Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(42)

“Thank you, Neksa,” he said, and watched as she disappeared through the doorway. Jess stood quietly and moved to the hallway.

Empty. She was gone.

He closed the door with as much care as he could before rounding on his brother to say, “Are you mad? She’s wearing a silver band!”

Brendan grabbed his wrist and twisted it up to put Jess’s copper bracelet at eye level between them. “I don’t think you’ve got much cause to throw stones at me!”

Jess pulled free. It wasn’t hard. “Does she know?”

“About what?” Brendan’s bland denial was maddening. Jess outright glared at him this time, until his brother finally shook his head. “She knows I’m a trader. Nothing more.”

“You understand that this”—Jess gestured at the fine house, at the girl who’d left the room—“this is why our parents keep writing to me! You’re going to drag her down with you. There’s no possibility she comes out of this unhurt, and if you really care about her—”

“Who says I do care about her?”

That stopped Jess cold. He stared at his brother with an unpleasant churn in his stomach. “What in the hell are you doing?”

“My job,” Brendan said. “Unlike you. Father pinned his hopes and a large part of his fortune on you coming here and excelling, and instead you’re just a spear carrier. A nothing, dead in battle a year from now. What use are you to us?”

“What use is she to us?”

“We need someone inside, in a position of real authority and access. It obviously won’t be you. So she’s a present to Father to salve the vast fortune I lost here—a direct way into the highest levels of the Library.”

“You’re not planning to abduct the girl!”

“Of course not!” Brendan seemed to be honestly puzzled why Jess would think of it. “She’s in love with me. Through her I can gain access to information you never could.”

It was a cold plan, and it felt dishonest in ways that had nothing to do with mere theft. His brother had always been a schemer, but Jess didn’t think he’d ever been this bitter cold before. “Brendan,” he said. “Where does Neksa work?”

His brother gave him a slow, cold smile. “She works for the Archivist. Oh, not a trusted adviser, obviously; merely a clerk. But she sees things. Knows things that could be of huge benefit to the Brightwell business.”

“I don’t—” Hard to believe he was saying this. “I don’t think you should do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s—” Because it’s a filthy betrayal of a woman you’ve pretended to love. “Because it’s wrong.” Even to his own ears, that was weak.

His brother laughed. It sounded bitter. “Everything we do is wrong. Haven’t you noticed?” He regarded Jess for a moment and sat back, pushing his hair from his eyes. “You’ve gone soft here in the heart of luxury. You’ve forgotten that everything has a cost.”

Jess shut his eyes for a moment. The hard jolt of caffeine in his bloodstream had started a dull headache, and he felt his blood pulsing in his neck. The sickly sweet taste of the coffee fueled a roiling in his stomach that had less to do with the drink than with his own disgust. “She loves you. Even I can see that. Don’t you feel anything for her?”

His brother’s face, a mirror of his own, was as hard and unforgiving as the face of an automaton. “She’s a means to an end, Jess. The sooner you learn to shed your sentimentality, the better off you’ll be. Now. You didn’t come here to check on me—I know you better than that. Why did you? And don’t tell me Father sent you.” He looked, just for a moment, less cynical. Almost concerned. “Jess? You look . . . troubled.”

I’m taking on a battle I know I can’t win. I felt trapped and desperate, and I thought my brother would tell me everything would be all right. I wanted to feel . . . safe. Just for a while.

But he should have known better. The Brightwells weren’t a family. They were a business—first, last, always.

“It doesn’t matter,” he told his brother, and made for the door. “Never mind.”





EPHEMERA



From a personal journal by Brendan Brightwell, written in family code. Burned in Alexandria on departure.


I know how this will sound, but Jess—my brother—and I, we’ve never been right. It’s as if we compete for the same breaths even out of the womb, and he’s always been just a little bigger, a little stronger, a little older. I’ve always run just a half step behind in his shadow, and God knows there have been times when I hated him just for existing. Like he’s stolen something from me.

So how can that excuse what I’m doing to Neksa? I don’t know. Maybe because Jess has to be the hero, I have to be the villain. The dark to his light. Or maybe I’m just trying, for once, to prove that I’m better at something than he is, even if that something is cruelty. Leaves a bloody taste in my mouth and ashes in my stomach every time I think what could happen—no, will happen—to Neksa if all this comes off. She’s just a key to a lock, is all. That’s what I keep telling myself. Access to the Archivist himself—isn’t that worth any cost, any price? In one stroke, I’ll eclipse my brother, earn my father’s undying respect, become a legend in our black-market world. People will fear and respect me.