were going, but he was now, officially, High Garda, and High Garda soldiers didn’t ask. Glain had done him a favor by insisting he pack his personal journal and wear his smuggling harness with his stolen books inside. He’d never go back to his room in the recruit barracks. When he came back, the few belongings he had left would be moved to new quarters in the regular company barracks. He was, finally, in his place. Everything to this point, Jess realized, had still felt like preparation—like schoolwork, not life. But now, in full battle uniform, wearing the heavy weight of the pack and loaded down with weapons he knew he would have to use, it all felt . . . different. More ominously real. This is my place. This is my life. The weapons were live and lethal, and he would be expected to use them.

Dario and Khalila. We’ve lost them. He couldn’t leave Alexandria without knowing where they were, what had happened. He’d thought they would have time to find out, but now . . . now they were being sent out without warning. Maybe to battle.

Hard not to flash back to Oxford and the terrible war that had overtaken them there as they rescued books and librarians. Jess had spent months fighting back nightmares in which he saw the slaughter, the desperation, saw his fellow postulant Joachim Portero die. It had been a cruel and terribly real introduction to the chaos that the Great Library had been built to guard against. During that chaos, it had been hard to see the Library as a villain, though he knew very well that the Library was no stranger to death, oppression, and cruelty. The Library had taken Thomas. Walled up Morgan. Separated him from everything he’d come to care about. Now they might have stolen away two of his remaining friends, too.

The idea that he was supposed to fight for it was obscene. He wondered how Santi stood it, knowing what he knew.

A line of carriers rolled up in a hiss of white steam, and one by one, Blue Dog squad received an inspection not from Santi himself, but from one of his top lieutenants, a round-faced woman with startling greenish eyes in a very dark face. Those eyes missed nothing, and when they lingered over Jess and his pack, he felt a chill. “You,” the lieutenant said, and gestured to him. “Come with me.”

Glain broke from her rigid attention to send Jess a startled glance as he followed the lieutenant out of ranks to a spot at the back of the carrier. A thick white wisp of steam left a damp streak across his face as it drifted past, and the lingering smell of bitter metal. “Is there a problem, sir?”

The lieutenant fixed those intimidating eyes on him. “You’re Brightwell,” she said. “Correct?”

“Yes, sir.” He felt sweat trickle down the side of his face. “Problem, sir?”

She leaned forward suddenly, and it was all he could do not to flinch. She didn’t blink as she stared into his eyes from a distance close enough that their noses nearly brushed. “You’re acquainted with Captain Santi.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Then know this: if you presume on prior acquaintance, I will end you. Is that understood? You speak to Captain Santi when spoken to by him. You will not approach him. You will not send him messages. There is a chain of command, and you are the link at the ass end of it.” Every word was as bright and sharp as a razor, and she never blinked. “If I catch a whisper of a rumor to the contrary, I will destroy you. Understood, Brightwell?”

He sucked in a breath and said, “Understood, sir!”

“Good.” She held there another beat, then drew back and nodded. “I’ve been instructed to tell you to stop looking for your friends. They’re safe. That comes directly from the captain himself, and if I hear you’ve stepped over that line, I’ll destroy you twice over. Now fall in.” She gestured sharply to the squad leader, and he counted off as each of the squad members lunged up into the carrier. Jess climbed in, as promised, last. The ass end of the chain, just as the lieutenant had said, but he couldn’t shake the other part of her message.

They’re safe. Santi had said so. What did that mean? Had Dario and Khalila gone into hiding? Had they come under some kind of threat? Can’t ask. It was going to kill him to resist.

He tried to focus on the other soldiers in the carrier. Apart from Glain, he knew none of them, and not a single face seemed familiar or even friendly. The seats were arrayed facing each other in two rows, with space between for packs, and Jess struggled to unbuckle his and lay it in the assigned space between his boots.

The carrier lurched into motion, throwing him against the deep, padded seat. Circulating cool air only cut the heat but didn’t defeat it, and didn’t hide the smell embedded in this vehicle: sweat, blood, a whiff of old fear. The smell of battle. It took him back to Oxford, and he felt cold despite the heat.

“What did the gold band want?” Glain asked, and Jess realized that she was right: the lieutenant had been wearing a gold band, a career appointment. He hadn’t noticed until Glain brought it to mind.

“Nothing.” He couldn’t tell her, not here. She seemed to accept that and nodded.

“Well, you do know a good deal about nothing, so that makes sense.”

“Where do you think we’re going?” There had been enough carriers pulled up to move Santi’s entire company—and that, he thought, wasn’t normal. Usually squads were sent out, or, more rarely, centuries. Even heading to Oxford, Santi had taken only a half century as escort. Taking the whole company meant real trouble.

“The hot spots are in England,” the man across from Jess said. He was older, with a dust of gray in his dark blond hair and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. The accent was familiar—English, Jess thought. Manchester, maybe. “The Welsh are still pushing up toward London.”

“We’re not going to England,” said a shorter man next to him. “We’re heading to Rome.”

Rome. Jess felt his heartbeat speed up and he couldn’t stop a look at Glain, who maintained her usual mask of cool indifference. “Why?” she asked. “Is Rome about to fall to the Welsh, too?” She made sure, in saying it, that her native Welsh accent was on full display.

There was a ripple of laughter. The Englishman across from Jess didn’t crack a smile, and there was a dark look in his eyes. Easy, Jess thought. These aren’t our friends. They’re trained killers.

“I heard the Artifex Magnus is inspecting the Serapeum there,” someone else offered. There were nods and more serious expressions; they all knew the Artifex was a prime target for the Burners, who were the principal enemy they had to fear these days.

The Artifex was also the red right hand of the Archivist. He might not be the second most powerful in the Library—that honor went to Wolfe’s mother, the Obscurist Magnus—but the Artifex ran a close third. If the Archivist ordered someone dead, it was the Artifex who arranged for the murder.

And they would be guarding him from threats. Ironic.

Jess shut his eyes for a moment, ignoring the chatter around him, and then reached in his bag and pulled out his Codex. He opened it to a specific page, the page where Morgan’s messages appeared, and took out a stylus. He wrote down, in flowing, tight letters, They’re sending us to Rome. Is it a trap? Please answer. I need you to answer. Please.

The words stayed for a moment and then faded away. The page was blank.

The page stayed blank.

“Put that away,” the man across from him said. “No messages on missions.”

Jess should have known that. He nodded and put the Codex away, and tried to hope that being sent to Rome was just some lucky, happy coincidence.

He was too cynical to believe it for long.

“On your feet!”

Jess hadn’t realized he’d slept until the squad leader’s shout roared over him, amplified by the very suddenness of it; he jerked awake and was up fast enough that he banged his head on the low ceiling of the carrier. It had stopped moving, though he could feel the faint vibration of the steam engine still working. The impact was hard enough to make his vision spark, and the pain radiated through the top of his head like an acid bath, but he grimly stumbled out after Glain, into what proved to be a heavily walled courtyard large enough to hold all the vehicles and the soldiers disembarking from them, but only just. Overhead, the sky had turned a teal that told him twilight was approaching, the day well gone. He’d slept a long time. He supposed he’d needed it, but he’d missed meals and—most important now—a latrine.

Wherever they were, it wasn’t Rome, but it also didn’t feel like Alexandria. On the smooth surface of the courtyard there were drifts of fine dirt that crunched under his boots as he turned to see the soaring structure of a pyramid-shaped building. A Serapeum, a daughter branch of the Library. This one was made of searingly white stone, with a slice of gold at the top that he realized, on squinting, was a spire holding up the Library’s seal. The shadows drowning half the courtyard seemed deeper than usual.

He formed up with the squad, and the Blue Dog squad leader—he still didn’t know the young man’s name—moved quickly down the line to inspect them. He was shorter than Jess but radiated a commanding presence that made Jess straighten just a bit more.

“Where are we, sir?” That was Glain, surprisingly.

Even more surprisingly, the squad leader seemed willing to answer. “We’re at the port city of Darnah. Ships are waiting to take most of the company, but we lucky few will be going on with the captain directly.”

“Directly,” Glain said. “You mean by Translation.”

The squad leader grinned, dispelling all his years and authority in one flash of teeth . . . and then getting it back in the next instant as he said, “Exactly what I mean. Move. Consider this an honor. We’re in the advance guard of the Artifex Magnus today.”

The arrogant old man was making Niccolo Santi guard him. It was a deliberate insult; there was no doubt of that. The Artifex had been the one to take Wolfe to prison and oversee his . . . conversion, just as he’d taken Thomas. It had to be a constant struggle for Santi not to shoot the bastard in the back.

If Santi can stand it, I can, Jess told himself. He tightened the straps on his pack and followed Glain down the wide tunnel that ran at a slant beneath the Serapeum.

No doubt parts of this vast pyramid were devoted to spacious, beautiful areas where the public could browse the Codex and load up Blanks with texts; librarians would be working, serene and helpful. A Scholar or two might be conducting his own research in a secret archive of local documents. There would be reading spaces, light, and beautiful views from the windows. That would be the public face of the Library, the one that even Jess had always known.

That was not the Library he saw here in the tunnels. As the majority of Santi’s troops continued down the stone-walled hall beneath the pyramid and headed for the docks, Santi led them off to the right, down a narrower passage lit by flickering glows above. The glows were chemical, an older style, and sputtered unsteadily with a greenish cast to them. It made all the faces of Jess’s companions seem eerily lifeless.

Not a thing to think about before Translation. The last time he’d been through this, he’d seen a classmate die and one broken by it. But he’d survived it once, and knew he could again. I am a soldier now, he told himself. Soldiers take risks.

The group accompanying Santi consisted of the green-eyed lieutenant whom he’d sent to intimidate Jess, their squad, and another, more seasoned group of veterans who seemed totally at ease with the situation. One of them, a man who seemed ancient to Jess but was in reality about his father’s age, caught sight of Jess’s face and laughed. “Don’t worry, boy, you’ll come through in one piece,” the soldier said, and shoved him ahead through an open set of double doors. “Might not enjoy the trip, but at least we travel in style here. Seen a lot worse!”

The old soldier was right. This was far different from the Translation Chambers Jess had seen in Alexandria and in their last arrival point in England. The one in Alexandria had seemed chaotically full of machinery, steam, pipes, gears, sparks. It had felt at once ancient, untidy, and unfinished. Maybe it had been under repair.

The one in England had seemed bare and grubby. He’d have expected Alexandria to have the best of everything, but as he stepped into this Translation room in Darnah, he was struck by how sleek it was. The floor was bare stone, cool beneath his boots. The ceiling stretched high, and what machinery was visible was only glimpsed behind barriers or rafters above. A single bronzed cable dropped down from the unseen machinery to hang down in a circle of light, in which lay a curved, reclining chair made of the same stone as the floor, with a metal helmet next to it.

“I wish I understood this better,” Jess said to Glain, who gave him a quelling look. “What? It would make me feel better knowing if I’m to be torn to pieces and put together again.”

“Didn’t you pay attention at all in alchemy classes in school?”

“My schooling was more . . . practical.”

“The principle’s simple enough. The Obscurist uses the element of quintessence to pass you through a fluid that rectifies your form in one place and purifies it in another. The quintessence exists everywhere at once. All things pass through it in creation and destruction.”

“Are you quoting a textbook?” he asked her, and she smirked.

“Why not? You never read it.”

“I was wrong. This little lecture didn’t help at all.” He paused and looked around. “The Artifex. Is he here?”

“He arrives later. We go first to secure the arrival point,” she said. “I’d think you would have already figured that out.”

Of course the evil old man would think of his own safety first; he’d wait until Santi’s security was in place, then join him. Then be escorted directly to whatever it was he found it so important to do in Rome. Was it to see Thomas? Was that why he was heading there? Jess had a flash of the Artifex Magnus’s severe, bearded face, and felt his fists clench. He deliberately relaxed them. Ironic that he’d been chosen to protect someone he most wanted to see dead. He wouldn’t find himself shedding a lot of tears if the Artifex suffered a heart attack during Translation, but he’d do his duty. He had to.

Didn’t mean he had to like it.

Ahead, Captain Santi was speaking to his lieutenant, who listened with perfect focus, nodded, and turned toward the rest of them. “Attention!” Her voice cut clean through the chatter, and they all stiffened into inspection stance. “We’ll be traveling by Translation, which means that when your name is called, you will sit in the chair, fit the helmet on your head, and follow instructions. To answer any questions you have: yes, it will damn well hurt. Yes, you are allowed to scream if you feel the need. Yes, we are allowed to mock you for it later.” She smiled, and there was a ripple of laughter from the veterans. “We have two new recruits in the Blue Dogs.”

The squad made that chesty barking sound again, and this time, Jess and Glain both joined in. Without being ordered, they stepped forward in unison.

“Show these dogs how it’s done, new dogs. You first.” The lieutenant pointed to Jess. Of course. He stared at her for a beat, then saluted silently and walked toward the chair. Glain said quietly, “Do us proud.”

Jess didn’t give any sign he’d heard. He sat on the cool, hard surface of the reclining chair and swung his legs up. The pack on his back was bulky and uncomfortable, but he ignored that and reached for the Translation helmet, which was surprisingly light. Compared to the one in Alexandria, this one seemed more finished, more integrated, though it still had protruding tubes that glowed with a strange light. It fit snugly around his head, and as the padding pressed down, he felt cold metal points touch his scalp, not quite sharp enough to pierce. They felt like chips of ice against his sweating skin.

A man in gold Library robes stepped forward. He was younger than Jess expected, of Chinese heritage, and around his neck he wore the wide golden collar of an Obscurist. “You’ve done this before,” he said to Jess in a conversational tone as he reached for the bronze cable descending from the roof and connected it to the top of the helmet. The snap of it clicking into place seemed to echo through Jess’s bones. “Good—you know what to expect. Deep breaths.”

“In bocca al lupo,” Captain Santi said.

“In bocca al lupo,” Jess replied, and nodded to the Obscurist. “I’m ready.”

The phrase meant “in the mouth of the wolf,” and that was what it felt like when the Obscurist put his hands on Jess’s helmet and the machines powered up around them. It felt like the wolf had him in its jaws as power surged down into the conductors in the helmet and ate him from within, like a wild storm, like a hungry animal, ripping him to pieces in a slow, torturous explosion of blood and bone, organ and flesh, and he heard himself give a short, agonized cry . . .

And then darkness, and the slow waves of sick pain, and he compulsively sucked in a breath as if he’d never breathed before. Everything felt wrong; every nerve burned with fire and salt, and he rolled on his side with his stomach lurching violently. He was lying on a reclining chair similar to the one he’d been on before, but instead of a helmet beside him, there was a metal bucket.

He grabbed it and vomited up his breakfast. A Medica professional in Library robes was there to steady him, and she checked him over with brisk efficiency. “You’ll be fine,” she said. “Water’s over there. If you have headaches later, report them. Oh, and take the bucket. There’s a sink over there. Empty and wash.”

She set down another bucket by the chair, stepped back, and waited, dismissing Jess from her concern. He staggered over to the sink, dumped the bucket, and washed it, and by the time he was done with that task, he heard Glain behind him, gasping for air. He put down the bucket and turned. She looked sick and blank for a moment, then controlled her breathing and sat up. She didn’t quite vomit, but he could see from the press of her lips that she was seriously considering the option. The Medica helped her up, and Glain almost immediately shook free. “Brightwell?” She blinked, and he knew she was having trouble focusing her blurry eyes.

He stepped into the light. “Here, Glain.”

“Good.” She tried for a smile, but it didn’t look right. “You only half screamed. You’re getting better at this.”

“You, too,” he said. “Fast recovery.”

It wasn’t protocol, but no one else except the Medica was in the room, so when she held up her hand, he clapped it in salute. “Dario and Khalila,” he told her in a whisper. “Santi’s lieutenant told me they’re safe.”

“Safe how?”

He shrugged in answer. “Don’t know. But there’s more: Wolfe remembered. The secret prison is in Rome. Morgan confirmed that. We just don’t have final proof that Thomas is inside.”

Glain had a thousand questions, he could see it, but this wasn’t the time. They took up an at-ease position against the wall and waited for the rest to arrive.

Watching arrivals was almost as sickening as going through it himself. Jess stood stoically as one after another, the other members of their squad formed in swirls of blood and bone from the air, solidifying into themselves in the support of the stone chair. Most of the other soldiers made it without giving in to the nausea.

Santi’s lieutenant arrived and swung her legs off to push herself to her feet after just a bare few seconds, as if she’d only sat down for a rest. Santi came right behind her, and with even less time for adjustment. Neither of them seemed impaired in the least.

“Form up!” the lieutenant barked, as Santi walked on. She followed, and the rest of them fell in behind in perfect order.

Then they boarded carriers again. Jess remembered Santi’s observation that the Translation Chamber in Rome was at least a mile from the basilica, and he’d been right, but at least it was a short ride. Jess hardly had time to get uncomfortable before they were ordered out again, formed up, and walked down a long stone-and-column hallway to an arched entrance that glowed with the light of sunset. Beyond was a long, steep fall of worn stone steps; on the steps lounged an entire pride of Library lion automata. They sat still, like the statues they resembled, and they were different from the English versions. These had larger manes that stood out stiffly and curled down in ringlets on broader chests. Magnificent and huge. Beyond a doubt, deadly.

Santi opened his Codex and scrawled something in it, and Jess saw all ten of the lions turn their heads in a smooth, eerie motion to look back at them. Their eyes flickered from dark to red, and one by one, they rose to their feet and began to pace the perimeter. Five remained on the steps, while the others patrolled farther.

Beyond the steps stretched Rome, and though Jess had thought the wonders of Alexandria had numbed him to everything else, the sight of the city stopped him cold. The square—no, this corner of the Forum—was surprisingly small and crowded with marvels. Temples of white marble blushed now with pink and gold by the sunset, and giant golden statues of the Roman gods stood, with citizens passing beneath their feet without any thought for the splendor above. Pigeons lined the broad shoulders of Jupiter and the outstretched arm of Juno, both statues taller than any of the other monuments. The famous hills of the city rolled above, and the spreading palaces and homes of the rich beyond that, growing larger and more lavish the farther up they went.

It even smelled richer here than in Alexandria—fresh pines, lush soil, sweat, the sharp pickling vinegar of the fish being sold across the way in a food stall. That last made Jess’s stomach roil with hunger.

Everywhere he looked, there was the shimmer of marble and gold in the fading light, ancient wonders and modern marvels, and it was so beautiful it didn’t seem possible it had been built by the hands of men.

“Done gawking?” one of the veterans asked him, and he jerked back to awareness of who, and what, he was. Not a visitor who could take his time admiring the sights, but a soldier on duty. The veteran gave him a wide, sudden grin. “Nothing like Rome, boy. Gets us all the first time.”

“And every time after,” said Santi’s lieutenant from behind them. She didn’t sound impressed or amused. “Green Squad, you are down below, on the square. Blue Dogs, up here. Anything gets past Green Squad and the automata, it’s yours to deal with. Stay alert. Rome’s Burners always are.”

The idea that majestic, ancient Rome had Burners lurking in its shadows made Jess feel an actual pain in his chest. He’d seen what Burners could do with their bottles of Greek fire and the destruction they could cause. A small bottle was enough to burn a man to bones. Large glass bombs of it could reduce beauty to ruins, melt the gods, destroy one of the world’s greatest sights.

He hated what the Library did to protect itself, but there were times when he understood why it did it. So much could be lost, so easily, to such hate.

Jess was ordered to a post quite near the arched doorway where they’d come out. It had a thick metal door that Santi’s lieutenant closed behind her as she went inside, and Jess heard the heavy chunk of locks engaging.

It occurred to him then to turn and look back and up at the large, square structure they were guarding. It took a moment to come into focus, and when it did, he felt his body go hot as adrenaline flooded in.

He was standing on the steps of the Basilica Julia, facing the Forum. Though they had no proof, Thomas’s prison might, even now, be only a few feet below where Jess stood. The realization of that made him take a step back and look down at the ancient stone under his boots.

“Focus,” Glain said. She knew what he was thinking. “We do our jobs. Consider this reconnaissance for the mission.”

She was right, and he needed to get his bearings again and put Thomas, and any possibilities, out of mind. This could well be the place, but it was definitely not the time.

He took a breath to wrench his mind away from the possibilities and analyze the situation in front of him. They were out in the open, with no retreat behind, and ten automaton Roman lions stalking among them. Jess knew how the lions worked, how they thought, and he also knew that they weren’t particular about innocent victims when something rang their alarms. The automata in Alexandria had been alerted to watch him; had these? So far, none had so much as glanced his direction. The citizens passing through the square below, coming from and going to temples, government buildings, businesses, courts, shops, restaurants, didn’t seem to notice the increase in security, but Jess saw a pattern nevertheless. The area around the Basilica Julia cleared, and those who might have crossed in front instead took a longer route around. No one looked at the lions or at the soldiers or even at the basilica itself.

It was fear he was seeing. No one was quite allowing it to rule them, but all were conscious of the danger.

You’re not guarding the Artifex or a prison, he told himself. You’re guarding your fellow soldiers. The Scholars inside the basilica. You’re guarding original books that need protection. That helped steady him.

Jess remembered his encounters with Burners—sadly, too many in his young life—and began to scan the crowds below. In his experience, the fanatics had a certain purposeful look to them; it wasn’t easy to work yourself up to self-immolation, and every Burner had to accept that his or her mission would probably end in death. They had a common look.

His gaze swept back and forth, back and forth, and then snagged on something he couldn’t quite identify. He wasn’t even sure why he’d noticed that particular group of people clustered together, apparently consulting a map. When he focused, they seemed like typical tourists, attempting to find their way to a landmark.

Then he realized that one by one—and not all together—they were stealing glances at the basilica. After each look, the one who’d taken it would lean in and say something to the others. Then another would take a brief look.

There were five of them, four men and one woman, most older than Jess but not by much. Young, idealistic, and perfectly suited to be recruited to a cause.

Jess’s skin shivered into warning goose bumps, and he heeded it and signaled to Glain, who drifted his way. She covered ground but didn’t seem to move quickly. It was a gift she had that he never could quite master. “What?” she asked him, and stood apparently at ease, though her eyes were never still.

“By the feet of Mercury,” he said. “That group of five. I don’t like it.”

She studied the men and said, “Neither do I. Watch them.”

She moved off, heading for the squad leader. She is good at this, Jess thought; she made it seem like a natural stop, just a standard check-in, and neither of them gave away any alarm.

Glain took out her Codex and wrote something, then snapped it shut. Alerting Santi’s lieutenant, Jess thought, that there might be trouble. He didn’t know if the Artifex Magnus had arrived or if he was keeping Santi waiting; probably the latter. The Artifex had always seemed a man too full of his own importance.

The group of five was joined by more. Seven now. Eight. Each had some kind of carrying pack, and they were careful with them. How much Greek fire could they have? Too much, if those backpacks were full of bottles and containers.

Below him, pacing in front of the stairs, one of the Roman lions paused and turned its head with smooth grace to stare at the group standing next to Mercury, and Jess saw the articulated body crouch lower.

Behind them, the door into the basilica opened. He didn’t turn to look. All his attention was on the lion, which took an elegant, smooth step down, then another. Others of its pride took notice and began to descend toward the Forum.

“Run,” Jess heard Glain whisper. “Run, you idiots.”

But the group of eight standing in the shadow of the statue of Mercury, very near the golden wings on his sandals, just stayed where they were. Watching the lions come closer.

They’d be slaughtered.

“Something’s not right,” Jess said. “Glain—”

“I know,” she said. “They should have run.”

It was a plan.

And he sensed it was working.

Jess took it all in at a glance: the lions clustering together as they advanced to circle the eight in the square; the soldiers still on the steps, watching as the pride of automata stalked their prey.

No one was looking anywhere else.

It was only because he turned that he saw the first attack coming: an arcing bottle that came not from the group in the Forum, but coming from above, from the statue of Jupiter on the opposite side of the Forum, closest to the basilica. “Greek fire!” Jess shouted, and realized the bottle was tumbling end over end. The liquid bubbled inside the glass as it passed over his head, and he ducked instinctively, but it would miss them by a good margin.

The bottle slammed to the steps twenty feet away, landing where a grouping of others from Blue Squad had been standing just a second earlier. But Jess’s call had done its work, and they’d scattered. Only one was hit by cast-off drops; he went down, and another of their new squad mates yanked an emergency kit from her pack and dumped powder on the flames before they could bore through his coat.

Remarkable, how cool Jess felt, how focused. He calmly brought up his weapon, thumbed the switch to turn it on, and waited an instant until he felt the shiver of power run through it. The weapon fired in regular mode for closer range, but the bottle-throwing Burner was high up on Jupiter’s shoulder, well out of range of the normal setting of the weapon.

But not for this one. It took a steady hand and good eyes, but Jess had both, and as he sank down to one knee for stability, he aimed the gun sights directly on the man perched on the shoulder of a god, preparing another bottle to throw.

Below in the Forum, the lions were roaring and alarmed screams went up. More guns barked behind him, but Jess had one singular focus: this man. He could see the Burner’s sweating face—reddened from heat and exertion and excitement—and could see the large bottle he had in his hand, ready for a second throw.

Jess’s shot took him in the shoulder. The bottle tumbled out of the Burner’s hand, not toward the Library troops, but down, plummeting past the god’s muscled back and toga-draped legs to smash on the ancient Forum stones. It created a huge green blaze and a wave of sickly black smoke, but no innocents were in the way. They now scrambled to avoid the toxic spread.

The Burner stood up on Jupiter’s shoulder. His right arm was a bloody mess, but he held up his personal journal in his left hand—the same personal journal they all kept. The same as the worn little volume in Jess’s pack. “Tell your precious Artifex! A life is worth more than a book!” he shouted. “Vita hominis plus libro valet!”

Jess, sickened, watched him deliberately fall backward and disappear into the hissing flames below. If he wasn’t dead from the fall, the Greek fire would eat him to the bones.

“Down!” Glain yelled, and she shoved him forward as she hit the marble steps next to him. A leaping shadow passed over them, and Jess looked up to see that one of the giant Roman automaton lions had taken a position in front of them, facing the Forum. It set its metallic bronze paws and roared with such volume, it nearly deafened Jess.

When he raised his head, the entire incident was over.

The Forum was deserted—a suddenly blank stretch of old stone littered with belongings and packages that people had abandoned in their haste to be gone. The Greek fire behind Jupiter burned brilliantly, stretching halfway up his legs, and in the flickering, sickly light, it looked as if the god might be melting, but no, it was a trick of shadows. Jupiter was made of hardy stuff.

There were eight bodies near the feet of Mercury across the way, crushed and lifeless. Jess swept the area with a long, straight look, but he didn’t see anyone else who’d been hurt or killed.

“Nine dead,” he said to Glain. “For what?”

“For what it always is,” she said. “A statement.” She was already on her feet and offered him a hand up, which he was happy to take. Strange; he seemed weak and a little shaky now, where he’d been ice-cold and focused before. “They knew the Artifex was coming. This message is meant for him.”

“Thrown right at us, though. Seems more personal than that,” their squad leader remarked, coming up to them. He looked them over. “Good job, new dogs. Didn’t have a chance to acquaint ourselves earlier. I’m Tom Rollison, but most call me Troll.”

“Glain Wathen, sir. Jess Brightwell.” Glain answered for both of them.

“I know who you are. Wolfe’s puppies. Word was you’d be trouble.” He looked beyond them at the blaze of fire behind the statue. “Word was wrong. That was well done.”

“Brightwell’s a better shot than most,” Glain said.

“Not bad,” Troll agreed. He glanced over Jess’s shoulder and frowned just a bit. “Seems you’ve made a new friend.”

Jess turned.

The Roman lion, standing taller than his head while on all four paws, was right behind him, staring at him with unholy red eyes. It lowered its bronze-maned head and seemed to smell him, and a low rumble of a growl rattled deep inside the thing.

“Jess?” Glain said, and took a step backward. “Step away. Slowly.”

When he tried, the lion took a step forward.

“What the hell did you do to them?” Troll asked from behind him. Their squad leader sounded unnerved. Jess didn’t blame him. He didn’t dare look away from the lion’s set metallic face, from the sickening red eyes. “Wathen! Get out of the way if it’s malfunctioning!”

She didn’t want to go, Jess realized; she was standing next to him even though every instinct told her to retreat. “Get away,” he told her. “This is my trouble. Move!”

She backed away and down five steps to join their squad leader. If I follow them, I put them in danger, he thought, though it took everything he had not to seek the comfort of a group. Every cell of his body remembered running from the London lions outside of St. Paul’s. Those had a stone look to them, more muscular and brutal; these Roman lions had a leaner, sleeker build, and a bronze gleam that made their manes shimmer in the sun. Beautiful . . . and deadly.

I could turn it off. If the switch is in the same place.

He desperately didn’t want to have to try.

“More coming up!” called someone from below, and Jess risked a glance to see that the pride of lions that had been down in the square was returning to the steps, flowing up in leaps and bounds past the other soldiers.

Coming toward him. Surrounding him.

This is it, he thought. This is how I die. Somehow that felt like a fate he’d always known was coming.

The lion facing him deepened its low, rumbling growl, and he felt rather than saw the others of the pride moving in around him. He heard Glain shouting something, but she was somewhere outside the closing circle. Jess felt the hot burn of air from the lion’s nostrils as it moved forward and nudged his chest.

It wanted him to run. Of course. If he reacted, if he ran, then there’d be an excuse for the slaughter. They were on high alert during the Burner attack. Unfortunate miscalculation; if only the recruit hadn’t lost his nerve . . .

This was the Artifex’s doing, just like the Egyptian gods outside the High Commander’s office. Jess realized in a blinding flash, like a bottle of Greek fire dropping on his brain, that if he ran, it would all be over.

And the Artifex wanted him to panic.

He leaned down and stared into the lion’s savage eyes and said, “Come on, then, if you’re coming. Take a bite. But if you do, everybody will know it wasn’t an accident.”

He heard Glain’s shocked intake of breath and felt that hot, brassy stench of the lion’s insides wash over him as the creature opened its wide jaws to display bloody teeth . . . in a yawn.

It closed its mouth, stared at Jess for another long, horrible second, and then turned and padded away to stroll restlessly up and down the steps.

Guarding the building as if nothing had happened.

Jess straightened. He didn’t say anything because, in truth, he wasn’t sure he could at the moment. Better to look strong and silent than have his voice go as unsteady as his legs.

Troll stared at him as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “I don’t know if you’re mad or lucky,” he said, “but you’ve got brass guts—I’ll give you that.”

Jess nodded and took up his post. One by one the other lions broke off and went about their business. When the last left him, he finally felt a sweet, cold wave of relief.

The Artifex wanted him dead, that much was certain, but he wasn’t quite ready to make it a public execution. Not yet. He needed Jess to give him some excuse, however minor, to explain away the behavior of the automata. Today would have been a fine one, in the chaos of the Burners, and Jess knew if he’d made the wrong move, he’d be another stain to clean up on the steps tonight.

Rome is a trap. It was too neat, too convenient, that suddenly they’d been dispatched here just after finding the information about the secret prison. The Artifex must have known their plans, or at least strongly suspected them. Khalila and Dario had gone missing. Maybe already locked away.

Disposing of Glain, Jess, and Santi would just be a sensible precaution. Get rid of the fighters; keep the Scholars out of the group who—in the Artifex’s counting, maybe—could be controlled and used. It made a sickening kind of sense.

Below, Medica attendants came to claim the bodies, and a squad of firefighters put out the Greek fire blaze. People began to filter back into the Forum in ones and twos, and then suddenly it was full again, as if nothing had happened at all. Only the blackened chemical stains on the stones behind Jupiter and the bloodstains on those near Mercury showed anything at all had interrupted a normal day.

Troll stopped next to him and scanned the people below with distant, cold eyes. “Seems useless, doesn’t it?” he asked. “They put us out here, and the Burners take their shot at us, and they die.”

“It’s a waste on both sides,” Jess said. “But we can’t let them win. They want to destroy the Library.”

He knew that wasn’t strictly true; he’d been among the Burners once, had spoken to a local leader. They wanted the Library to change, just as Jess did . . . but their tactics were unacceptably violent.

Troll shifted his weight just a little. “Any idea why the lions hate you so much?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” Troll surely didn’t believe it for a moment. “You know I have to report it. Even if I didn’t, there’s another squad leader who will. They might pull you out and try to find out what about you alerts them.”

Troll seemed to be fishing for something, and Jess didn’t like it. He turned and looked at the young man directly to say, “I’m not a Burner, if you’re thinking it.” But I knew some. That was a secret the Artifex held in reserve, too. Guillaume, his classmate, had come from a Burner family; his bereaved father had taken Jess prisoner in France. If the Artifex wanted to make it seem Jess had become an agent, it would be child’s play to make that appear reasonable. “No offense, sir, but why do you care? I’m a one-day-in recruit. You should shed me and get someone else, according to any kind of logic.”

“Not that simple,” Troll said. “Believe me, I wish it were.”

He moved off, stopping to check each of his squad members like any good commander. Jess didn’t know what to make of him. Or any of this.

He was still considering the ramifications of it when he realized sometime in the chaos of the Burner attack, his Codex had received a new message.

It was gibberish. He frowned at the text, and then a second later realized he knew this code. It was his own family’s highly secure emergency code, used only for the most urgent information. He’d memorized the keys to it when he’d been just a boy.

It read, Your friend lives in the city of seven hills. There was no signature, but one hieroglyphic bird sketched at the end of the code string. Not part of his family’s code at all, and it reminded him of the engraving on the ring that Anit, Red Ibrahim’s daughter, wore on a chain around her neck—the ring of one of her brothers.

The message was from her. His free gift of the information about the automata had done some good after all, because this was confirmation, at long last, that Thomas was alive.

And here, beneath Jess’s feet, in Rome.