Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(41)
“Well,” Jess said, and took a chair across from him, with a wide black table between them, “that would explain why you haven’t gone home. She’s pretty.”
“My personal life’s none of your business.”
Jess grinned. “Scraps, it’s always been my business. So, what’s the difficulty? Father doesn’t like her? Mother wants you married off to some bloodless girl with twelfth-removed royal connections?”
“Jess,” Brendan said, and rubbed at his forehead, “why are you here? Please God, tell me, so I can get back to bed again before dawn arrives.”
I needed you. And I worried, Jess thought, but he could never say that. He and his brother had never been close, not nearly as close as he felt to his friends, but they were brothers. And he did worry. “Father sent a letter. You were supposed to be home long ago. I know you’re not staying in Alexandria to look after me.”
“And this isn’t a question you could ask me in the daytime?”
“We aren’t daytime people,” Jess replied, to which truth his brother had to give a smile of acknowledgment. More of a grimace, but still. “You can’t be staying this long in Alexandria for entertainment. It’s business.”
“Why would I tell you? You’d just run back to your real Library masters and tell all.”
“Scraps.”
The flash of temper surprised Jess, as his brother leaned forward and all but shouted, “Stop calling me that!”
It never failed to get a rise out of him. “You don’t trust me—I know that. I even understand why. What happened? Why didn’t you go home?”
He didn’t really think his brother would answer, but Brendan finally looked away and said, “I lost a shipment. A large one. Rare books.”
“Lost it—”
“To the Library. It was a mistake, and, yes, I should have known better, and Father’s never going to let me forget it until I make up for it. So, yes, you’re right. I’m after something big. Big enough to make him forget his disappointment.”
Jess shrugged. “Cost of the business, isn’t it? Father already wrote me off as a lost cause; he won’t take the chance of losing the only son he’s got left.”
“You’re dreaming. Do you actually remember our father?”
Brendan might have been right about that. Eerie. In some ways, talking to his twin was a bit like having a conversation with himself. “Maybe the books are better off with the Library. It’s a long, dangerous trip for them all the way to London.”
“I knew it,” he said. “You’ve gone over to the other side, haven’t you? Trouble with being a spy: sometimes, you start believing your own lies.”
“Just the opposite,” Jess said. “The Library’s shown me very thoroughly that I can never be part of it at all. And I know I won’t be welcome back home, either—not with a price on my head from the Archivist. Da would rather see me dead than on the run from that.”
“Well, then, he’d have to include me, too,” Brendan said, and pointed at his face. “If your face is on a wanted poster, we’re easily mistaken for each other, and I’d hate to end up on the bad end of a lion with poor eyesight.”
The girl, Neksa, brought a tray with small cups of coffee—three cups, not two. She put one each in front of Jess and Brendan, then put one at an empty spot beside Brendan and sat down. “Oh, don’t bother,” she said when Brendan started to speak. “He already knows I’m not a servant.” She offered her hand across the table to Jess, and he took it. She had a remarkably firm handshake. “Neksa Darzi.” She was wearing a Library bracelet, Jess realized, and it was a silver one—which outranked his by a considerable, easy margin. Not the gold band of a Scholar with a lifetime appointment and all her needs supplied, but a silver contract guaranteeing a comfortable career ahead of her. “I am a Librarian here in the city. This is actually my house; I inherited it from an uncle. I have no real use for it, so I’ve rented it to your brother.”
Jess couldn’t get his bearings for a moment. Brendan, who was a born-in-blood book thief, was snuggling up to . . . a Librarian?
“So you’re his . . . landlady?”
She laughed and took a sip of her coffee as she gave his brother a sidelong look, and there was no mistaking Brendan’s smile or the sudden light in his eyes. “Among other things.”
He wanted to ask if she knew what it was his brother did for a living, but he couldn’t, seeing that silver bracelet on her arm. Either she knew and was playing an extremely dangerous game for which she couldn’t possibly be prepared, or else she didn’t know at all, which . . . was worse. Maybe this really is why he’s stayed so long, Jess thought. Because of her. And that was a tragedy waiting to happen.
“I see,” Jess said, and managed a good impersonation of a smile. “Always happy to meet someone my brother likes so well. Better than he likes me, anyway. He can’t stand being around me for more than a day or two.”
“Damn well true,” Brendan said, and drained his coffee in a gulp. “Neksa, I’m sorry, but private family matters. You understand?”
She finished her coffee, sighed, and rose to put a slender hand on Brendan’s shoulder. He reached up to cover it with his own, and didn’t meet Jess’s stare. “I’ll see you in bed,” she said, and bent to kiss him very lightly and sweetly. “Don’t stay up all night. Jess, you are welcome here anytime, of course.”