Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(118)
“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.