Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(49)

“Good.” Santi’s gaze bored into the man. “You’d better.”

“Trust in me, friend. I know my business.” Quest leaned forward and rested his hand briefly on Wolfe’s shoulder. “Now go back. Go back to the day that you were taken into custody. Do you remember?”

The reaction was immediate and terrible. Wolfe’s whole body tensed, shifted, and seemed to pull inward. His head did not rise, but Jess heard the change in his breathing from across the room. His skin went cold listening to that harsh, painful panting. But they couldn’t stop now. Wolfe had agreed to this.

“Tell me about the day you were taken to the prison,” Quest said. His voice was gentle, rising and falling in those faint, odd rhythms. “There is nothing to fear. You are only seeing, watching a play of light and shadow. You are an outside observer of what occurs. There is no pain. You feel no pain at all.”

The harsh breathing eased, just a little, but when Wolfe’s voice came, it sounded rough and uneven and utterly unlike him. “I was . . . here,” he said. “They came for me here.”

“Here, in this house?”

“Yes.”

“And where did they take you?”

“The Archivist’s office at the Serapeum,” Wolfe said. “He asked questions—”

“Let that go. Where were you taken after he finished with you?”

Wolfe didn’t answer. Beside him, Jess felt Santi’s muscles tensing, as if bracing for a blow.

“Scholar? Where were you taken?”

“Below.”

“Below where?”

“Serapeum. To a cell.”

“Stop,” Santi quickly said. “Skip over that. Ask him where he was taken after that.”

Quest gave Jess another questioning look, and he nodded. Santi was right. Asking Wolfe to recount whatever happened to him in the cells below the Serapeum in Alexandria wouldn’t help them at all. Thomas wasn’t there.

Paris, Jess thought. They’ll have taken him to Paris.

But when Wolfe answered the question, he said, “The Basilica Julia.”

Rome. Jess swallowed hard as he remembered how passionately he’d argued for Paris with his friends; he’d nearly persuaded them it was the only logical choice and to go tearing off in pursuit of Thomas there. Thank you, Khalila. Thank you for holding out for more information. They wouldn’t have more than one chance at this.

And even this information, he cautioned himself, wasn’t true proof. An indicator, certainly. But not proof.

“How were you taken there?” Quest asked.

“By Translation.”

Quest leaned back, frowning, and looked at Captain Santi. “There isn’t a Translation Chamber inside the Basilica Julia proper, is there?”

“No,” Santi said. “It’s in another building altogether, about a mile away. He can’t be recalling it right.”

“Scholar Wolfe, when you came out of the Translation Chamber, where were you? Can you describe it?”

“Hallway,” Wolfe murmured. “Inside the Basilica Julia.”

“How do you know you were in the Basilica Julia?”

“I saw the Forum from the windows. I know Rome.” Of course he did. A traveling Scholar like Wolfe would recognize a great city like that from even the briefest glance. “A long, straight hallway. A door at the end.”

“Tell me what you could see from these windows,” Quest said, and Jess grabbed a piece of paper and a pen that Wolfe had left on the table. He wrote as Wolfe described his view. Jess made a quick, rough sketch, marking exact things he’d seen. “All right. This door at the end of the hallway: was it guarded?”

“Automaton,” Wolfe said dully. “A Roman lion.”

“And was this door locked as well?” Quest asked. That was an excellent question Jess wouldn’t have thought to ask. The Mesmer obviously had some experience at this sort of thing.

“Yes.”

From there, Wolfe spoke of being led down steps, beside a long, sloping corridor of ancient stone, with cells built along one side. Turn after turn. Jess wrote it all down, and Quest continued his steady, passionless questions: how many soldiers did he see? How many Library automata? It was important, even critical, but Wolfe’s distress grew ever more visible the further they delved into this particular piece of the past. He moved back and forth now, a constant rocking motion, and his arms had closed over his stomach. Protecting himself, Jess realized. He felt sick himself, watching. Next to him, Santi was as still as a statue.

“Did anyone ever come to take you out of your cell while you were inside it?”

“Yes.”

“And where did they take you?” Quest asked, which seemed an innocent enough question. He was only trying to map the rest of the prison, which was smart.

Wolfe let out a sound that raised the hair on the back of Jess’s neck, and Santi almost lunged forward, but Quest’s gaze flicked to him and the Mesmer shook his head. “Breathe, Scholar Wolfe. Relax,” Quest said. “You feel no pain, remember? There is no pain now; you are merely watching this from a distance. It isn’t happening to you at all. Step back. Just step away and let it go.”

The terrible keening sound went on and grew sharper, and even the Mesmer seemed taken aback by it now. He reached out and put his hand on Wolfe’s shoulder. “Scholar,” he said. “Scholar. You are now outside of the cell, do you hear me? You are standing outside the cell. There is no pain at all. You feel peaceful. Calm.”