Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(25)

There had been a tightly tied knot of stress in his chest, and he felt it give way under a wave of relief. And then another tension set in. Worry. “I mean it: be careful. Thomas—I don’t want to explain why they took him; that would only put you at more risk. But they’ll do anything to keep what he discovered from being known. I don’t want you joining him somewhere in the dark, being—”

“Convinced?” she finished for him, with a sharp arch to her brows. “Yes, I would like to avoid that, too. I don’t think I’d be very brave.”

He doubted that. Khalila had a soul like a diamond—fiery, brilliant, and difficult to scratch. Even diamonds could shatter, though, and he didn’t want to be the cause of such an awful thing. “I mean it,” Jess said. “Don’t trust anyone. Someone tried to kill Wolfe yesterday, and they didn’t care how many others died with him. Just like when we were postulants.”

“Someone?” she asked, and gave him a slight tilt of her head. “Jess. Don’t treat me like a fool. We both know who would be behind a thing like that.”

“The Archivist,” he said. “Not that we’d ever manage to prove it. There’ll be a whole chain of disposable puppets, and he’ll already have cut any strings that lead back to him.”

She was silent for a moment, staring out the window at the view—at the towering pyramid of the Serapeum, he realized, whose gold top caught the morning light and blazed like a second sun. “Such a tragedy. The Library was meant to be a light lifted against the darkness,” she said. “But we’ve lost our way. We’re wandering in the shadows. That has to change.”

It has to change. Morgan had said the same thing many times, and he heard the echo of her frustration in Khalila’s voice. “Well, if that’s going to change,” he said, “then we’re the ones who will have to see it done.”

“Because revolution rarely comes from those in charge.” She turned her head back to him, and the smile was firmly back in place. “Yes. I read history. But we shouldn’t be talking in abstracts and philosophy, Jess. How have you been? It’s an injustice, you being wasted in the High Garda. You deserve so much more!”

He grinned. “I’ve done all right,” he said. “You know me. I survive.”

“You shouldn’t have to simply survive!”

“They tell me suffering builds character,” he said. “Glain’s turned out to be a right good leader, by the way. She’ll climb the ranks fast, I’ve no doubt.”

“And you?”

He laughed outright. “No, thanks.”

“I wish I knew a way to get you back here. I think you miss this.” She gestured at her office. It was a plain affair, with a desk, shelves, Blanks. A few precious originals carefully shelved behind a panel of glass. His gaze fixed on them, and instantly he felt that sensation: longing. He wanted to take those books in his hands and experience the texture of the covers, the smell of the pages. Books spoke mind to mind, soul to soul across the abyss of time and distance.

He did miss all this. Desperately. “I’m fine, I tell you. How’s Dario? Are you two still . . . friendly?”

She shrugged. “Dario is an arrogant ass.”

“So you’re still seeing him, then.”

That made her laugh outright, and he liked seeing happiness on her face. “We understand each other.” She blinked, and the amusement faded fast. “Speaking of understandings . . . Have you heard from Morgan?”

He didn’t want to lie to her again, but he did. Effortlessly, to protect Morgan, if nothing else. “Morgan isn’t likely to ever leave the Iron Tower again. You know that.” And I did that to her. She could have run. Maybe she would have made it.

“I’m so sorry. I know—” She seemed to search for just the right words. “I know how much she meant to you, though you try not to show it.”

He said nothing to that. The compassion in her voice made the half-truth hurt as if it were true. And it could be true, despite what he wanted to believe. Morgan might forever be nothing more than words on a page to him, like those originals safe from his touch behind glass.

“Jess.” Khalila drew his gaze back to her. “What is it Scholar Wolfe used to tell us? ‘Anything is possible. The impossible just takes longer.’”

“Stupid saying.”

“Surprisingly true, though. How should I contact you? Not by Codex, I assume.”

“Paper messages,” he said. “Put nothing down that you wouldn’t want the Archivist reading. And give your notes only to those you trust completely. Nobody else.”

“I’ve missed you. We can be friends again, finally. I’ve missed you so much, Jess.” She hugged him once more, and he hugged her back. In some ways, the bonds he’d formed with her, Dario, Glain, Morgan, Thomas . . . those had been more important to him than the ties he had by birth to his twin. I let Morgan down, he thought. But not them. Not this time. “Do you want me to tell Dario about Thomas?”

“No, I’ll do it. Is he here? In the Lighthouse?”

“Yes, he’s three floors down, in Scholar Prakesh’s offices. He’s working as her assistant. You’re going to see him?”

“Does that surprise you?”