Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(112)

Morgan and Glain, gone. It was just Jess and Thomas left, and Thomas had rushed back toward them. The Obscurist touched the piled mess of packs that the guards had left nearby, and that, too, vanished. Jess felt something hit him, but there wasn’t any pain. A near miss.

Keria Morning grabbed hold of Jess and Thomas. The last two.

The one thing Jess was sure he saw was a High Garda soldier taking aim at her, and the ringing sound of a shot, and a vivid red hole in the woman’s chest. A fatal wound.

But not quickly enough to stop what she’d already set in motion.

Jess pitched into a red, shrieking darkness that ate him whole.





EPHEMERA



Text of a letter from Callum Brightwell to Kate Hannigan, sent in code. Burned on receipt.


We both know we’re on opposite sides of this thing, but one thing’s certain: this oncoming war, and the chaos it will bring, will only help us both. Let the Welsh have the city and claim their victory; the king and his court and all the ministers will be well away before they come. They’ll leave the city to us: the rebels, the criminals, the ones they think aren’t worth saving.

It’s a fat target, and we can both enrich ourselves. Your movement needs money, and I’ve already sent your leader in France a tidy sum in trust—you can check with him if you like. Whatever riches you gather, you keep.

Allies are more important than politics these days, wouldn’t you agree?





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.”