Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(110)

She summoned the spiral stairs, and they descended quickly. The garden seemed deserted as they arrived, but Jess heard the sound of shouting echoing up from below. The Archivist’s troops must have already arrived. They were searching.

“There’s no time left,” the Obscurist said. “I’ll have to take the risk.”

“What risk?” Wolfe pushed forward, Santi just a step behind.

“I’ll have to send you all at once. If I send you one at a time, half of you won’t make it.”

“You can’t do that! Even you—” Morgan stopped, looking at the others. “It’s too much for anyone. It will—”

“Kill me?” The Obscurist looked around at the beautiful, peaceful garden and sighed. “So be it. I’ll need you all to put your hands on the helmet—”

Jess felt the warning hiss of instincts coming alive, and his head jerked up and around, looking for the threat.

It was all around them.

The Artifex Magnus himself stepped out of the shadow of a spreading plum tree, pale blossoms brushing his long white hair. Behind him, around him, all around the room, more soldiers rose from concealment. Aiming their weapons.

Santi trembled on the edge of raising his own gun, then raised one hand, bent, and carefully placed the weapon on the floor by his feet. “Disarm,” he said. His voice sounded flat and dead already. “There’s no point.”

Glain raised her weapon and sighted on the Artifex. “There’s every damn point.”

But she didn’t fire, because the Artifex pushed someone unexpected out into the path of any of her bullets.

Dario.

He wasn’t bound or restrained. He hadn’t been wounded or beaten. He looked rested, well nourished. Well dressed.

And he couldn’t look any of them in the eyes.

“Dario?” Khalila’s whisper was full of stunned relief, and she took a step forward . . . and then he looked up and met her gaze. “Dario.” All the life drained out of her voice. “What is this?”

“Traitor.” Glain’s hands were white around her gun, but she’d lowered it now to stare at the face of their friend. “Y mochyn diawl.”

He opened his mouth, hesitated, and then said, “I didn’t have a choice.”

Arrogant, clever Dario Santiago had sold them out. Of course he had. Maybe he’d been doing it all along; he hadn’t had a chance to report their plans to rescue Thomas at the last moment because they had moved too quickly. But he’d tried to sell them out.

It came to Jess in a cold wave that if they’d actually escaped to London, it would have probably been a trap. Dario would have seen to it. He’d survived in Rome alone because he’d never been in any real danger.

He’d gone to report to his spymaster.

Glain threw down her weapon with an angry snarl.

Jess thought coldly and seriously about putting a bullet in Dario. It would have been murder, absolutely and clearly murder. He very nearly did it, anyway.

Then he bent and put his gun on the floor, and as he straightened, the soldiers rushed in and grabbed each of them. No, not all of them. Not Morgan. Not the Obscurist Magnus. He supposed they’d been told to leave them alone.

Thomas hadn’t said anything at all. Neither had Wolfe. They had identical expressions, Jess realized, as if something had drained out of them. As if their souls had already left their bodies behind.

It can’t end this way. It can’t. But it had, he realized, for so many others. The Black Archives were full of failures who believed they’d survive.

He’d end up on the shelves, too. All of them would.

“Don’t!” Dario said sharply to a soldier who put his hands on Khalila. “Don’t touch her.”

“I don’t want your protection!” she shouted at him. “Traitor!”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But you’ve got it, anyway.” He held out his hand. “Come with me. Come away from here. You don’t need to see this.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” the Artifex said. “Bring them. All of them.”

“But—” Dario looked confused and angry. A flush deepened the color of his cheeks, and he rounded on the old man with clenched fists. “You can’t—”

“On orders of the Archivist himself, I can,” he said. “You’re all fools. None of you understand the consequences of what you’ve done.” The Artifex, Jess realized, was angry, and it wasn’t just because of their rebellion. It was something else.

He walked straight to the statue of Horus, pressed the hidden switch, and watched the staircase descend. Then he led the way upstairs to the Black Archives.

“Bring them,” he said. “They should see the price of their meddling.”




Back in the hidden rooms, they were pushed against the back wall and held there by the armed High Garda soldiers, who must have been the Artifex’s hand-picked personal guard. Santi didn’t appeal to them for help, and Jess didn’t, either. They stood silently against the rough wall of the Iron Tower and watched as the Artifex stepped out to crane his head up, up, to look at the seemingly infinite spiral of shelves.

“So much,” he murmured. “So much wasted.” He turned to them, and his old, seamed face was grim with anger. “You’ve forced this. All of you, with your pushing and questioning and disbelief. You don’t know how much we’ve saved you from: war, famine, pestilence, a thousand kinds of death. We’ve raised humanity from the mud, and you still chase after phantoms instead of appreciating the peace all around you.”