CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jess opened his eyes on a dark, windowless room that stank of mold and the river.

River. Not the ocean. He knew this smell. It was even stronger than the vile stench of burned books that still clung to his skin and clothes.

It smelled like . . . home.

The next second brought memory and a sharp stab of fear. Was he alone? Had the others been lost somewhere in that terrible, screaming silence? But no, he heard a scrape of movement and a moan and rattling, phlegmy coughing, all from different spots around him in the dark.

He heard Morgan whisper, “Jess?” and flung his hand out toward her. He missed and slapped wet stone, then tried again. His fingers brushed cloth with hard edges beneath. A pack. A pack full of books. He rolled over, every muscle seizing in pain, and managed to crawl another foot closer. This time, he touched Morgan’s skin. Her arm. “Jess?”

“I’m here,” he croaked. His mouth tasted like sewage, and he desperately needed water to wash it clean. “All right?”

She burst into frantic tears and threw herself into his arms, and he held on. He didn’t know which of them trembled harder. It didn’t matter. They’d seen something so terrible, neither of them would ever forget.

All that knowledge, lost. Wolfe’s mother. So much gone.

Someone was upright, stumbling in the dark, and fell over something in the way.

“Scheisse!” Thomas. Thomas was alive. “Jess? Jess!” He sounded desperate. Of course he would be. Alone in the dark again.

“Here,” Jess gasped. He let go of Morgan, though he kept tight hold of her hand. “Thomas?”

“Here,” the other boy said faintly. “I fell on something.”

Jess reached into the pouch at his belt and pulled out a glow; he shook it and held it out, and there was Thomas, sitting spread-legged on a damp concrete floor. What he’d tripped over was the mound of bags—packs, canvas duffel sacks.

The books. The Black Archive books.

The last ones. The survivors.

“Easy,” Morgan said, and knelt beside Thomas with her hand on his back. “We’re here. We’re all right.” She looked up at Jess with a panicked question in her wide eyes. “Aren’t we?”

He didn’t answer. “Khalila? Glain?”

“Here,” Glain groaned, and Khalila responded a few seconds later.

“I’m here, too,” Dario said, very quietly. Jess swung the light around and saw the Spaniard against the wall, shivering. The light reflected weirdly in his eyes.

Tears.

“Jess. Jess, stop,” Morgan said, and Jess realized he’d been moving toward Dario with a deadly serious intent. “Leave him! He helped us!”

“Leave a traitor to put a knife in our backs again?” Jess still had the gun he’d been firing in the Iron Tower, and the deadly weight of it felt good in his hands as he stared at Dario. “Khalila?”

“Leave him for now,” she said. “We’ll watch him closely. Where are we?”

“Smells like London,” Jess said.

“London smells very bad.” Thomas’s voice was choked but a little steadier now. “This isn’t a Serapeum.”

“No. It’s—” Jess raised the glow and looked around. “Where are Wolfe and Santi?”

“Here,” Wolfe said. “Nic?”

“It’s not a Translation Chamber.” Santi, Jess realized, was already on his feet and shaking another glow to life. The sickly yellowish light revealed an empty hall with a high, arching ceiling like a church, but no windows to let in the light. Underground, Jess thought. Somewhere near the river.

A symbol up high in chalk caught his eye, and Jess held his glow closer. “Smuggling route,” he said. “Belongs to the Riverrun Boys.”

“Yours?”

“Competitors,” Jess said. “My father’s not the only smuggler in town. The Riverrun Boys specialize in things other than books. Drugs, mostly. Nasty bunch.”

“Charming,” Wolfe said. His voice was as low and raspy as Jess’s. He’d breathed in a lot of smoke. “Why would she send us here?”

“There wouldn’t have been any chance for us at the Serapeum,” Jess said. “Dario’s betrayal would have seen to that. She must have known about this place. Maybe she’s even been here.”

“Unlikely,” Wolfe said. “My mother— Did you see—”

“Yes,” Jess said. “I did. I’m sorry.”

Wolfe said nothing. His eyes looked flat, lightless, utterly unreadable. The silence stretched a moment, and then he said, “We should find a way out.”

Jess broke out a glow of his own, and Glain had one, and they separated into teams to explore the room. It was wide and bare, and the exit that the Riverrun Boys must have once used had been blocked up with stones. Solid ones. London Garda had found this place. If she brought us all this way only for us to die in a trap . . .

“Over here,” Glain called. She was leaning half her weight on Thomas, but she had a look of elation on her face. “I think these are steam tunnels.”

Jess felt a wave of disquiet. “Did you find a way out?”

“There’s a staircase leading up. It’s barred with a grate,” Thomas said. “Welded shut, with the symbol of the English lion on it. London Garda?”

“Find something to force it,” Jess said, and began looking himself. “We may not have much time.”

“Why not? What is it?” That was Dario, who’d finally gotten up from his spot against the wall. Jess picked up a piece of rotten wood and tossed it aside without answering. “Jess, wait. I can explain—”

“I’m not listening,” Jess interrupted. “Look for something to break those welds. Hurry.”

“Why?” Santi asked.

“Because if Glain’s right, these tunnels vent scalding steam off of the city boilers. We need to break out of here. Quickly.”

“How often does it vent?” Wolfe asked.

“I don’t bloody well know! Every day? Every hour? The point is, we need to move. Now!”

That ended the questioning.

It was Khalila who came up with the solution, when a search failed to turn up anything else. She made an impatient sound, grabbed Jess’s weapon, and said, “Make it safe. Quickly.”

He did, sliding the safety switches and removing the cartridge, and she jammed it into the grate. “Now, Thomas. You’ve got the best leverage, I think.”

“I’ll try.” He sounded doubtful. His best effort popped half the weld loose, but then he stepped away, panting, flexing his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m still too weak.”

Santi stepped up and took a try and almost got it. One last try with both of them shattered the last of the welding, and the grate swung open with a rusty, stubborn shriek of hinges.

“Stairs,” Glain said gloomily. “Better let me go last. I’ll just hold you up.”

Khalila shook her head. “You come with me,” she said, and put her shoulder under Glain’s. “We’re not leaving you behind, so don’t start.”

They climbed up. When Dario moved toward the stairs, Jess shoved him back. Hard. “Not yet,” he said. “Why did you do it?”

Dario coughed, spat out black ashes, and wiped his mouth. “Do what? I went to the embassy. I thought I’d get help for us from my father. Instead the embassy called the Artifex.”

“And you sold us out. Just that easy. Coward.”

“No.” Dario wiped angrily at his eyes. “I would have given my life. But he had Khalila’s family, Jess. I couldn’t let him . . . I told him where you would have gone, to London, but you didn’t show up there. He asked me where else you would go. I said you would try to find the Black Archives. Jess, I didn’t know they were in the Iron Tower.”

Jess was silent. He’d effortlessly believed that Dario had turned on them. Why was that? What had Dario done to deserve that, really? Would he have done any differently with Khalila’s family at stake?

Dario gulped in an uneven breath. “I led him to you, is that what you want to hear? It’s true! I didn’t mean to do it or want to, but I did.” He was weeping, sobs hitting him like blows. “Go ahead. Hit me. Hit me!”

Jess might have, if only to stop the other young man’s self-pity, but he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and lifted the glow to check.

The opening in the ceiling had a thin curl of white mist coming out of it, like a lazy whisper. Something hissed far in the distance.

Something rattled. The hiss grew louder.

“I’ll hit you later!” Jess said, and shoved Dario up the steps ahead of him. He felt a wave of sudden heat wash over him, damp as clammy skin. He scrambled up and nearly slipped on the foggy stairs; the steam boiling up from beneath came faster now, a hot white cloud that seared his lungs when he gasped.

Dario grabbed him and towed him up the last few steps into the open air, and as Jess fell to his knees, a geyser of solid white steam shot up into the air behind him and climbed into the sky in a towering explosion.

Then it blew away in a hiss of hot droplets on the wind, and all that was left was a spray of water on the street where it had fallen.

Jess looked up at Dario, and for just a moment, he wasn’t angry anymore. Maybe that would come again later. Didn’t matter.

He nodded. Dario returned it and walked away.

Santi crouched next to Jess. “Can you breathe?”

“Yes,” Jess said. It hurt a little, but he didn’t think it was as bad as he’d feared. His skin was tender from the steam, but no worse than an Alexandrian sunburn. “I’m all right, sir.”

“Good.” Santi leaned back on his heels and looked around. “Where are we?” The day was cloudy, a typical enough London day, and the gray pall made everything look dim and ancient. Jess had no trouble placing the outlines of buildings and the expanse of the bridge, but it seemed darker than it should. Smoky.

“London. Close to the bank of the River Thames,” Jess said. “Near Blackfriars Bridge.”

“How far to the Serapeum?”

“Walking? Not close enough.” He looked around. The bridge was some distance, but he saw it was full of people streaming across. Odd, that. There normally wasn’t such congestion in the middle of the day to cross the river. He heard the distant honking of steam-carriage horns.

Morgan took out the Codex she’d put in the pocket of her dress. The quill had survived, and she unwrapped the padded bottle of ink and quickly dipped the pen into it to scribble on the open page. “I’m telling your father where we are,” she said. “And to call off his men at the Serapeum. There’s no sense in risking them there if we aren’t coming.”

Somewhere in the distance, Jess heard the sonorous noon strikes of Big Ben. “What does he say?”

“Nothing.” Morgan chewed anxiously on her lip, and he saw the moment writing began to appear in the sudden relaxation of her posture. “Ah, there—he says go to the warehouse. You know where that is?”

“Yes.” That didn’t lessen Jess’s sense of unease, not in the least. His father kept the warehouse utterly secure, and the eight of them were walking targets. Why would he send the Library’s most wanted fugitives to his most sacred hiding spot?

He wouldn’t. Not with any good intent.

“Ask him where Liam is,” he said.

“What? Who’s Liam?”

“Just ask.”

After a pause, she read off the reply. “He says he’s at the warehouse,” she said. “Why?”

“Liam’s my older brother,” Jess said. “He’s dead. That means you’re not talking to my father anymore. And we’re not going to the warehouse.”

Jess sat in the shadows outside his family’s town house, eating a hot pie and watching the doorway. He’d been there for two hours, slouched in stinking rags with a nearly empty bottle of gin between his feet. It was cold and misty, and he now understood what the crush of traffic on Blackfriars Bridge had been about; it was all over the street corners, with urchins crying the news. The flexible sheet they sold him had constantly updating stories, war stories, written out quickly by scribes somewhere in a London office. There was a cleverly drawn illustration of soldiers in what looked to be Camden Town, judging by the street signs and shopwindows. They were carrying the Welsh dragon flag and setting fire to buildings as Londoners ran in fear. A few uniformed London Garda were being overrun near the edges of the picture. It was stylized but effective. Chaos, it seemed, had moved on from Oxford and was spreading fast. London was a vast city, but in some ways it was also curiously small, and Jess felt the prickles of unease on seeing those familiar street names and shops burning.

If the Welsh had come this far, they weren’t likely to be stopped now. Street by street, they kept up a relentless push toward Buckingham Palace, though likely the king and the rest of the royals had already sped off to safer strongholds farther north. Parliament would be just as deserted. It would be an empty victory, but an important symbolic one, for Wales.

The Library would be following standard procedure and evacuating all but essential personnel from St. Paul’s. But in the Serapeum there was a major holding spot for confiscated original manuscripts, and there were many volumes on loan there, too. Those would need evacuation. The Library would have to divert troops away from chasing them.

In some very important ways, the chaos of war was a boon to them.

So Jess slouched on the cold pavement, looking like an anonymous soul lost to drink, and watched for any sign of his father. He saw none, nor any trace of his mother or brother or even the servants. The Brightwell household was quiet and cold, though the lights were on inside, and from time to time shadows seemed to pass the windows.

After another hour, just as it slipped toward night, the front door opened and Brendan stepped out. He looked as Jess remembered him from Alexandria, but back in English clothing as finely made as what their father liked to boast, even down to the fancy silk waistcoat. He turned to survey the skyline, maybe tracking signs of fire, and then turned and stretched. He looked very tired.

Jess took off his cap and stepped forward into the light. Brendan looked around, up and down the street, then made a sharp movement for Jess to cross the street. Once he had, Brendan grabbed him and shoved him inside with such force, it almost seemed desperate. He closed and locked the town house door behind them.

Inside, the place was just the way Jess remembered it, down to the wear on the curled banister and the flower arrangement his mother replaced daily on the hall table. It seemed oddly smaller, though, for all the luxurious little touches spread around. He turned on Brendan, intending to let loose a flood of questions, but before he could, his brother embraced him hard.

“Idiot,” Brendan said. “You bloody idiot!” He shoved him back almost as quickly. “What corpse did you pick those rags off of? They smell foul.”

“They’re supposed to,” Jess said. He looked over Brendan’s shoulder. “Where’s Father?”

“I don’t know. He vanished and we haven’t heard anything from him. Whoever has his Codex—”

“Is impersonating him, I know. Garda?”

“The Garda have bigger problems than the Brightwells. Must be some Library spy. Welsh troops are burning through the city from one end to the other, you know, and half the city’s either running in panic or planning to join the Garda to fight. He’d been working on clearing the best pieces out for days.”

“We’ll have to find him.”

“I was working on it,” Brendan said. “I didn’t even know you’d survived, Jess.”

“I see you’re in full mourning.”

“Well, I didn’t fully believe it,” Brendan said. “You’re a bad penny, Jess. Can’t get rid of you. What happened?”

Jess explained it as briefly as he could. He didn’t want to tell Brendan about the disaster at the Black Archives quite yet. He couldn’t stomach talking about it. When he blinked, he could still see those books dying.

See himself watching them die.

“Your friends? Where are they?” Brendan asked. “I’m assuming you didn’t do the sensible thing and leave them.”

“They’re close,” Jess said. Funny. He trusted his twin just so far and not a step more. “Where should I take them?”

“The warehouse for now,” his brother said. “Mother’s carried off the family treasures with her to cousin Frederick. The warehouse is just a gathering spot for the men. The plan was that we’ll join them there once we have cargo on wagons and safely away. But now that Father’s gone, we probably should be gone from here soon, in case the High Garda come looking.”

“Brendan. About Neksa—”

“She’s all right?” His brother looked at him, and it was an unguarded kind of dread. Jess had hit rather harder than he expected.

“She’s fine. Brokenhearted, but last I saw, she was fine. You did a good thing, Scraps. Maybe you’re not so bad at heart after all.”

“Shut up before I punch you,” Brendan said. “Let’s go.” He hesitated, then swept Jess with a disgusted look, head to toe. “After you change and get rid of the lice.”

“This city,” Khalila said, “looks like something a madman dreamed up. Didn’t your architects ever hear of straight lines?”

Jess, looking at London with the eyes of experience, had to admit the girl had a point. The narrow, twisting streets, the blind alleys, the buildings jammed together on whatever plot of land had become available . . . it had no plan to it. Big Ben wasn’t as tall as he remembered; some of the newer buildings reached much higher, though they somehow still had a look of weariness to them. The golden gleam of St. Paul’s in the distance was the only thing Jess could think would have been easily transplanted to Alexandria. Everything else was uniquely . . . English.

“At least it means slow going for the Welsh,” he pointed out. “London’s probably the hardest city to conquer in the world.”

“Yet they are managing,” Dario observed. It wasn’t smug, just practical. He was watching the southwest, where the muddy glow of buildings on fire made the night shimmer. Jess could hear the sound of fighting, very dim and distant. Khalila gave him a glare. She still wasn’t speaking to him, not at all. “I hope this hiding place isn’t far.”

“Just up there,” Jess said. Their group kept to the shadows; other London citizens hurried by in the opposite direction, many carrying suitcases or bags full of belongings, dressed in thick layers of clothing to lighten their loads. “Stay out of sight of the Garda if you see any.”

They’d picked up the others a few blocks back, but now Morgan eased by Dario to take a place at Jess’s side. She took his hand and looked him up and down, then over at his brother. “Remarkable,” she said. “It’s hard to tell you apart.”

“Really?” Jess asked.

“Well. Not for me, of course.”

“That’s better. I wouldn’t like you mistaking the two of us at a critical moment.”

Jess adjusted his heavy burden of books. It felt larger with every step, or maybe it was just that he was growing tired.

“The fighting looks to be moving closer,” Santi said from behind them. “We should go as quick as we can. I’d rather not renew our acquaintance with our friends from Wales. They let us go once; I doubt they’d feel any obligation to do it again.”

“And we’re not even Library anymore,” Khalila said. “We’ve got the same protection as anyone else on these streets.”

“Welcome to the rest of the world,” Brendan said. “We rely on ourselves out here. Always have done, since the Library told us a book was worth more than we are.”

“But it is,” Khalila said quietly. “A book outlives us all.”

“That’s a legacy,” Brendan said. “I’d rather have a life, if you don’t mind.”

“Philosophy later,” Wolfe said. “Run now.”

It was more of a walk, and though Jess worried their stuffed packs might attract attention, the growing chaos of the Welsh invasion worked to their advantage. Almost every person on the street carried something—a bag, a pack—and some even trundled carts. The wealthy, of course, steamed by in carriages loaded with all manner of valuables. He considered the merits of waylaying one of them and forcing the owners out at gunpoint, but that might set off a tinderbox of rioting. In the distance, looters broke windows and carried off abandoned goods. That was tragic, but would they fare better if left to burn? Probably not.

The only bad moment came when they rounded a corner four blocks from the warehouse and faced a troop of perhaps a hundred London Garda. The redcoats looked exhausted and filthy, and huddled in groups as they shared food and water. Fresh from the fight, it looked like there were plenty of wounded stretched in a row on the sidewalk, and Medica attending to them. Jess kept his gaze down as they moved around the soldiers, and hoped that nobody had thought to circulate their descriptions; together in a group, they were hard to miss.

Brendan, on the other hand, walked right up to an officer crouching against a brick wall, eating dried meat. “Brightwell,” the soldier said, and glanced at Jess. “I stand corrected. Brightwells. And I thought this day couldn’t get worse.”

“Captain Harte,” Brendan said. He reached in his pocket and slipped out a silver flask that assuredly didn’t hold water and passed it over. “How goes the war?”

“We’re trying to hold them at the bridges, but, to be honest, I don’t think we have a hope. Bloody citizens are running like scared rabbits, and the army got themselves cut off in another battle. I’m surprised to find you lot still here.” He uncapped the flask and took a long pull, sighed in satisfaction, and handed it back. “Look to your people. Get them out of here. I doubt we have more than an hour or two before this district’s overrun.”

“Anything about my father?”

“Aye. Your da was almost taken, but he got clean away. Not surprised, really; old Callum’s always been able to slither right out of a trap. I expect you’ll meet up with him again sometime.”

“All right. Luck to you.”

“You as well.”

Brendan led them a step or two on. Harte called after him. “Brendan. Library Garda’s looking for your friends. Offering rewards.”

“Are you tempted?”

Harte shrugged. “I know you’ll make it worth my while to forget.”

“That I will.” Brendan touched his forehead in a mock salute and led them on.

The warehouse was an entirely unassuming structure at the end of a blind alley, hard to see and harder to find. It was usually guarded with lurkers out on the main streets and deadly bruisers at the doors. Not today, though. Today the doors stood open, and Brendan led them straight on inside.

It was empty.

Jess had never seen his father’s warehouse empty before; there were always bolts and bundles of imported silk, pieces of fine furniture, boxes of expensive trinkets. His father had expensive tastes, but his real treasures had been concealed behind false walls and up high in the rafters—boxes and stacks of rare, original books. Beauties that ranged into antiquity, from the hands of the original authors or the most accurate copies. His father always sold quality, whether the items were legal or criminal.

There was nothing there now except a squad of hard men. Most were armed with knives and some with stolen guns liberated from either Garda or the army. Finding weapons wasn’t a challenge for someone well-known in the shadow markets.

“Come out, Da,” Brendan said. “I know you’re here. They would have already run to the hills if you weren’t.”

There was a laugh from the shadows, and then Callum Brightwell stepped out—grimy, thinner, with a cut on one cheek that had barely begun to heal. “My boys. Come here to me.”

Brendan walked over and received a bear hug. Jess didn’t move.

“I think I’ll stay where I am,” Jess said. “I can see you’re overcome with joy that I’m alive.”

“I am,” Callum said, though there was no real sign of it.

“How did you get away from the Garda?”

“Hard fighting, boy. They got my Codex and twelve of my men. But they lost me. And you, apparently. Clever lad.” His father had lost his smile. “Stop dithering. Your place is with us. I didn’t send you to the damned Library to become a rebel. There’s no profit in it.”

“There might be,” Jess said. “If you’ll listen to what we have to say.”

“Sure,” Callum said. “But first I have a job for you. Tell your High Garda friends to lower their weapons or I’ll have my men shoot and use the ones who survive it.”

That was a cold, clear threat, and Jess turned to look at Santi. Santi shifted his aim to rest on Callum Brightwell’s forehead. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Shoot me, I’ll still pull the trigger. You know that.”

“I have two fine sons to carry on for me. Do you think I’m worried, Captain Santi? Yes, I know who you are; I like to know who has influence over my son. Including you, Scholar Wolfe.”

“Stop this,” Jess said, and took another step toward his father—but not far enough to interfere with Santi’s aim. “I’m not some Brightwell asset. I make my own decisions.”

“Yet you come running to me for help.”

“I’m bringing you an opportunity you’ll never see again. It’s business.”

“And we thought you didn’t have the Brightwell heart,” Brendan said. He was smiling and his eyes were bright, and in that moment Jess knew his instincts had been right. He couldn’t trust his family. Ever. “We’ve got business for you to do first. Show us you’re trustworthy, and then we’ll look at this opportunity of yours. Or don’t, and we’ll kill some of your friends, if not all of them. Your choice.”

“Jess?” Santi said. “I’d like very much to shoot this man, but he’s your blood. You decide.”

“Don’t.” His heart was pounding and he felt sick to his stomach. The air still smelled of that faint trace of spices and old books that were so much a part of his childhood, but overlaying them now was the muffling scent of smoke. London was burning. So was his past. “What do you want from us, Callum?”

“Callum, now, is it?” Two years ago, his father’s glare would have cowed him. Not today. He met it with one of his own.

“It is,” Jess said. “I’m not going to call you Father anymore. Be grateful I don’t call you worse.” He turned to Santi and Wolfe. “You could kill them, maybe a few of the men, but they’ll get some of us, too. It’s not worth it.”

It took a long, tense moment, but their guns went down. So, unwillingly, did Glain’s.

“Good,” Callum Brightwell said. “Glad we sorted out our particulars. Come with us. We need the help of a Scholar.”

It was a long ride in an uncomfortable freight wagon to St. Paul’s, and while they rattled around inside the hard, empty space, Brightwell explained what he wanted. It was ominous and daring, and Jess could unwillingly agree that it might well be the chance of any self-respecting smuggler’s lifetime.

St. Paul’s Serapeum had long been an unattainable target, though it contained some of the rarest, choicest volumes on display. But in the growing chaos, with the High Garda fanning out across the city searching for Jess and his friends, it was as vulnerable as it would ever be.

“It’ll take a Scholar’s robes to get us past the Garda barricades,” Brightwell explained. “And a bright, shiny bracelet. Once you’re in the building, they’re busy boxing up things to send them to the Archives. A few liberated volumes might find their way clear with an enterprising thief in a black robe.”

“You expect us to help you rob the Library?” Santi asked. He looked at Jess’s father as if he were a particularly unpleasant sort of bug he’d found in his stew. “Are you completely mad?”

“You’re no longer part of the Library, is what I’m hearing. You’re on the run from it, like the rest of us poor criminals, so don’t play the proper High Garda captain with me. I could turn you in as easy as dropping a handkerchief. You’re lucky I’m generous, and you can be of some real use.”

“Nic,” Wolfe said. He was staring at Brightwell with flat, dark eyes, like he wanted to take a bite out of him, but his voice was calm enough. “I’ll do it.”

“No, you won’t!” Santi shot back. “You’re too recognizable. One look at you, and you’re in the hands of the Artifex.”

“Of course it’s got to be me. You don’t have another gold-banded Scholar to—” Wolfe realized his mistake, but it was too late. Khalila held up her wrist, and her sleeve slipped down to reveal the gold bracelet. “No.”

“I’m not as recognizable as you, and there are plenty of female librarians wearing hijabs. I will be fine.” She managed a smile. “Of all of us, which one looks least like a thief?”

“No!” It wasn’t just Wolfe this time objecting; it was all of them, talking over each other. Khalila looked at Jess, who wasn’t objecting. He just nodded at her. She nodded back.

“Quiet, all of you,” she said, and opened her pack to dig out her black Scholar’s robe. It was a little wrinkled and worse for wear, but in the current conditions of London, Jess doubted anyone would notice. “Tell me what you want me to find.”

“Oh, use your best judgment,” Brightwell said with a deceptively kind smile. “Something lucrative and rare. Two at least. Three if you can manage it.”

“You’re not going alone,” Dario said, and grabbed his own robe from his bag. “Jess, weapon?”

Jess ignored him. Glain glared but silently offered a knife, and Dario nodded and slipped it into the back of his trousers, under the cover of the robe. “Once it’s done, we’ll meet you back here in the freight hauler.”

“Oh no,” Jess’s father said. “We’re all going in. While you steal the books, we will be opening a way out.”

“Way out?” Jess echoed, and then he understood, just before Callum pointed a thick finger at Morgan.

“She,” he said, “is the magic key to our escape. She’ll send us to Lancaster, or as close as can be managed. Then we’ll talk about opportunities, if you like, once we’re safe in family territory.”

“I can’t,” Morgan said. “I’m just a student. I’m not—”

“You’re an Obscurist, and by all accounts that I’ve heard, you’re far more powerful than the ones trying to teach you anything useful. Imagine what we could do with you, Morgan. You’re going to open many doors for us, all over the world.”

The bad taste in Jess’s mouth went sour. Morgan, too. She’d only just escaped from the Iron Tower, and already his own family wanted to put another chain on her, make her their pet Obscurist. Maybe she’d been right to run and hide before. Even from him.

“All right,” Morgan said, with a calm that surprised him. “I’ll send you to safety, if you let me send the others first.”

“I’m not as naive as I look, sweeting. You’d get them through and refuse to send the rest of us.” He took on a calculating look, glancing from Morgan to Jess and back. “But I’ll compromise. Never let it be said I’m not a fair man. You can send all of them ahead except Jess. Then you send me, Brendan, and my men. You and Jess leave last.”

It was a clever way to exploit the two of them again, and Jess knew it would work. It couldn’t fail. She knew it, too, and nodded.

“You two Scholars, your job is to get inside and get the books without being noticed. Never mind what the rest of us do. Make your way to the Serapeum’s chamber—what do you call it?”

“Translation Chamber,” Morgan said quietly. “It’s hidden behind a statue of Queen Elizabeth toward the back of the Scholar’s Reading Room.” She caught Jess’s eye. “I studied ahead, in case we needed to escape.”

He loved her for that. For many things, just now. “And how do you plan to get past the lions?” he asked his father, whose grin never slipped.

“With help,” he said. “You don’t need to know.”

Jess exchanged a quick glance with Thomas. His father had a frightening amount of inside knowledge, but he clearly didn’t know that Jess could turn off the lions or that they could potentially convert them to their own cause.

Something to keep in reserve.

There was a rap on the front of the freight wagon, and Callum nodded. “Get up,” he said, and rose, grabbing for a handhold as the truck lurched. “Don’t cross us. Trust me, this is the best deal you’re going to get.”

“I’m sure it is,” Wolfe replied. “You strike me as such an honest man.” The sarcasm is heavy enough to drown in, Jess thought, and in looking between the two men, he knew in his heart he’d choose Wolfe over his own father anytime. As difficult and prickly as the man could be, at least he was honest.

The wagon wheezed to a lurching halt, throwing them against one another, and Jess all but lost his footing when Thomas bumped him. But then the back of the wagon clanked down and his father’s men were rushing out with a purpose, shouting.

They were nosed against the Garda barrier, and the Brightwell bullies made quick work of the two London Garda soldiers on duty. There was almost no one at the barricades, but those who were there ran. By the time the second Garda soldier hit the ground unconscious, the area was all but deserted.

Jess heard screaming from somewhere frighteningly close, and as he turned that way, he saw a distant pinpoint of greenish light arcing through the dark, growing larger. It was a ballista pot of Greek fire, and it hit no more than five blocks away, exploding and splashing the rooftops with luminescent liquid that began to burn instantly.

“The Welsh army is coming close,” Wolfe said. Brightwell nodded. “Well?”

“We’re waiting,” he said.

“For what?”

“For them.” A group of men and women ran toward them from a side street—ten of them, by Jess’s quick count. They looked grimly serious as they exchanged nods with Callum. “You’re late,” he said. “Go on, then. You’ve been paid well enough for it.”

The leader—a woman with black hair twisted in a thick braid to one side of her head, with features and skin that reminded Jess a bit of Joachim Portero—flashed him a smile, but without humor. “We don’t do this for money, criminal. We do it for principles.”

“I don’ t care why you do it,” Brightwell said blandly. “So long as you succeed.”

She led her small force up the street toward the Scholar Steps, where Jess had once run for his life from lions—and those lions, he realized, were still there, crouched, waiting. They were the massively muscled English sort—shorter manes than the Italian version, without barbed tails. Designed to crush and tear. One rose to all four paws, turned red eyes toward the intruders, and let out a chilling roar.

The woman let out a bloody cry of challenge that was almost as chilling, reached into a bag at her waist, and drew out a glass globe.

Burners. My father’s working with Burners.

He felt Morgan’s hand closing hard around his arm and reached out to hold her closer. “Nothing we can do,” he said.

The leader’s throw landed accurately right on the lion’s head and spread caustic chemicals down the metal face and into the red eyes. Glass popped and sizzled, blinding it as the chemicals ignited and began to burn with a fierce intensity. The lion shook its head, trying to throw it off, but the thick stuff clung and melted, turning the automaton’s face into a hideous, twisted mask of skeletal cables and clockwork.

The other Burners were throwing now, too, targeting the other lions. One automaton managed to dodge the rain of bottles and landed hard on a screaming victim—man, woman, Jess couldn’t tell, and in the next instant it didn’t much matter, because the scream cut off quickly. Some of the Burners weren’t much older than him. Jess shut his eyes as the lions thrashed and roared, the bottles of Greek fire flew and broke, and another Burner yelled in fear and pain.

Then Morgan said, in an unsteady, hushed voice, “It’s over.”

He opened his eyes again to see the last of the lions had collapsed on its side. It was melting into a tangled mess, cables twisting and snapping, gears and springs deforming. The metallic roaring faded to a strange, distorted whimper, and then . . . nothing.

Four lions lay dead—did automata die?—in a shimmering pool of Greek fire, with two Burners bloody and crushed nearby. It was a terrible sight, and the street and steps scorched black from the rippling heat.

“Well,” Callum said from behind him. “That was well worth the price.”

Jess didn’t even think. He rounded on his father, fist pulled back, and as Morgan shouted his name, his brother grabbed his arm and held it while Jess shouted and struggled. “Let go! Let me go!”

“Be smarter,” Brendan said quietly. “He’ll kill you.”

“I could have—” Stopped this without people dying, he almost blurted out, but he could see Thomas’s warning stare over Brendan’s shoulder. “I could have done this differently. Burners, Brendan. Since when do we work with Burners?”

“When it’s smart to do it,” he said. “Profit, not philosophy, remember? Relax, brother. We have it under control.”

Khalila and Dario, with Thomas and Glain, moved up the Scholar Steps; they were meant to go straight to the Scholar’s Reading Room and grab as many books as they could. Each of them had their packs already loaded with originals, but Jess couldn’t tell his family that now. He didn’t trust them with that rare, precious knowledge. Or with the idea of the press. Then where will we turn? He didn’t know. He felt sick, having led his friends here, to a safety that vanished like fog under the sun.

Once inside the columned entrance, Callum Brightwell led his sons to the left, where a statue of Queen Elizabeth in battle armor stood guard. There was no obvious entrance, and Brightwell gestured impatiently for Morgan to catch up. Just beyond them, Khalila and Dario had gone into the Reading Room, and Dario had already picked up an original volume to add to a small crate. Khalila passed him another. Her hands, Jess saw, were shaking badly.

Glain and Thomas hovered at the corner, watching over them in case of trouble, but so far, the room was much too busy for them to be noticed. Black-robed Scholars hurried from one table to another, stacking books with haste that spoke of real fear, while a second set in sand-colored librarian robes brought over more crates and helped with packing. It looked like barely controlled chaos.

He froze as he saw a face he knew, one eerily familiar to him. It was a librarian named Naomi Ebele, who had not so very long ago been head of the Oxford Serapeum. She’d barely escaped with her life, along with the rest of them that day. He liked her. She was a strong, good woman, with a devout belief in what she was doing.

She’d recognize Dario and Khalila.

Just as he realized it, she did look up, and her eyes locked on Khalila and Dario and widened. She put down the crate she was packing and immediately walked in their direction.

Jess couldn’t guess what they would have done or could have, but it didn’t matter in the next moment, because Naomi never quite made it. There was a strange sound outside, like an impact on the roof overhead, and everyone looked up. Movement stopped.

Jess heard hissing and smelled the unmistakable reek, and as the first Scholar screamed it out, he realized what had happened.

Greek fire.

The Serapeum was burning.

There was no greater sin in war than to destroy a Serapeum. The Welsh would later point fingers at the Burners or claim it was a mistake; Jess knew that. The Burners would be happy to claim a victory for their side whether they actually did the job or not. But St. Paul’s was burning. He saw the first licks of fire clawing at the ceiling above the Scholars’ heads.

“Save the books!” Naomi Ebele shouted, and began slapping Translation tags on the boxes. She touched one and activated it, and the script buried inside it—like the scripts inside the lion, Jess realized now—drained a little energy from her to activate itself and dissolve the crate of the books, to reform in the Archives in Alexandria. Safe.

Khalila looked at Dario, face gone far too pale, and reached for one of the tags that Naomi held out. Around the room, Scholars were dumping books into crates, attaching Translation tags, and hurrying them to safety.

Dario took a handful of tags from the table and began attaching them to boxes. Khalila put one on the box that they’d already filled.

“The devil is she doing?” Brightwell asked, and started to move for a better angle. Wolfe’s hand held him back.

“She’s doing her work,” he said. “Not yours. Leave her alone.”

Dario attached tags and sent five before he staggered with the familiar weakness Jess remembered so well. Khalila managed four before she had to stop. It was enough. There were only a few boxes left now, and other Scholars were sending the last.

Dario palmed two extra discs and slipped them into a pocket, a move so practiced and sleek that Jess only noticed it because of his angle. Then he grabbed Khalila’s arm and pulled her toward the door.

Naomi got in the way. The librarian was a tall, strong woman, beautiful, and she didn’t seem cowed by the fire now undulating across the ceiling above them. The other Scholars were using leftover Translation tags to send themselves home to the Archives. It was a last-resort escape, and some looked desperately reluctant, but, one by one, they dissolved in swirls and screams and blood.

No tags left.

Naomi didn’t move. She stared at Khalila and Dario, and they stared back.

“Kill her,” Brightwell said to one of his men, and, quick as lightning, Santi had his forearm across the man’s throat and the muzzle of his weapon pressed to the side of his head.

“No,” he said. “You don’t.” The man muttered an agreement, and Santi let him go, then turned the gun on Brightwell when Jess’s father tried to approach. “You brought us here to get through the Translation Chamber. That can still happen, but we need to go. Now.”

Wolfe stepped into the doorway, and said, “Naomi.” Ebele turned and saw him, and for a moment Jess saw her smile in relief . . . and then the smile faded when she realized he wasn’t alone. It wasn’t just Brightwell’s people now; the Burners had crowded in behind them, stinking of chemicals and smoke. The hard-eyed woman who led them had a triumphant grin on her face.

“Naomi, please come with us,” Khalila said. “You can’t stay here, and all the tags are gone. Please.” She held out her hand to Naomi, who looked at her with real distaste and took a step away.

“In all my days,” she said, “I never thought I would see Scholars standing with Burners. Ever. I would rather burn myself here than go with you.”

Dario sighed and reached in his pocket. He handed her a Translation tag. “Don’t do that,” he said, and coughed; the smoke was flooding in now, black and greasy. “Save yourself, Naomi.”

“Come with me!”

“We can’t,” Khalila said. “Go.” She looked around at the reading room, the empty tables, the Blanks still sitting on shelves and burning like torches. “I’m sorry.”

This time when Dario grabbed her and moved her on, she went willingly. Naomi met Wolfe’s eyes as she pressed the Translation tag, and said, “May God forgive you, Scholar.” Then she was gone, in a spray of blood and bone.

Safe, somewhere else.

Morgan had pushed past Jess, and now she put a hand on the center of Queen Elizabeth’s statue; it triggered a hiss, and the statue moved aside to reveal a short corridor. It was smoky, but the flames hadn’t reached it yet. Brightwell plunged in first, followed by Brendan, and Morgan followed, reaching back for Jess’s hand. The hall opened into a rounded room with a couch and helmet. The same as in all the other chambers he’d seen.

Smoke was already beginning to filter in and fog the air with a thick, chemical reek, and Jess coughed and began to realize that there wasn’t time to send all of them, even if his father intended to keep his word.

He’s going to kill them, Jess realized with a jolt of real horror. Everybody but me and Morgan. He needs Morgan. It was plain to him, the way that his father’s men were positioned, isolating Thomas, Glain, Wolfe, Santi, and now Khalila and Dario.

“There’s not time to send all of you!” Morgan shouted. The Burners had crowded in behind them and were pushing forward now.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said the woman who led the Burners, and she nodded to her men and women. “There won’t be as many as you think.”

At her signal, her people quickly, efficiently, and brutally swung into motion . . . and caught the Brightwell bullies by surprise. Ten men were quickly taken down with blows from behind. Fast deaths, so fast Jess hardly even comprehended them. Now it was just the eight Burners who’d survived—plus Brightwell, Brendan, Jess, and his friends.

“Kate, you backstabbing piece of—”

“Manners, Master Brightwell. We’re all friends here,” the woman said. Kate. It sounded too nice a name for her. Jess heard a crash from overhead; something had collapsed. The fire would get to them soon, and the smoke was already thickening. Harder to breathe. “I’m sparing your lives. Get out. Now. Run. You’re resourceful. And I’m giving you your son as a bonus.”

“I have two,” Brightwell said. “I’ll be taking both.”

She put a knife to his throat. “The Library rebels belong to us,” she said. “Go or die—I don’t care which you choose.”

Jess’s father hesitated for a long moment, then turned his head and said, “Good luck, Jess.”

“Da! No!” Brendan shouted, and tried to break free. Callum Brightwell held him tight. “Jess—”

“Kill them,” Kate said, “if they don’t leave now.” One of her Burners pulled a weapon and pointed it, and Brendan finally stopped fighting. He and Jess’s father ran.

Jess tried to acknowledge that it was the smart thing to do, the Brightwell thing, but all he could think was, You left us. You left me.

And it hurt.

Kate sat on the couch, put the helmet on her head, and looked at Morgan. “Take us to the Philadelphia Serapeum,” she said. “We are going to the City of Freedom.”

Philadelphia. The stronghold of the Burners.

Jess looked at Wolfe, at Santi. “We can’t do this,” he said. “We can’t.”

Wolfe said, “I don’t think they’ve left us any choice.”

They were going to America.

Continued in Volume 3 of

The Great Library