Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(11)
He didn’t see any actors playing parts here. He didn’t see anyone at all.
Glain, on point, was methodically checking the stops and doorways, while Jess and the young woman on his right, Helva, watched the dark windows that overlooked the street. There was no need to assign the jobs; each of their squad understood their roles in this action. They proceeded smoothly and quietly down the street, and at the end of it, Jess saw a lone figure standing at the corner. The man wore a sand-colored Library Scholar’s robe that floated on the harsh wind, and beneath, practical clothing showed black. Shoulder-length hair blew in a tangled mix of black and gray, and even before they got close enough to make out features, Jess knew who was waiting for them.
Scholar Christopher Wolfe.
Jess read the sudden tension in Glain’s body as she processed this new information; no one, he sensed, had warned her that they’d have a Scholar to escort, and certainly not that it would be Wolfe. The man was supposed to be lying low somewhere. After all, the Library’s highest levels wanted Scholar Wolfe gone or dead, and for Wolfe to put himself out in public like this, in a training exercise . . . Yet another thing that felt madly wrong.
The reason three of their class of thirty had died, Jess remembered, had been because the Library so earnestly wanted Christopher Wolfe silenced. It wasn’t a comfortable memory. Well, perhaps even Wolfe hadn’t had a choice in this. There had been no sign of his partner, Captain Santi, today on the parade grounds. Where was he? A threat to Santi’s safety would make Wolfe do a great many things. It had before.
If Wolfe was here under duress, it didn’t show. He presented nothing but bitter strength to the world, just as he always did, as demonstrated by the dismissive look he swept over them. Even Jess and Glain.
“You move like you’re strolling down the boulevard,” Wolfe said to Glain, who nodded to him as if that was a normal greeting. “I thought you were meant to be High Garda soldiers. Are they training you to walk elderly ladies across busy streets?”
“Better safe than dead, sir,” she said. “As you well know.”
“Do I?” His face, Jess thought, looked more set and grim than ever, and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes that hadn’t been there before. He looked thin and haunted. “Well, then. Do try to keep me alive, and let’s finish your mission, Corpse Squad.”
Jess shot a look right and saw Helva flinch at the words. She wasn’t used to Wolfe’s humor, which verged on cruel; new recruits were commonly called Corpse Squads by the veterans, but it was never said to their faces. Trust Wolfe to flick it at them like a lash, to keep them on their toes.
“You’re in no danger, Scholar. Stay behind me, and between Brightwell and Svensdotter.” Glain, if disturbed by his jibe, didn’t show it a bit. She’s learned much since her early days, Jess thought. There was even a glint of humor in her eyes, but it died in a second as she turned to scan the street. Wolfe pushed in between Jess and Helva. Jess cast a quick look at him and verified that not only was the Scholar unarmed, but he was also without armor beneath that silk robe. If he took even a half-round straight on, he’d go down hard and risk serious injury, even death. Why hadn’t they kitted him out with the same gear the squad was wearing?
This isn’t right, he thought again, but he couldn’t fire questions at Wolfe, not the ones he wanted to ask, like Who ordered you to do this? and Did you have a choice? Because as a soldier, it wasn’t his place to demand that information. He had a job. He simply had to do it perfectly. There was no margin for error.
Glain led them down the street at a steady, calm pace, checking doorways and shops. Jess and Helva watched the upper stories and rooftops, and, thus far, except for the skinny, starving dog, the place seemed deserted. Nothing moved except cloth whipped by the wind and sand over cobbles. The place smelled dead and deserted.
It startled Jess when Wolfe said, “The house is on the right, the third on the block. That’s where we’ll find your prizes. The faster we finish this, the better, I think.” Jess had an almost irresistible urge to turn and look where Wolfe indicated, but instead he kept his gaze locked high and let the others do the gawking. “There’s likely to be some resistance to your confiscation.” His tone was so dry it nearly evaporated on the air. Of course there would be resistance. Original books were highly illegal. Coveted, traded, sold, and smuggled, nevertheless. People rarely let them go with a shrug.
This was one of Jess’s least favorite High Garda duties: taking books out of the hands of those who loved them—unless, of course, they were perverted ink-lickers, who delighted in consuming rare and original works in some orgy of possession. In that case, he was happy to slap them in restraints and haul them off to the Library’s prison cells. Confiscation was the aspect of the Library that Jess felt the most uneasy about in general, the lengths to which the Library went to ensure all knowledge, all learning flowed through its doorways. It was not a sign of confidence to him. Nor of a pure heart.
Wolfe went quietly, and Jess wondered if he’d been told more than they had. As little as the Library trusted him these days, perhaps he’d been given the exact same information they had. He was used to thinking of Wolfe as the holder of secrets, but for all his confidence and ability to seem all knowing, Wolfe operated at just as much of a disadvantage as Jess, and likely always had. Seeing Wolfe as merely human was an unpleasant reminder of just how fragile all their safety could be.